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Anass Koudiss | Global Education Programme Manager, Leadership


Reading time: 3 minutes
If you’ve read a newspaper or an advertising industry magazine in the last few weeks, it’s very likely that machine learning and automation were mentioned at least once. They’re the hottest new topics in the marketing world. 

As the tech evolves, and manual tasks move towards automation, it’s up to agency leaders to make sure it’s being used to provide new value to their clients and spur agency growth. 

Since every agency is unique, each will need to take its own approach. Every agency has its own strengths, growth opportunities and resource capabilities. What many agencies have in common, though, is their powerful ability to grow and transform quickly in an industry that’s constantly changing. 
At Google, we’re powering our advertising solutions with machine learning. Automated solutions like Smart Bidding, Smart Creatives, and App campaigns take care of routine tasks, freeing up your team to focus on ad-testing, advanced insights, or more face time with clients. 

As with any big change, adopting this new approach takes a lot of planning. So we developed a powerful framework called “The Web of Transformation”, to help you envision the future of your unique agency. To get started, bring your leadership team together, print out this A3 poster, and spin your agency web with the following steps: 

1. To begin, choose the eight most important dimensions that make up your agency. Specifically, pick the eight things that help you and your clients grow. 
2. Feel free to choose from the suggestions here, but make sure you pick dimensions that make sense for your agency. 
3. Next, with the help of your team, rank each of the eight dimensions from most important to least. 
4. Finally, grade your ability in each dimension on a scale of 1 to 5. Here’s an example of what it should look like. 
5. Make sure to evaluate and analyse where you excel, and where you need to step up your game. Ask yourselves the questions below to help drive the discussion. 
Together, we can use this process to capitalize on automation and Machine Learning opportunities, as we've done before with mobile, multi-screen, and video. So weave your web carefully, it will give you a glimpse into the future of your agency.

What do Ozzy Osbourne and Prince Charles have in common? A lot, if you're looking at demographics alone; they're both male, born in the same year, and from England. Yet, as has been pointed out many times before, identifiers like age and gender don't give the full picture. 

For SXSW, we've partnered with 6 world-class creative agencies to explore how audience signals - beyond demographic data - can enable a spark for better, more relevant storytelling. 

Partnering with Ad Council on three causes - empowering girls in STEM, preparing for disasters, and ending hunger - we challenged each agency to each develop two different creatives that would resonate with the intended audience they wanted to engage, from sports fans to technophiles

The 12 campaigns, showcasing how customized creative can ignite conversations and action around important causes, will debut at SXSW on March 9th. 

Check out the full playlist to yt.be/SparkYourStory or dive in more to the story behind the work below. 


To Empower Girls in STEM 


Research shows that young girls are interested in STEM subjects but get discouraged from pursuing them by outdated stereotypes(1). AMP Agency and Hecho Studios took on the challenge to create ads that would speak to key audiences for She Can STEM and encourage them to empower young women in their lives in STEM.

AMP Agency 

While it's often difficult to know what leads a girl down the path to success, AMP Agency recognized that parents and other role models may play the most important role in guiding their futures. A core message unites the two creatives; you can set a young woman's future in motion by clueing into her interests and nourishing her passion for STEM. 

Watch the ad designed for tech-savvy people

Watch the ad designed for bargain hunters.


Hecho Studios 


To speak to parents of grade schoolers as well as avid readers, Hecho Studios developed an eye-catching showcase of women who have pioneered STEM fields. 

Watch the ad designed for parents of grade schoolers

Watch the ad designed for avid readers


To Drive Disaster Preparedness 

While the thought of preparing for a natural disaster can be overwhelming, developing an emergency plan can save lives. We Are Unlimited and Energy BBDO partnered with Ad Council to inspire more people to develop household disaster plans. 

Energy BBDO 

Recognizing that pet-lovers tend to watch humourous videos skiwing toward dog content, Energy BBDO created a funny spot featuring a conversation between a dog and owner. For DIYers, Energy BBDO developed high-action creative after seeing how this audience over indexed on action packed videos. 

Watch the ad designed for pet lovers


Watch the ad designed for DIYers who enjoy building things on their own.


We Are Unlimited 

Building different executions from a core campaign idea, We Are Unlimited created two day-in-the-life scenarios to show how an average day for stock-market savvy people versus travel buffs could go awry when disaster strikes. 

Watch the ad designed for stock-savvy investors


Watch the ad designed for travel buffs.


To Combat Hunger 

Hunger affects one in eight Americans(2), yet many are unaware of the prevalence. For this cause, BBDO and Grey created ads for four key audiences to drive donations to Feeding America. 

BBDO 

Creating one central concept that depicts the reality of impoverished meals, BBDO tailored the tone and details of the creative executions to speak to each audience. 

Watch the ad designed for gamers.


Watch the ad created for outdoor enthusiasts.


Grey 

Grey's overarching creative concept spoke to how hunger can hide in plain sight. Each creative execution featured a unique call-to-action to inspire action from that audience. 

Watch the ad designed for sports fans.


Watch the ad designed for green living enthusiasts.




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(1)  Source: https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Education/Empowering-Girls-in-STEM
(2) Citation: Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory, and Anita Singh. 2018. Household Food Security in the United States in 2017, ERR-256, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service