The TikTok vortex, tech regulation and talent: These were all part of the conversation at 4A’s IRL annual conference in New York this week.
Advertising, marketing, and technology leaders gathered in Manhattan’s financial district for the live and virtual 4A’s Decisions: Perpetual Disruption conference. From “code stacking” to his Google antitrust issues to talent retention, top his leaders shared key insights and provocative opinions one after another. Here are some key soundbites from the event.
This story will be updated during the February 1st and 2nd meetings.
Daniela Herrera, Director of Recruitment Operations and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, R/GA
“One thing the advertising industry is catching up to that the technology industry has been working on for a long time is the idea of working remotely, or giving people the option to work remotely. New opportunities open up to work with people who could not.
…and when it comes to talent, we need to think about how we can incorporate fairness into the mix. Fairness is not about giving everyone the same, but about giving each person what they need to succeed. It doesn’t mean that very low level employees are given the same resources. [member of the] C-suite.
Rema Vasan, Head of Global Game Business Marketing, TikTok
“The game has changed quite a lot. You can see this. [HBO Max’s] “The Last of Us”. There is a lot of crossover between gaming IP and entertainment. Gaming is becoming entertainment, so it’s entering mainstream culture. ”
Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg said:
“People are flexing so many new muscles that they have never flexed before. It’s not for everyone, you have to be a business athlete. If you are prepared, it will not confuse you.You are part of the chaos.”
Jennifer Clarke, Director of Brand Strategy, Maytag and JennAir, Whirlpool
“AI can accelerate all types of creativity. I, like other strategists, have experimented with ChatGPT in my work. [For example,] We work with niche audiences and only do research [about those audiences] sometimes. “Where do designers get their inspiration from?” A list of 50 or 60 sources is provided for you to validate. This gives you more time to reach higher levels of creative thinking. ”
Ellen Kiernan, Global CEO, Mediabrands
“We need to bring back the magic of being an agency. [joy]”
Jason Brum, Group Vice President, Agency Partnerships, DirecTV
It’s about cord stacking. Consumers have four or more video-on-demand (VOD) services, and 63% of VOD subscribers subscribe to cable or live streaming services. The winner will be the one that delivers the most value to the customer in a frictionless way Entertainment is getting more complicated in ways it shouldn’t be Relaxing instead of jumping from service to service should be a way to [Plus]when people look up [their bills amid] economic headwinds, [you may find that] Cutting cords can cause you to spend more on content than you need to. ”
Brandon Craham, Vice President, Global Search Advertising and Commerce, Business and Product Strategy, Google
“As we move toward automation, we need another wave of change management within the enterprise. Looking at leaders and laggards, leaders have three characteristics:
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Executive Alignment: The ability of leaders to create the conditions for an organization to overcome change.
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Scaling Capabilities: What it takes to build human capabilities, technical capabilities, etc.and
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The always-on idea: [you have to be able to] Scale when you start to see green shoots. ”
Scott Hagedorn, Global Chief Solutions Architect, Publicis Groupe
“Change management is hard. Trying to change the model to replace simple tasks with more automated ones is hard business. It is difficult to
Joshua Lowcock, Global Chief Media Officer, UM Worldwide
“Regulators need to act, step back and stop fanning the problem. Address the fundamental issues that consumers demand and expect from privacy. When we talk about anti-competitive behavior, it all comes down to pointing and shifting.Let’s all walk in that direction hand in hand. [privacy regulation].
Predicting the future? In the short term, you’ll see changes in Google’s go-to-market behavior, and you’ll find that the market is competitive. TikTok bans will continue to spiral. A united Congress will raise concerns about data confidentiality. And email as an identifier is dead. we don’t know that yet. All trends suggest it. My recommendation is, if you’re still looking at addressable data and using email as an identifier, make plans to phase it out by the end of the year. ”
Additional report by Kendra Clark.
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