The end of the year is always an exciting time to look back at the funniest, most powerful and truly innovative advertising that emerged in the past 12 months.
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The inspiration for "This Is Wholesome," the phenomenal, very un-Droga5-like campaign that the agency created for Honey Maid this year, came on a playground in New York's East Village.
That’s where agency executive creative director Kevin Brady sat on a sunny weekend morning in November 2013, watching his 8-year-old daughter play with friends when he noticed a leather-clad and pierced mom and dad helping their young son navigate the monkey bars. Nearby, two dads pushed two daughters side by side on swings.
For a moment, Brady stopped being a dad and took in the scene as an adman. He thought that he may have found a solution for a difficult, single-word creative brief for a graham cracker brand that’s been around for 89 years but has changed in recent times.
"It just hit me that this is wholesome," recalls Brady, who studied foreign affairs in college and strives to achieve higher meaning in ads. "No matter how they look, they are beautiful, wholesome families."
A few days later, marketing leaders at Honey Maid parent Mondelez gave the go-ahead to the idea of celebrating modern families of all types for what they have in common. And within four months, the first ad had made it on air, generating an avalanche of positive and negative comments in social media and becoming part of a national debate about same-sex marriage.
Andrew Essex, Vice Chairman | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
The ad also helped redefine Droga5, an 8-year-old agency known for its grasp of the male id, by creating some of the most heartfelt, emotional and talked-about ads in the industry.
Leading the way was "This Is Wholesome," which has generated 8.02 million views and 2,868 comments on YouTube; followed by Under Armour Women’s “Will Trumps Fate,” about a determined ballerina overcoming naysayers to achieve greatness, with 6.7 million views and 2,010 comments; and “Suck It,” Anna Kendrick’s salty riposte to Newcastle Brown Ale for hiring her for a would-be Super Bowl ad only to pull the plug, with 5.2 million views and counting.
“We’re an industry that for many decades used to look at things that when we finished producing something, you put a bow around it and it was done,” says agency creative chairman David Droga, an Aussie whose confidence belies his 46 years. “Now we spend a great deal of time thinking about where it’s going to go, why would anyone care, what are the ramifications of it—just really trying to map out [a plan], as opposed to putting it out somewhere and just hoping that people would like it or hoping that it sticks. That’s embedded in the strategies that we pick—thinking about what’s going to hit a cultural vein or a nerve.”
Sarah Thompson, Global CEO | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
It was a Very Good Year
Adweek’s U.S. Agency of the Year also grew massively in revenue and staff. Net revenue jumped 44 percent to an estimated $78 million via more than a dozen new assignments from marketers that included Reckitt Benckiser, Georgia-Pacific, Google, Blizzard Entertainment, Jockey and Dun & Bradstreet.
At the same time, the staff in New York more than doubled to 320, triggering a move to 92,000 square feet of space in a building on Wall Street, of all places, after six years on Lafayette Street in the East Village. Indeed, the agency that began in Droga’s kitchen in 2006 became a bona fide industry leader in many ways in 2014. As the founder puts it, “It may be my foreigner coming out, but the fact that I’m on Wall Street sort of makes me smile a little bit in a funny way, you know?”
Some of the new clients this year came looking for what Kraft first sought when it unexpectedly hired the shop in 2010: some creative juice for mature, packaged-good brands. After years of consolidating most of their brands at just a few core agencies, Reckitt Benckiser and Georgia-Pacific, in Kraft-like moves, expanded their rosters to include the likes of Wieden + Kennedy, The Martin Agency, Cutwater and Droga5.
Ted Royer, Chief Creative Officer | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
Reckitt Benckiser, for one, was drawn by the swagger and pop-culture links of Droga5’s “Wild Rabbit” campaign for Hennessy cognac (the agency’s work for the liquor brand earned it a bronze at this year’s Clio Awards). And its faux Super Bowl push for Newcastle, which played out entirely online, cleaned up at industry awards like the Clios (where it won three trophies) and was selected as Adweek’s Ad of the Year. But what convinced Laurent Faracci, RB’s svp of global marketing and digital excellence, to hire the shop in May to tackle two of the company’s biggest brands—Air Wick and Clearasil—was a big idea that became the foundation of a new campaign for the air freshener that broke last week. The agency found an “amazing way to engage consumers on what makes your house a home,” explains Faracci.
The first ad tells the story of a military family in North Carolina sending candles that smell like things from home (a baseball glove, an apple pie, a burning fireplace) to “Daddy,” a soldier stationed in Qatar. The tagline is, “Home is in the air.”
Susie Nam, Head of Accounts, General Manager | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
Similar to RB, Toyota sought a bigger-picture positioning when it hired Droga5 in June to lead marketing around a new hydrogen fuel-cell car called the Mirai. The first trace of the agency’s thinking drove “The Turning Point,” a nearly two-minute video on Toyota’s website that sets the table for the launch of the car in California next year, according to Doug Coleman, national manager for vehicle marketing and communications at Toyota.
“The vision that they brought to the table has really become the pillar of our campaign,” says Coleman.
Tapping the Right Talent
Beyond the strategy for Droga5’s first Air Wick work is a test, of sorts, for the agency’s minority owner, talent agency William Morris Endeavor, which supplied talent to amplify the campaign’s message. In both new business pitches and the development of new campaigns, the shop shares brand strategies with agents at WME-IMG.
Sally-Ann Dale, Chief Creation Officer | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
The goal is not only to add star power but also to identify upcoming movies, TV shows and events that can spark interest among brand marketers. Agents “have the know-how, they have connections and they know what’s coming up,” explains Sarah Thompson, a six-year veteran of the agency who leads the New York office and rose to global CEO last month.“It has made us think about media in a very different way.”
WME-IMG, in turn, has enlisted the agency to create apps for stars such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and marketing around the launch of a new album from Kendrick Lamar. (The album push will roll out in February.)
Droga himself understands, however, that Hollywood sizzle is no substitute for a great campaign strategy—and his agency launched a bevy of them this year, starting with “If We Made It” for Newcastle in January and continuing with “This Is Wholesome” for Honey Maid in March and “I Will What I Want” for Under Armour’s line of women’s gear, which began in August with the ad featuring ballerina Misty Copeland.
As Copeland demonstrates her fluid, muscle bulging spins and splits, a girl’s voice repeats words of discouragement that Copeland heard as an aspiring performer in her teens. “You have the wrong body for ballet,” the voice intones, adding, “and at 13, you’re too old to be considered.” The ad ends with on-screen copy defiantly noting the Copeland overcame such criticism to become a soloist for the American Ballet Theatre.
A subsequent ad, in which model Gisele Bündchen kickboxes through the noise of hateful comments about her in social media, generated 2.4 million views on YouTube. Both Copeland and Bündchen represent a category of consumers that Under Armour calls “athletic females.”
Refining the Message
Looking back on the development of the ads, Leanne Fremar, Under Armour’s executive creative director on the women’s line, says that the team assigned to her business did an “amazing job of engaging [with us], throwing out incredible ideas and brainstorming every detail and nuance in order to ensure that the product that we were putting forth had an amazing amount of integrity and a powerful, really beautiful message.”
The same could be said of the effort behind “This Is Wholesome,” which cast real families in starring roles and enlisted documentary filmmakers T.J. Martin and Dan Lindsay (“Undefeated”) to direct the first ad.
Jonny Bauer, Global Chief Strategy Officer | Photo: Kevin Scanlon
Amazingly, the directors asked for and got approval to shoot the ads and a series of short films on each family without a single Mondelez executive on set. The strength of the strategy and the script, though, gave marketing leaders Gary Osifchin and Jill Baskin confidence that the directors would deliver the goods.
“Of course we had a preproduction meeting, we knew all of the casting, we had vetted all the people—all of that. But when he went off, he went off,” says Baskin, vp of brand strategy and communications at Mondelez and one of the first marketing execs to work with Droga5 at Kraft.
Kraft spun out its snacks business in 2012 into a separate company that became Mondelez International. Droga5 now handles two Mondelez brands: Honey Maid and belVita biscuits.
If all the online buzz around “Wholesome”—including more than 270,000 shares in social media for a follow-up video in which artists turned printouts of hateful comments into the word “Love”—wasn’t proof enough of the relevance and humanity of the campaign, a shout-out from none other than President Obama eliminated any doubt.
The president, speaking at an LBGT Pride Month reception in the East Room of the White House in June, included the brand in a series of examples of how attitudes toward gay people had changed in the previous year. “Coca-Cola and Honey Maid were unafraid to sell their products in commercials showing same-sex parents and their children,” noted Obama at the event.
Obviously, a presidential thumbs-up meant a lot to Mondelez.
“I’ve been in advertising for a long time and that’s never happened to me. So, it was pretty cool,” says Baskin, who earlier in her career spent nearly two decades in account management and strategic planning at Leo Burnett.
“Look, advertising—to make an impact these days—it needs to make a statement and stand up or else you aren’t going to get any traction,” Baskin continues. “Playing it down the middle just doesn’t work anymore. I always thought advertising could play a positive role too.”
The agency recently relocated its New York headquarters from the NoHo neighborhood to 120 Wall St., the hub of the Financial District. The new facility spans 92,000 square feet and five floors, including two penthouse floors, and houses 320-plus employees who work with clients such as Chobani, Honey Maid, Newcastle Brown Ale and Under Armour.
In the video above, group account director Steven Panariello walks us through Droga5's new office.
The topic was the Internet of Things, with a strong emphasis on smart cars and mobile devices connected to a ubiquitous data cloud. And with so many of the tens of thousands at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona gripping iPhones while listening to Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Nissan-Renault Alliance, he knew better than to shy away from the elephant in the room.
"When Apple says they are going to come with an electric car in 2020, that's good news for us," he said, appearing during a Monday keynote presentation at the trade show, which runs through Thursday.
In other words, a self-accelerating vehicle revs all engines. Ghosn was responding to a question about Apple's disclosure only 10 days ago that it had car-making aims. But what about Tesla, Google, Facebook, etc.—are they challenges to traditional automotive players?
"They are not competitors, they are allies," Ghosn said. "It's not about the biggest share of electric cars."
It's about moving the market to technology that's more environmentally friendly, he added.
Also, Ghosn reiterated his company's stance of having a self-driving option for traffic jams by 2016; an automated feature that actually changes lanes in highways by 2018; and a vehicle that drives itself in cities by 2020.
"In 10 years, you'll have cars without the driver," the CEO predicted. "It is here, and it's going to transform the products."
He added, however, that "we are betting much more with autonomous cars with a driver in the car than [purely driverless] cars."
Ghosn rattled off a few other intriguing items about Nissan-Renault's electric car business:
One-third of electric car sales in the United States take place in Atlanta.
The U.S. is the No. 1 market for electric cars, followed by Japan and China.
The cost of batteries for electric cars is a huge challenge in making them affordable.
Later during the same presentation, Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's CEO of mobile and business solutions, said consumers increasingly want their cars to intersect with new technology, pointing toward a recent partnership with General Motors that will make its cars increasingly souped up by the Internet.
"We didn't know there was going to be this pent-up demand," he said. "Customers are waking up to the value of connected cars."
And no Internet of Things conversation nowadays would be complete without emerging use cases for wearables. SAP CEO Bill McDermott cited how his software company is helping the clothing brand Under Armour, realizing the business potential of digital bells and whistles in sports gear.
"They make shirts and shoes," McDermott explained. "They need to know your apparel might be running out of gas so they can sell you new ones.... It's what the new economy is all about."
Meanwhile, more than 70,000 mobile-focused marketers and technologists are expected to attend the 28th Mobile World Congress this week. They'll roam the Fira Gran Via area of this city on Spain's eastern Mediterranean coast, chiefly visiting a convention center that more resembles a gigantic airport than a conference hall. The space includes moving walkways to expedite the trek from one speech to the next, retail shops and dozens of restaurants with cuisines from around the world.
Despite a longstanding effort to get women's rights on par with men's, women hold 58 percent fewer executive positions than men in Italy. And in Croatia and Argentina, 42 percent of women have fewer top-level jobs than men, according to new research from the Clinton Foundation.
To coincide with International Women's Day on Sunday, the Clinton Foundation (an initiative spearheaded by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton) released data that looks at how women's equality has changed since 1995 as part of its No Ceilings initiative. Back in 1995, Hillary Clinton sparked the research during the U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. While the research shows that women's rights are catching up to men's, there is still work to do.
This weekend the foundation launched a campaign with Droga5 that underscores the fact women "still aren't there" in gender equality. Unilever, iHeartMedia, Beats by Dre, Simon & Schuster, Kate Spade, the New York City Ballet, Under Armour, H&M, Zalla Pilates, Diane von Furstenberg, Snapchat and Condé Nast all teamed up with the organization with creative content that literally wiped women away.
For example, Kate Spade released billboards in New York last week for its spring 2015 campaign featuring fashion model Karlie Kloss sitting on a park bench.
But on Friday, the brand replaced its billboards on 45th Street and the West Side Highway, and in Times Square with an almost identical picture of an empty park bench. The Web address not-there.org replaces Kloss—directing viewers to the No Ceilings campaign hub.
Check out the video below to see how other brands activated the campaign on billboards and on print ads.
"Empowering women is really at the core of our DNA—back in 1993 Kate Spade was frustrated that she couldn't find what women were looking for in the marketplace, so she took matters into her own hands and formed Kate Spade New York," said Mary Beech, Kate Spade's CMO.
Here are some other eye-opening findings from the Clinton Foundation's research:
Nine countries in the world (including the U.S.) don't provide paid maternity leave. The eight other countries are: Palau, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Suriname.
In countries like Norway, the U.S. and India, women spend up to five extra hours on unpaid domestic work per day.
Globally, moms are 42 percent less likely to die of pregnancy complications than they were in 1995. • 71 percent of national constitutions entitle women to attend primary school, but only 32 percent protect the right to attend middle and high school.
One in three women suffer from physical violence, even though 76 out of the 100 countries studied have laws against domestic violence.
In developing countries, 200 million fewer women than men have access to the Internet.
Credits
Client: The Clinton Foundation
Campaign: Not There
Launch Date: March 8, 2015
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Vice Chairman: Andrew Essex
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Executive Creative Director: Kevin Brady
Creative Director: Casey Rand
Creative Director: Karen Land Short
Copywriter: Colin Lord
Art Director: Inna Kofman
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Verity Bullard
Head of Art Production: Cliff Lewis
Art Producer: Sharon Mendelow
Art Production Assistant: Robert Ohman
Photographer: Paul McGeiver
Executive Print Producer: Jeannie O'Toole
Senior Print Producer: Cindy Perez
Lead Production Artist: Chris Thomas
Retouchers: John Ciambriello John Clendenon Shari Alexander Jessica Faller Tomohisa Kinoshita
Quality Control Manager: Lisa Bishai
Retouching Coordinator: Michelle Leedy
Principal Interactive Developer: Simon Abrams
Senior Interactive Developer: Jim Alexander
Interactive Developer: Judith Desire
QA Engineer: Yadira Issac
Interactive Producer: Benny Goldman
UX Director: Daniel Perlin
Associate Director of Technology: Keath Chan
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Group Strategy Director: George Bennett
Strategy Director: Katy Alonzo
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Communications Strategist: Elsa Stahura
Head of Data Strategy: Melissa Zimyeski
Data Strategist: Michelle Pliskin
General Manager/Head of Account Management: Susie Nam
Group Account Director: Heidi Rick
Account Manager: Lucy Santilli
Senior Project Manager: Bianca Jose
Clinton Foundation
Director, No Ceilings: Terri McCullough
Digital Director: Katie Dowd
Chief Communications Officer: Craig Minassian
Director of Communications, Initiatives: Mimi Reisner
Senior Communications Advisor, Office of Chelsea Clinton: Kamyl Bazbaz
Communications Manager: Francesca Ernst
Production Company: Park Pictures
Director: Alison Maclean
Executive Producer: Jackie Kelman Bisbee/Dinah Rodriguez
Producer: Christopher Grove
Additional Filming: Droga5 Studios | Fim
Line Producer: Jessica Bermingham
DP: Alex Cullen
Editorial: Droga5 Studios | AV
Editor: Joseph Schulhoff
Post Production: The Mill NY
Executive Producer: Melanie Wickham
Production Co-ordinators: Alex Bader and Devan Saber
Animator/Designer: Chris Mennuto
This year's Clio Sports Awards will be judged by a diverse range of sports-savvy jurors including U.S. soccer star Mia Hamm, NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum and R/GA creative executive Albert Patton.
"We've gathered an esteemed panel of experts to help decide who has the best idea of the year from a very competitive crop," Nicole Purcell, president of CLIO Awards, said in a press release. "The creative surrounding sports advertising, from spots in the Big Game to Gatorade's farewell to Derek Jeter, is often at the crux of pop culture, and we're excited to honor the finest work."
Other members of the 2015 jury will include Jamie Davies, head of creative brand marketing for Samsung North America; Aaron Taylor, svp of marketing at ESPN; and Ali Towle, vp of marketing for the San Francisco 49ers. A full list of judges can be found here.
(Adweek and the Clio Awards are both owned by affiliates of Mediabistro Holdings LLC.)
For this year's awards, Clio also announced a partnership with USA Today Sports to assist with promoting creative content starring athletes, teams and leagues.
One of the things I'm most proud of is the recent success our industry has had in increasing creative career opportunities for women and in changing persistent gender stereotypes; the progress of The 3% Conference and the announcement of the Cannes Glass Lion are great steps. Moreover, the well-deserved attention for conversation-changing work like P&G's "Like a Girl" and Under Armour's "I Will What I Want" campaigns is testament to the fact that powerful creative and progressive change doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.
But there's a dirty little secret that needs to get higher on our agenda, one that persists in our industry. ICYMI, Patricia Arquette gave it a shout-out at this year's Oscars—the gender pay gap. The reality is that in 2014, women earned 82.5 cents on the dollar to men. It's even worse for women of color. Black women earned 68.1 cents, while Hispanic women earned 61.2 cents.
And lest you assume this doesn't affect your career path, think again. It happens all the way up the economic food chain, in our industry and every other. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study explored gender differences in executive compensation and found that female execs get consistently less incentive pay than their male counterparts, even after differences in performance, title, tenure and age were taken into account.
Then there's this: If the pace of change in the annual earnings ratio were to continue at the same rate as it has since 1960, it would be 2058 before we reached earnings equality. I don't know about you, but I'm not waiting around for that.
The obvious way to ensure pay equity is to have more women running companies, but as we all know, women currently hold just 5.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEO roles. That means 94.8 percent are held by men.
We know that disrupters and innovators come from the outside. Writer Clay Shirky contends that institutions have a vested interest in perpetuating problems to which they are the solution. Think about that. He's saying that it's instinctive for institutions to preserve the problem, and when the status quo is threatened, their goal actually shifts to self-preservation. So it makes sense that the 94.8 percent are not going to initiate the change because the 5.2 percent politely asked them to.
There is another way, and that's by having more women serve on corporate boards, influencing from the top not the bottom. Let's approach the situation like any business challenge begging to be solved by a smart, modern agency. Why should we change the status quo, and how?
Why is it important for more women to be directors? Modern board composition has to include people who naturally connect with main street, not just Wall Street. That means people who are empathetic to and representative of the population that supports the company. That often means women, people of color and people with backgrounds, perspectives and life experiences a little broader than the traditional profile of a corporate director. Modern directors have to understand what people are thinking and feeling today. And since women constitute the majority of consumers and a growing percentage of the labor pool and leadership, it makes sense we would add value in the boardroom. The value of this shift in perspective is priceless, and CEOs should ignore it at their own peril.
So how do we change things? Here's my call to action: Instead of waiting for more male Fortune 500 CEOs to get around to modernizing their corporate boards and considering women directors, let's pivot. Let's get more women to actively pursue those board seats. Let's go out and get ourselves on boards.
Where do you start? First, volunteer for the boards of non-profits, community organizations or schools. There's no shortage of worthy causes that could benefit greatly from your skill set and experience. So figure out what you are passionate about and go serve. Second, stay networked. Third, position yourself. Figure out what you uniquely bring to the party and how that aligns with the needs of a modern board. Finally, think about what you've already done and can continue to do in your career that will best prepare you and position you to serve as a director.
And good news for those of you in this industry. Turns out that the skill set of a good advertising person parallels that of a good independent director almost perfectly. We are trained to parachute into an unfamiliar industry, get up to speed quickly on the key business issues and draw key learnings from analogous categories. We are curious, open and collaborative. We are trained to understand the consumer, and we bring an outside perspective that enables us to separate the important from the urgent. In short, what we do for our clients every day is exactly what a good independent board director does for a public company.
Karen Kaplan (@karenkaplanHH) is chairman and CEO of Hill Holliday. She started out at the agency as a receptionist in 1982.
Here's everything you need to know about the last 24 hours in advertising, in case you blinked.
Buzzing on Adweek:
Five defining moments from the Mad Men finale
Take a look at five key moments from Sunday's Mad Men series finale. If you haven't watched yet, beware of spoilers. (Adweek)
Coca-Cola's reaction to Mad Men
The series finale of Mad Men paid tribute to the iconic "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" ad. Coca-Cola said it knew the spot would be mentioned in the finale, but the company didn't know any details. (Adweek)
Groupon responds to sexual comments, again
A product featured on Groupon, the Bike Chain Wash and Scrub Kit, looks strangely sexual. Groupon is taking another opportunity to respond to any and all sexual Facebook comments. (Adweek)
Y&R brings car crash victims back to life
A PSA from Y&R New Zealand and a road-safety charity raises awareness for National Road Safety Week by using technology to imagine what car-crash victims would look like today. (Adweek)
12 interesting digital marketing stats
Find out which brand won Mad Men, according to data from Amobee Brand Intelligence, and how company Mediabong says it scored 90 percent viewability for some L'Oréal video ads. (Adweek)
Around the Web:
Old Navy on the rise
Old Navy chief Stefan Larsson has transformed the Gap Inc.-owned brand. The low-cost retailer now sells nearly as much as its corporate siblings Gap and Banana Republic combined. (The New York Times)
Target looks to offer healthier products
Packaged-food companies including Campbell's Soup and General Mills will get less attention from Target as the retailer looks to stock healthier food options. (The Wall Street Journal)
Under Armour pulls 'Band of Ballers' T-shirt
An Under Armour shirt that riffed on the classic image of marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, depicting instead a group of basketball players raising a hoop, was pulled from shelves after complaints. (Bloomberg)
Ascena buys Ann Taylor for $2.16 billion
Ascena Retail Group will purchase Ann Inc., which is comprised of Ann Taylor and Loft, for roughly $2.16 billion. (USA Today)
Industry Shake-Ups:
P&G shifts shaving-related brands
Procter & Gamble moved Venus, Braun and Art of Shaving away from BBDO, and has consolidated its grooming business at Grey. (Adweek)
Twitter hires new head of financial accounts
Twitter tapped ad-sales vet Bill Masterson as the company's new lead for financial accounts. Masterson previously worked at Facebook and SocialCode. (Adweek)
Razorfish appoints first CIO
Razorfish hired Samih Fadli as its first chief intelligence officer. Fadli previously worked at ad-tech company Gravity4 as svp of global engineering. (Agency Spy)
CANNES, France—A year after she was a no-show at Cannes Lions, the festival awarded one of its top prizes Gisele Bundchen's Under Armour campaign, with Droga5 picking up the Grand Prix in the Cyber category.
The supermodel, who backed out of a mcgarrybowen main-stage commitment last year—to be replaced by Rob Lowe (whose ads, alas, have not won anything)—was one of many stars of UA's "I Will What I Want" campaign. But her portion of the campaign was the most digitally innovative, featuring a website that pulled in real-time social-media insults about her to emphasize that she uses her strength and will to block out noise from even her most nasty detractors.
Adweek responsive video player used on /video.
Droga5 said the Gisele campaign led to 1.5 billion media impressions, $15 million in earned media, an average of four minutes spent on the site at the campaign's peak, a 42 percent increase in visits to UA.com and a 28 percent sales increase for the brand. The campaign won two gold Lions and four silvers in addition to its Grand Prix.
This is the first Cannes Grand Prix for Droga5 since 2012, when it took home the Grand Prix for Good for assisting Help Remedies in producing an adhesive bandage that could save someone's life. Droga's most celebrated year at Cannes was 2011, when it won three Grand Prix—two for its Jay Z "Decoded" work and one for Puma.
The win marks the fifth Grand Prix at this festival for advertising that celebrates women, following three P&G's feminine-care campaign that topped the PR and Glass Lions as well as Lions Health and the Y&R campaign that took the top prize in Media.
U.S. agencies, which often dominate the Cyber category, did very well again this year, winning a total of six gold Lions, 20 silvers and 20 bronzes.
The U.S. gold winners were the The ALS Association for "The Ice Bucket Challenge," Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for Adobe's "Dream On," The Martin Agency for Geico's "Unskippable" preroll ads, and R/GA for its Hammerhead bicycle navigation gadget.
See all the U.S. Cyber winners below.
—U.S. Cyber Winners • Droga5 New York - Under Armour, Gisele Bündchen, "I Will What I Want" - Grand Prix, two golds, four silvers • The ALS Association Washington - "The Ice Bucket Challenge" - Gold • Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco - Adobe's "Dream On" - Gold, silver • The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va. - Geico's "Unskippable" - Gold, silver, bronze • R/GA New York - Hammerhead Navigation - Gold, silver, two bronzes • BBDO New York - American Red Cross & Bitly - Hope.Ly - Two silvers, two bronzes • Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco - Reebok's "Be More Human" - Two silvers • Heat San Francisco and Grow in Norfolk, Va. - EA Sports Madden Giferator - Silver, two bronzes • Droga5 New York - Newcastle Band Of Brands - Silver, two bronzes • Pereira & O'Dell San Francisco - Intel + Dell's "What Lives Inside" - Silver, two bronzes • BBDO New York - Foot Locker's "Horse With Harden" - Silver, bronze • Grey New York - Volvo's "Interception" - Silver • Wieden + Kennedy New York - Squarespace's Jeff Bridges Sleeping Tapes - Silver • TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles - Gatorade's "Made In NY" - Silver • Mother New York - James Patterson's Self-Destructing Book - Silver • BBDO New York - Autism Speaks - The Mssng Project - Silver • R/GA New York - Ad Council's "Love Has No Labels" - Three bronzes • Ogilvy New York - IBM's "Play!" - Bronze • David Miami - Burger King's "Proud Whopper" - Bronze • R/GA New York - Samsung Holiday Dreams - Bronze • Dieste Dallas - DPA's "Adoptable Trends" - Bronze • DigitasLBi San Francisco - Taco Bell Blackout - Bronze
Under Armour couldn't sit idly by on Tuesday when Misty Copeland was named the first African-American principal dancer in American Ballet Theatre's 75-year history—not after the famous TV spot that helped burnish both dancer and brand.
The sports apparel brand organized a social congratulations campaign, beginning with this simple tweet:
Thousands of tweets later—including love notes from UA NFL star Eddie Lacy and Zappos—and the brand had an SUV full of flowers to deliver to Copeland, who was clearly thrilled by the gift.
Tom Brady may be sent to the sidelines for a while, but the New England Patriots' superstar quarterback is far from permanently sacked when it comes to endorsement deals.
That's the consensus among marketing experts polled by Adweek following today's decision by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to uphold Brady's four-game "Deflategate" suspension.
"I think there will be a lull. Perhaps a concerted effort to hold him out of the early-fall ads and endorsements while the news lingers," said Doug Bailey, president of DBMediaStrategies.
David Schwab, managing director of Octagon First Call, agreed. "If his partner brands had plans to use him in a marketing campaign in September, I would expect the campaign would be delayed until he is playing again and winning," he said.
Moreover, Brady's alleged transgression "just doesn't rank up there with the gun-toting, spouse-abuse, hit-and-run scandals of some of his colleagues," said Bailey. "It's certainly survivable for both man and brand."
Per Forbes, Brady makes about $7 million annually in endorsements. (Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning leads all of pro football at $12 million.) As yet, there have been no public statements on today's developments from Brady's brand partners, which include Under Armour and Ugg. (Neither immediately responded to Adweek's requests for comment.)
In terms of signing new commercial deals, however, Brady may be out of the game for a while. "If you were a brand where reputation was a core value, then Tom wouldn't make sense in the near future as a new partner," said Schwab.
In May, the NFL handed down a four-game suspension without pay for the upcoming regular season, ruling that Brady was probably involved in deflating the footballs he used in the Pats' 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts in January's AFC championship game. (The under-inflated balls would have been easier to grip and throw in the cold, rainy game conditions.) Brady has consistently denied any wrongdoing. The controversy, dubbed "Deflategate," sprang up immediately after the lopsided win and has dogged the QB ever since, even during the Patriots' Super Bowl victory over the Seattle Seahawks.
Today, in upholding the suspension, Goodell issued an often angrily worded 20-page decision that said Brady not only "participated in a scheme to tamper" with the game balls, but also "willfully obstructed" the investigation led by attorney Ted Wells.
According to Goodell, Brady did so by allowing an assistant to destroy one of his cellphones, making the information it contained, such as text messages, unavailable for review. At his June appeal hearing, the QB said he routinely takes such measures for personal security reasons whenever he changes phones.
"Despite the phone being destroyed, there still isn't a lot of hard evidence and a long history of suspensions being overturned," said Chip Rives, CEO of TRP Sports and Entertainment Marketing. "He doesn't look great, but it will largely depend on how this plays out. It can still go to court and get overturned." (The NFL Players Association intends to launch an appeal on Brady's behalf.)
Even if Brady does serve his suspension, however, experts don't expect him to stay on the endorsement sidelines for long. "The nature of this scandal and Brady's solid marketability probably means this will be a small bump in the road," said Bailey. "Once Brady gets back in the game, and assuming the Pats continue their winning ways, I think it will blow over."
In fact, Brady may even have scored some sympathy points today. "If anything, those who already were pro-Brady may be even stronger in their allegiance, because they view him as a victim who received too harsh of a penalty," said Manish Tripathi, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.
Ultimately, brands could even have some fun with the situation. "I can even envision an ad that pokes fun of the situation—letting the air out of an Under Armour jersey, or some such," said Bailey.
For athletes and performers at the peak of their game, success is never just handed over freely. Talent is honed with constant training, a daily commitment to being better than you were the day before.
Droga5's latest work for Under Armour illustrates that fact in a mesmerizing way, showing three of today's top stars as armies of themselves, sweating and perfecting their moves, whether it's from behind the three-point line or under a theatrical spotlight.
American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland (star of one of Under Armour and Droga5's highly celebrated "I Will What I Want" ads) joins NBA MVP Steph Curry and golf champion Jordan Spieth in the athletic apparel brand's new 60-second spot, which breaks today.
"The concept of the 'Rule Yourself' campaign is simple: you are the sum of all of your training. It's the only way to get better," Under Armour evp of global marketing Adam Peake said in a statement announcing the campaign. "And it's the common thread that unites each of our all-star athletes around the globe."
The spot opens with solo shots of the athletes, but unfolds magically into an army of dancers, golfers and basketball players performing rep after rep, in perfect unison. A thousand Currys simultaneously dribble two basketballs, inches from the ground just as Jordan Spieth sends hundreds of golf balls catapulting through the air and an army of Misty Copelands twirl in a giant circle.
The tagline, "You are the sum of all your training," hits home at the end of the spot as the athletes' clones reunite.
"Under Armour provides the footwear, apparel and equipment the athlete needs to push through a tough workout. But we also want to give them that extra inspiration to improve every day, to keep building their inner army, and to stay focused on success even when the going gets tough," Peake added.
The campaign will also include a series of shorter films, to be released in the fall, which will also star New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
CREDITS
Client: Under Armour
Campaign: Rule Yourself
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Executive Officer: Sarah Thompson
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Director: Alexander Nowak; Felix Richter
Copywriter: Sergio Alonso
Art Director: Sebastian Piacentini
Junior Art Director: Max Friedman
Junior Art Director: Vignesh Seshadri
Junior Copywriter: Kathryn Kvas
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg
Associate Broadcast Producer: Samuel Marx
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Strategy: Chet Gulland
Group Strategy Director: Harry Roman
Senior Brand Strategist: Candice Chen
Junior Strategist: Isaiah Brown
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Communications Strategist: Hillary Heath
Group Account Director: Julian Cheevers
Account Director: Brian D'Entremont
Account Manager: Lucy Santilli
Associate Account Manager: Scott Bubis
Project Manager: Courtney Kosup
Project Manager: Monique Lavie
Client: Under Armour
CEO and Founder: Kevin Plank
Exec VP, Global Marketing: Adam Peake
SVP, Global Brand Creative: Steve Battista
SVP, Global Brand Strategy: Rick Anguilla
VP, Global Creative and Design: Brian Boring
SVP, Global Brand Marketing: Adrienne Lofton
Senior Director, Global Brand Marketing: Jasmine Maietta
Director,Integrated Campaign Planning/Global Operations: Teresa Oles
VP, Media: Steve Sommers
SVP Global Communications: Diane Pelkey
Production Company: RESET
Director/DP: Wally Pfister
Managing Director: Dave Morrison
Executive Producer: Jeff McDougall
Producer: James Graves
Editorial: Stitch
Editor: Andy McGraw
Assistant Editor: Vanessa Yuille
Executive Producer: Mila Davis
Head of Production: Meagen Carroll
Post Production: The Mill
Senior Exec Producer / Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Senior Producer: Nirad Bugs Russell
Visual Effects Supervisor / Joint Head of 2D: Gavin Wellsman
Visual Effects Supervisor / Lead Flame: Nathan Kane
Visual Effects Supervisor: Wyatt Savarese
Visual Effects Supervisor: Hitesh Patel
Lead Flame: Ilia Mokhtareizadeh
CG Massive: Cole Clark
CG Massive: Edward Hick
CG Artist: Katie Schiffer
CG Artist: Corey Langelotti
CG Artist: Eric Lane
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Sound Design: Q Department
Music
Artist: Philip Glass
Title: Einstein on the Beach - "Knee Play 1"
Rearrangement: Dunvagen Music Publishers
As expected, Under Armour added Tom Brady to its new "Rule Yourself" campaign on Thursday, and the timing couldn't have been better—as the Droga5 spot premiered during the NFL's season opener between Brady's (eventually victorious) New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Brady's refrain of "Every single day" is particularly apt following the lifting of his suspension. "No matter what," he adds at the end. And of course, Brady is a prime example of the marketer's message—having risen from sixth-round draft pick to four-time Super Bowl champion.
Spot and credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Under Armour
Spot: Rule Yourself (Tom Brady)
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Global Chief Executive Officer: Sarah Thompson
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Director: Alexander Nowak; Felix Richter
Copywriter: Sergio Alonso
Art Director: Sebastian Piacentini
Junior Art Director: Max Friedman
Junior Art Director: Vignesh Seshadri
Junior Copywriter: Kathryn Kvas
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg
Associate Broadcast Producer: Samuel Marx
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Strategy: Chet Gulland
Group Strategy Director: Harry Roman
Senior Brand Strategist: Candice Chen
Junior Strategist: Isaiah Brown
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Sr. Communications Strategist: Hillary Heath
Group Account Director: Julian Cheevers
Account Director: Brian D'Entremont
Account Manager: Lucy Santilli
Associate Account Manager: Scott Bubis
Project Manager: Monique Lavie, Courtney Kosup
Client: Under Armour
CEO and Founder: Kevin Plank
Exec VP, Global Marketing: Adam Peake
SVP, Global Brand Creative: Steve Battista
SVP, Global Brand Strategy: Rick Anguilla
VP, Global Creative and Design: Brian Boring
SVP, Global Brand Marketing: Adrienne Lofton
Sr. Director, Global Brand Marketing : Jasmine Maietta
Director, Integrated Campaign Planning
/Global Operations : Teresa Oles
VP, Media: Steve Sommers
SVP Global Communications: Diane Pelkey
Production Company: RESET
Director/DP: Wally Pfister
Managing Director: Dave Morrison
Executive Producer: Jeff McDougall:
Producer: James Graves
Editorial: Stitch
Editor: Leo Scott
Assistant Editor: Vanessa Yuille
Executive Producer: Mila Davis
Head of Production: Meagen Carroll
Post Production: The Mill
Sr. Exec Producer / Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Senior Producer: Nirad Bugs Russell
VFX Supervisor / Joint Head of 2D: Gavin Wellsman
VFX Supervisor / Lead Flame: Nathan Kane
VFX Supervisor / CG Lead: Wyatt Savarese
VFX Supervisor: Hitesh Patel
Lead Flame: Mikey Smith
Compositor: Emily Bloom
Compositor: Heather Kennedy
Compositor: Alex Dreiblatt
Compositor: Blake Dreury
CG Massive: Cole T. Clark
CG Artist: Corey Langelotti
CG Artist: Eric Lane
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Sound Design: Q Department
Music
Artist: Drazen Bosnjak
Title: Charge
Sound Mix: Sonic Union
Mixer: David Papa
Executive Producer: Justine Cortale
In the male-centric sports world, where the likes of LeBron James score $65 million in endorsement deals, female athletes have largely been an afterthought. But thanks to a constellation of superstars—including a reenergized U.S. women's soccer team, powerhouse tennis players and UFC's unbreakable Ronda Rousey—more marketing dollars are ending up in the pockets of female sports figures.
With the exception of tennis, women athletes historically have not racked up lucrative contracts with brands. On Forbes' recent list of the world's highest-paid athletes, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams were the only women to crack the top 100, racking up $23 million and $13 million in endorsements, respectively. While impressive, those paydays pale in comparison to male tennis stars like Rafael Nadal, who banked $28 million over the last year, and Roger Federer, with $58 million.
Alex Morgan for Nike
But the tide is slowly turning. Williams has landed campaigns for Gatorade, Chase and Beats by Dre, plus many other brands. Rousey teamed up with Carl's Jr., Reebok and MetroPCS, ringing up $3.5 million in endorsements over the last year. Meanwhile, U.S. women's soccer player Alex Morgan, hot off the U.S. team's 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup win, rakes in an estimated $3 million per year from her pacts with Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and others. (Morgan is also featured on the cover of EA Sports' FIFA 16 with Lionel Messi—the first time the game's U.S. edition, available Sept. 22, sports a woman on the cover.)
Peter Laatz, evp of sports marketing firm Repucom, attributes advertisers' growing interest in female athletes to the potent purchasing power of women—who control 70-80 percent of consumer purchases—coupled with the growth of the women's activewear market, with $18 billion in annual sales, per NPD Group.
Laatz observed that brands have finally figured out that female consumers, especially millennials, connect best with authentic stories, and many of those stories are from female athletes.
"The ability to speak to women with a relevant personality versus, say, a burly male athlete with his shoulder pads on, that brings a degree of reliability for women," he said. "These women athletes have different stories that are unfolding, and they're doing things at a more grassroots level."
Take Under Armour. When the brand wanted to move away from its testosterone-heavy image in reaching out to millennial women with its "I Will What I Want" campaign, it enlisted underdog Misty Copeland of the American Ballet Theater, who rose to the top of her field despite being told her body type didn't fit the bill of a ballerina. "The insight behind the pressures surrounding female athletes and having the inner strength to overcome that, with Misty as a vehicle to tell that story, made the campaign so powerful," said Candice Chen, senior strategist on Under Armour at agency Droga5. Since Copeland's spot premiered in July, it has achieved 10 million views on YouTube, while Under Armour's women's business has grown 60 percent year over year to $600 million.
Ronda Rousey for Carl's Jr.
After Carl's Jr. aired its spot with UFC champ Ronda Rousey, 72andSunny group creative director on Carl's Jr. Justin Hooper pointed out that sales soared. "She's a huge name in a male-dominated sport, and she's at the top of the game," he said. "Her background and work ethic are really impressive. I think the target audience really crave that in a spokesperson."
Added Matt Powell, sports analyst at NPD: "Women have always performed at a high level. But the industry has started to figure out that they're not just celebrities and fashion icons, but athletic heroes as well."
Ignited by Sheryl Sandberg's manifesto, Lean In, the issue of gender equality became part of the national discourse.
And it has remained there thanks in large part to inspiring creative like Under Armour's "I Will What I Want" campaign by Droga5 as well as evangelists like Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe and author of the best-seller Knowing Your Value and this year's follow-up, Grow Your Value.
Droga5, MSNBC and Adweek all saw the issue of female empowerment as one to be addressed, especially given that recruiting and retaining talent are top of mind today. So we pooled our resources and, with some ninja scheduling efforts, brought together a formidable group of leaders from the worlds of banking, advertising, media, e-commerce, fashion and professional sports. Here, these extraordinary women share valuable lessons on leadership and insights on how they get the very best out of their teams, and themselves.
Adweek responsive video player used on /video.
Mika Brzezinski, co-host, Morning Joe: I just want to ask by a show of hands, and we'll go from there: How many of you see yourselves as risk takers? (All raise hands.) Wow, I did not expect it to be unanimous! What's your biggest example of risk taking, Liza?
Liza Landsman, chief customer officer, Jet.com: I just joined Jet.com, a brand-new startup, about four months ago. It's a huge, audacious thing coming out of many, many years in corporate America.
Brzezinski: From eTrade? A comfortable job?
Landsman: As a chief marketing officer, I could have stayed for a long time. I'm in my mid-40s, and I just thought, if not now, when? And it's interesting. A close colleague of mine said to me, "God, did you ever really consider that you have to be prepared to fail big and publicly if you do this?" And it never occurred to me. I've never made a decision based on fear in my life, and it seemed like a bad time to start.
Sarah Thompson, global CEO, Droga5:To Liza's point, about seven years ago, I was very settled in a network ad agency. I had a lot of goodwill there, probably could have done anything I wanted, and I went to this tiny little startup agency called Droga5. I was also six months pregnant. I went in there and just felt like it was a point in my career—I was into my late 30s—that I would have regretted not doing something because of fear that felt instinctively right.
Kristin Lemkau, CMO, JPMorgan Chase: I take personal risks; I try not to take a lot of risks on my job without being thoughtful. One of the things you have to learn on the job is how to fail. When you're at college, you get good grades and work hard, and it's all equitable. But when you're working, you need to actually learn to accept failure as important and necessary and part of your growth and learn that it's OK instead of tearing your hair out.
Brzezinski: So, Dawn, do you like to take risks?
Dawn Hudson, CMO, NFL: I grew up playing competitive tennis. If you get on the court and play it safe and keep the ball in play, you're going to lose. You've got to take some risks to see your opening, and you have to take it. And it actually has given me a lot of skills for the business world. You don't want to take foolish risks, but success comes from taking appropriate risks. Wall Street rewards growth. Now I work for owners; they want growth, and that tends to not be static—that tends to be things where there's innovation and big change. The ability to take risks is the ability to make big differences in businesses.
Rebecca Minkoff, fashion designer/co-founder, Rebecca Minkoff: I would say that I didn't realize how risky some of the moves I made were. Moving here, no place to live, two suitcases, with an internship and then starting my company three years later on the heels of 9/11. Starting my company at 21 was a huge risk. Then we actually saw our biggest growth when the world was changing. Weblogs, as they were called, were just starting. Chat rooms were just starting, and I discovered these women were talking about me and the bags, and I thought I should probably talk to them. And every editor, every buyer said if you talk to your customer, it will destroy your career. You're supposed to be removed. You're supposed to be in your ivory tower, and we're the people that should be talking to them. And my brother and I, who's my business partner, said, "No, let's talk directly to our customers. Let's get on Twitter and let's get on Facebook" when it went broad, and that changed the base of our company.
Lemkau: You know, one of the best pieces of career advice I got was: If you want to get your job, you need to make your own job bigger because women wait and pull back. If you're confident in your job, they already see you there. Men do that. Women, I think, don't naturally do it as much.
Brzezinski: Dawn, I do wonder about the differences between working for Pepsi and the NFL. That must have been a big transition.
Hudson: I knew the NFL well when I was at Pepsi; I signed a sponsorship deal with the NFL. I thought I knew the NFL, but that's from the outside looking in. It's a very different organization when you're on the inside looking out. The commissioner called me and said, "Will you help me find the right woman for my senior team? Will you help me find my person? Is there any chance you'd be interested?" And I very quickly said, "I would, of course, be delighted to try to help you find the right person." He said, "Well, let's talk again in a few days," and hung up. And all of a sudden, I'm saying, find the right person? I want this job. And I called the next morning and I said, "I want to do this job." Then, [the domestic-abuse scandal around former Baltimore Ravens running back] Ray Rice happened. So many people said, "Will you take the job now?" I said, "Absolutely. I'd be making more of an impact now. Actually, it's a better situation, and I think the league will be open to more change, and that's a good thing for somebody new coming in trying to think of new ways to do things." The biggest difference is not the fact that I'm back in a male-dominated sport or that I'm in sports; the biggest difference is that we are a collection of people working on behalf of owners, and we're a league. And there's a different dimension to that than a publicly traded company.
Brzezinski: Any challenges getting your point across?
Hudson: Honestly, no. I came in with a perspective of a point in time in my career where I'm not climbing the ladder anymore. I'm coming in to do a job to make a difference, and you can listen to me and I can help you, or not. It's not that big a deal for me. It is probably the most collaborative group. For the former players I work with, it's really not about the business or about the sport; it's about why they got into the sport. And I've learned so much from them. It's just such a pleasure.
Defining Your Value
Brzezinski: We're all in leadership with brands to build. If you could put a number on your value, would you know what that number is?
Minkoff: I'm going to still try to figure it out. I know I'm valuable, obviously, but I think I'm still learning, I'm still growing. I'm still in the wide-eyed excitement of my career.
Brzezinski: So Dawn, for your last negotiation, did you know your number?
Hudson: I asked for it. I got it. I did it over the phone, too.
Lemkau: There's a number and then there's a value that you bring to the organization. I think I know the number. I would struggle with that a bit more than my intangible value to the organization, which is broader than that.
Thompson: What I can say over the past five years is I am much more clear than I was in the 15 years prior. So I guess my answer is, it took me a long time to get to, in total honesty, really knowing what my value is and expecting it.
Landsman: I would love to say yes. I think I know it. I think I still sometimes struggle to ask for it. Actually, I know I know it and I know I sometimes struggle to ask for it.
The Balance of a Personal Brand
Brzezinski: I feel like it's talking about weight or something. It's hard. So, let's talk about our brand. My brand is: I'm Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe and founder and creator of Know Your Value, and I teach women to understand what their value is and communicate it effectively. If that's my brand in 20 seconds or less, what's yours?
Thompson: Let's see. I am Sarah Thompson, global CEO of Droga5, and my brand is providing the leadership to take great ideas and creativity and create influence in the world.
Landsman: I'm Liza Landsman, and I am pulling a sequoia out of the ground in birthing Jet.com.
Brzezinski: I like it. That's a good one.
Lemkau: I'm Kristin Lemkau. I'm Natalie and Sam's mom and I'm trying to lead an organization to follow a purpose instead of a product.
Hudson: Oh, that's a tough brand to follow. I guess my business brand would be, I'm somebody that understands, observes consumers and figures out how to use creativity and innovation to create opportunities with consumers. It's a real lens into people and what motivates them. From a personal standpoint, I'd really rather be known for being a mentor and a leader—of men and women, somebody who galvanizes teams to achieve what they didn't think they could be doing.
Minkoff: I'm Rebecca Minkoff. My greatest creations, like Kristin, are my two children. Second, I have a business and it is fashion-based, but what we are really striving to do is make a product that is accessible, that makes us feel confident and that won't break the bank. It's also about empowering more women to be self-made.
Walking the Leadership Tightrope Without Falling Into Stereotypes
Brzezinski: So, we all know what our brand is. How important is it to draw on that as you play out the role of being a leader in your company? What are some of the challenges leading as a woman, and what are the surprising open doors that you've seen along the way?
Lemkau: I talk to my team a lot about the difference between being a team and a tribe. As a tribe, you have each other's back and you're much more invested in work, and I find I get their output from them. They feel their work is more meaningful; they understand the value of it. I don't know if that's a gender-based thing. I'll tell you, men are rallying around it, too. It just makes work feel more purposeful.
Thompson: I feel incredibly comfortable and confident now that I have a different style than many men that I work with who are leaders. And I like that style, and I know the results that come with that style of bringing tribes or teams together and getting everyone focused on a common vision and not always being the person who has to win the meeting.
Minkoff: I think it's challenging sometimes because I don't like to ever be a bitch, right? I want to lead by being nice, but then sometimes the team might not take you as seriously. And in my industry, being that it's more female-driven, you see the women that are considered the ones to look up to as more mean and catty. It sets this ongoing example of how you should act. It's an internal struggle for women at least in the fashion industry.
Brzezinski: Absolutely. I think you've tapped into something that is a huge issue for women as they develop their leadership skills. Knowing the difference between friendly, warm relationships and wanting to be friends with everybody and being tough and being a leader. I struggled a great deal before I got fired from CBS. I look back on my career there, and I realize I was friendly with like 100 people. And that's unsustainable. It's also not necessarily a way of life that generates respect. It's respect that needs to come first; so all those qualities and ability to know where people are coming from are great, [but] they're also stumbling blocks for us. Does that make sense?
Landsman: Yes. In a weird way, it's the same with my children. I love them and I also like them, but there's no question that I'm the parent and they are the children and we're not friends.
Lemkau: People just want to know that you care about them, and part of caring about them is being honest with them or telling it to them straight when they're struggling and even if they're not making it in a role. If they know you care about them, you can be nice and tough.
Brzezinski: But the balance that Rebecca's talking about is, sometimes we come off as a stereotype, and I do think that still is a little bit of an issue. Dawn, it doesn't seem like you've worried about this.
Hudson: I would say my perspective has changed around teams because I think the definition of teams has gone from being linear—who works for you—to being matrix cross-management—leading people across different functions, and that really becomes an appreciation of diverse opinion as opposed to just gender-based. So I found myself focusing more on how do you teach people to be the good members and willing to offer different points of view in a team environment because it's that diversity of experience and opinion that leads to better, quicker decisions. So it's evolved for me a little bit more than just a male/female thing to more about, how do you encourage teams to respect different points of view and get them on the table?
Retaining Good Talent Starts With Good Managers
Brzezinski: I want leadership tips on retaining talent. How are you the greatest boss ever to work for?
Landsman: I have one of the closest mentor/mentee relationships I've ever had with a woman who, when she first worked for me, I gave a terrible performance review. And I worked at an organization where people did not do that. And she said, "I'm shocked. And why are you being a bitch about this?" I said, "I'm not. It's because I think you're incredibly talented with so much potential." Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind.
Thompson: I know I have really high expectations and the agency works really hard across the board, but positioning people for success means empowering and believing in them. And I know certain people have moved up the ranks in our organization and have been pushed out of their comfort zones just like I was at different points in my career—and I think that is the world of leadership. It's belief but not blind belief.
Brzezinski: And to your point, Liza, about that person that you gave the critique to, I truly believe that some of the best people I have worked with, I am incredibly blunt with from the get-go. The relationship had a place to go.
Landsman: I think for high performers sometimes that's the thing that holds them back, which is that they are consistently told how wonderful they are …
Lemkau: No, but to get that person who's been overpromoted and overpraised and who believes their own bullshit in a bad way. If you really care about them, that will make the toughness feel kind. They know you have their interest at heart and that you believe in them.
Hudson: The one thing that continues to come out of almost every personnel study I've seen is that people leave because of the immediate boss. (All signal their agreement.) The importance of the immediate boss to what they believe in their career, where it's going to go, are they going to get training? Are they going to get development? Are they going to get sponsorship? It is so much the organization of great culture. They could be doing great things. They could be growing. Today, it's about authenticity, and that doesn't mean mushy kindness and it doesn't mean meanness all the time. What it means is that I understand you, you understand me, and we are able to have an authentic relationship. I've spent a fair amount of my career mentoring women of color who are a key [group] for the business going forward. They're graduating from college at high rates, they're going to be a bigger part of the workforce, and they have a tough time getting an authentic relationship because they often have both a racial and a gender difference. And so they don't feel able to speak freely, and the boss doesn't speak freely to them either. If you don't have an authentic relationship, then you can't build from that to give direct feedback to a sponsor. So really, working on authenticity is what we want to do.
Lemkau: And you can show your scars—you're not trying to be perfect. You let them know you have weaknesses, too, and it's OK.
Minkoff: I think listening is key. No matter where they are in the organization, they can come to me and say, "I'm having a problem." Don't say, "Go speak to HR." Also important is knowing that nothing you ask of them you're not willing to do yourself.
Leadership Advice From Those Who've Made It
Brzezinski: We'll close by just going around the table—leadership advice. Mine would be: Respect first, friendships follow. Liza?
Landsman: Certainly that, but I would also say: Know where you are going because you can't bring people with you if you don't know that.
Thompson: I'd say: [Have the] confidence to roll the dice. Sometimes a decision needs to be made and be comfortable weathering it if it's a failure and have the energy to move on fast.
Lemkau: Learn from everybody, but be yourself. Be confident in who you are and your style.
Brzezinski: That's hard. That takes years sometimes. Dawn?
Hudson: Share a vision.
Minkoff: Be your own entrepreneur whether or not you work for someone else. I'm most proud when someone says, "I quit. I'm starting my own company." That's what I'm most proud of.
Brzezinski: Very cool. Ladies, thank you so much.
Mika Brzezinski
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Makeup: Wilbert Ramos; Dress: Karolina Zmarlak
As co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Brzezinski's success didn't happen overnight. It took time for Brzezinksi to realize her value and to share those lessons to help empower women in the workplace. Aside from her best-selling book, Knowing Your Value, and this year's follow-up, Grow Your Value, she has partnered with NBCUniversal on a series of live, Know Your Value events across the country. Each conference gives women networking and coaching opportunities to help create a plan for success. The next event will be held in Boston on Oct. 23.
Dawn Hudson
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Jessi Butterfield/Exclusive Artists
A self-described hard charger, Hudson is no stranger to adversity. Before serving as vice chairman of strategic consulting firm The Parthenon Group, Hudson spent 11 years at PepsiCo, where she rose to president and CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America. Hudson revived the cola wars and in 2002 convinced the NFL to replace Coca-Cola with Pepsi as the league's official soft-drink sponsor. Hudson also held key roles at DMB&B and Omnicom. She joined the NFL last year, where she dealt head-on with the league's domestic violence and deflategate controversies.
Liza Landsman
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Jessi Butterfield/Exclusive Artists
Landsman has never been one to shy away from taking chances, leaving IBM in the '90s to join the Internet startup Flooz as employee No. 11. She made another leap this year, leaving her CMO post at E-Trade for the startup shopping site (and Amazon challenger) Jet.com as chief customer officer. "I've never made a career decision out of fear," says Landsman, who has also held top jobs at asset management giant BlackRock and Citi and serves on the board of Choice Hotels. "This was a once in a lifetime opportunity—and if not now, when?"
Kristin Lemkau
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Jessi Butterfield/Exclusive Artists
Lemkau came to JPMorgan Chase in 1998 from AlliedSignal (the predecessor to Honeywell), rising through the ranks to become CMO in January 2014, a role that gives her responsibility for brand, advertising, media, sponsorships, marketing and market research. She also oversees communications for Chase-branded businesses. Lemkau, who is on the board of the Association of National Advertisers, believes taking personal risks is the only way to achieve success. "Learn to accept failure as an important and necessary part of your growth," she says.
Rebecca Minkoff
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Jessi Butterfield/Exclusive Artists
For Minkoff, it took some digital media savvy, an iconic handbag (the "Morning After Bag") and an assist from her entrepreneur brother Uri Minkoff (her company's CEO and co-founder) to ignite a global lifestyle brand in 2005. Her fashion-forward collection, which includes apparel, footwear and jewelry, is sold in more than 900 retail stores worldwide, including Rebecca Minkoff boutiques in New York, San Francisco and a high-tech flagship in Los Angeles. Minkoff also plans to open a "smart" store in Chicago this fall.
Sarah Thompson
Photo: Kevin Scanlon; Jessi Butterfield/Exclusive Artists
Thompson left Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York, in 2008 to become president of then-fledgling agency Droga5. Now with some 450 employees across three cities, Droga5 has become a powerhouse creative shop famous for award-winning work like Under Armour's groundbreaking "I Will What I Want" campaign. Thompson was named CEO of the agency in 2013 and last year took on global responsibilities. About success, Thompson says: "It's never been about purely seniority or monetary gains; it's about leading people toward a common vision."
In July, Facebook made a big move into YouTube's turf with plans to launch Suggested Video—a feed of curated video clips from brands like Funny or Die, the NBA and Tastemade. After a small test over the past three months, it's now showing up in more mobile news feeds.
Clicking on a video from a news feed leads to a page that pulls all of the publisher's videos together in a stream, as well as other related clips.
To help publishers make money off those clips, an ad appears between every few videos, similar to a commercial. Similar to YouTube's business model, creators receive 55 percent of money sold from the ads while Facebook gets 45 percent. All video ads are sold by Facebook.
The program is geared specifically for iPhone viewers, since a majority of Facebook's traffic comes from mobile, to help publishers squeeze some extra money from clips watched from a smartphone.
The stream pulls in video ads that brands have already bought, meaning that marketers are not paying extra money to get their clips to appear in the new section.
During a small test on Thursday and Friday, ads for Under Armour, Procter & Gamble, Taco Bell, Jet Blue, Target and KFC were playing alongside publishers' clips.
Back in July, Patrick Starzan, vp of marketing and distribution for Funny or Die, talked to Adweek about the program and how the ad portion will help it monetize the three to six videos the comic site posts to Facebook each day.
"We want to showcase our content and get as many eyeballs as possible," Starzan told Adweek. "The rub for us though has always been we can't monetize on the platforms. It's not a good business case for us to just upload all of our content to Facebook and have everyone stay there. To be a part of this is beneficial to us because now we can test out monetization at the platform level and see if it makes sense for us."
Indeed, publishers are itching for more money off of Facebook video clips. In Facebook's latest quarterly results, 76 percent of its $3.83 million of ad revenue came from mobile.
Just this week, Sheryl Sandberg pitched a room of agencies and brand marketers at Advertising Week on Facebook's size as equivalent to a Super Bowl.
"What people are starting to understand is that what we offer is really broad reach—we have a Super Bowl on mobile in the U.S. every day," Sandberg said. "Our data says that if you do TV plus Facebook, you enhance your reach by 17, 18 percent and more than double that for millennials, which is a hard group to reach right now on TV."
According to a recent study, Americans are exposed to brands anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 times every day—on the Web, on TV, in print and on packaging. How is a company supposed to cut through all that clutter and get noticed? One thing certainly helps: making sure you have the most focused and most talented marketing chief. For the 26th year, Adweek is pleased to introduce the recipients of its Brand Genius Awards, presented this year by Oracle Marketing Cloud. It is our moment to honor those whose leadership and vision have helped build the most innovative and successful brands. These executives have each played a key role in making their companies great and ensuring that their brands stand out in the crowd—no matter how many others are vying for attention.
Below, meet our Brand Geniuses in 10 categories, chosen for their work in the past 18 months. In addition, Adweek salutes its Brand Visionary for innovations that span an entire career. Finally, our Brand Save recipient warrants special recognition for excellence in the world of nonprofits.
While Adrienne Lofton has worked as a marketer for global brands like Levi's and Target, it's experience from her college years that gives her an edge. In the mid-'90s, Lofton was captain of Howard University's NCAA Division I volleyball team. Marketing, she said in a 2010 interview, "is no different from being an athlete—knowing your path, setting it early and accomplishing it."
Lofton's athletic drive has never served her better than at her current gig as svp of global brand marketing for Under Armour—a position in which she's merited inclusion in 2015's class of Brand Genius honorees. Much like Lofton, the brand was an underdog that worked hard and made it big.
The company got its start in 1996 when founder Kevin Plank began selling his performance gear out of the trunk of his car. In keeping with that theme of determination, Under Armour has achieved its colossal brand recognition by signing up highly driven and inspirational athletes and performers before they make it big, and then accompanying them over the top. Golf wonder kid Jordan Spieth, dancer Misty Copeland and Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry—all were Under Armour's underdogs who became champions.
And thanks to Lofton, the messaging behind these partnerships is confident and inspirational. Under Armour's "I Will What I Want" campaign, for example, brims with determination, especially for women athletes and consumers. "Inside of the words 'I Will' is the motivation that we want to deliver at every single turn," Lofton says. "It's about allowing women to have the platform to show that they can absolutely break barriers, they can absolutely set records, they can absolutely be some of the best in the world."
In one spot, the American Ballet Theatre's Copeland whirls and twirls in a dazzling display as a voiceover, taking the form of a rejection letter from a dance academy, catalogs the criticisms she endured—and ignored.
The "I Will What I Want" campaign won the Cyber Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival in June and a Gold Effie. Under Armour was also honored with the Clio Sports Brand Innovation Award.
Instead of taking marketing's obvious path and talking up its athletic apparel, Under Armour, under Lofton's leadership, has kept the focus on the athlete—the "human spirit which won't allow itself to be denied," observes Boston University marketing professor Judy Austin.
Under Armor won't allow itself to be denied, either. Thanks in part to its inspirational marketing, the brand has already lapped Adidas in U.S. sportswear sales, and is now nipping at the mighty Nike's heels (thanks in part to its launch of the Curry One basketball shoe).
Confident in Under Armour's creative direction, Lofton has demonstrated that the theme of self-empowerment has endless possibilities, perhaps even literally. The most recent effort, "Rule Yourself," features Under Armor stars like Curry, Spieth and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady working out on an infinite landscape featuring mirror images of the athletes as far as the eye can see. The visually arresting spots underscore the idea that great athletes must commit themselves to their goals again and again, every day, for as long as it takes.
"Adrienne chaperoned the integrity of the 'Rule Yourself' idea throughout the process," explains Julian Cheevers, group account director at Under Armour lead agency Droga5. "She pushed for the right creative risks at the right times, which was key to getting the work to where it ended up."
A word on where the brand itself has ended up: The first year Plank sold shorts out of his car trunk, Under Armour sales totaled $17,000. Last year, they spiked to $3 billion.
For Lofton, success for an athlete or for a brand comes from the same place. "It's about emotional determination," she says. "To be your best self, you have to be the sum of every single day's work put in."
These are strange and interesting days for brand marketers. Fragmentation among screens continues unabated and consumers have more sophisticated tools than ever for avoiding marketing messages they find horrendous, interruptive or useless—or all of the above.
A recent Adobe/PageFair study revealed that ad blocking in the U.S. grew by 48 percent in the 12 months leading up to June 2015 and predicted that by next year the global cost of ad blocking to marketers will hit $41.4 billion. Those are chilling stats for all of us. As John Snyder points out in his Voice column (see "How Marketers Can Avoid Getting Stuck in a 'Badvertising' Rut"), if the value exchange of a piece of marketing isn't rich with inspiration or utility, it will drift away, unseen and ineffective. Indeed, the era of "badvertising" is over.
The good news is that beyond all the hyperventilating over ad blocking, insights about data have never been richer, as is the understanding that data as a human-insights tool, paired with genuine, creative storytelling, will create marketing that consumers see as smart, useful and something they want to engage with—and deeply so.
Each of the 10 individuals we will recognize with our 26th annual Brand Genius Awards at a gala in New York on Oct. 20 understands the evolving world of marketing in his or her own unique way. Adweek senior marketing editor Robert Klara, along with executive editor Tony Case, spent months working on this signature editorial project, resulting in the profiles in this week's issue.
We think you will agree that the work of all this year's Brand Geniuses speaks for itself.
Gatorade, 50 years old this year, has tapped the sports fan in all of us, while also stoking our instinct to get in the game. Lego inspired a $500 million theatrical franchise with The Lego Movie (and basically took over this year's Academy Awards ceremony). Patrón has come to represent (as in, "I'll have a Patrón on the rocks") the high-end tequila category.
Under Armour drafted athletes like dancer Misty Copeland and Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry before they were phenoms and stitched their triumphs into our collective desire to play. SoulCycle marketed itself not by way of a traditional advertising strategy but by creating an experience that inspired remarkable word of mouth, and a highly anticipated IPO.
Always redefined what it means to be a girl by challenging the most basic cultural bias with its breakout #likeagirl campaign. Delta elevated the concept of commercial air travel, Jaguar drove a sexy edge back into the definition of a sports car, the E! network found the sweet spot between tabloid and taste, and Honey Maid celebrated the diversity of the modern American family.
Finally, our Brand Save honoree, Every Mother Counts, led by founder Christy Turlington Burns and profiled here, is striving to make the world a safer place to be a mother, and, thus, a better place for us all.
Under Armour recently showed you hundreds of Stephen Currys in an ad from Droga5. But of course, you only need one Stephen Curry to rewrite the NBA record books. And that's what we get in Droga's latest ad, which kicks off the 2015-16 NBA season by celebrating the Warriors point guard and his cosmic impact on the game of basketball.
Droga5 wanted an epic vibe, so it got Oscar winner Jamie Foxx to voice poetic copy about how thoroughly Curry's lightning-fast shot has changed the game. (Foxx appears onscreen briefly, too.) When Curry shoots a three-pointer, he releases the ball in as little as 0.4 seconds—the quickest shot ever measured. This is illustrated with exploding fireworks in the darkly evocative visuals from director Henry-Alex Rubin.
"Stephen is a generational talent, and through hard work and self-belief he's doing things on a basketball court that is impacting how the game is played, coached and seen by fans throughout the world," says Peter Murray, vp of global brand and sports marketing at Under Armour. "This new story, featuring Stephen in the new Curry Two, showcases his dynamic skill set, which is inspiring a new generation of basketball players to challenge the foundation of the game and lead the new era of basketball."
The spot features Under Armour's "Iron Sharpens Iron" Curry Two, the first colorway of Curry's second signature shoe, which hits UA.com and retailers on Oct. 24. More colorways of the Curry Two will be released throughout the season.
CREDITS
Client: Under Armour
Campaign: Curry Two
Title "Flash"
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Group Creative Director: Tim Gordon
Copywriter: Craig Gerringer
Art Director: Conner Tobiason
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast: Production Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Rebecca Wilmer
Integrated Production Business Manager: Librado Sanchez
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Strategy: Chet Gulland
Group Strategy Director: Harry Roman
Junior Strategist: Isaiah Brown
Senior Communications Strategist: Hillary Heath
Group Account Director: Julian Cheevers
Account Director: Brian D'Entremont
Account Manager: Josh Freeland
Associate Account Manager: Scott Bubis
Senior Project Manager: Courtney Kosup
Project Manager: Monique Lavie
Client: Under Armour
CEO & Founder: Kevin Plank
EVP, Global Marketing: Adam Peake
SVP, Global Brand Strategy: Rick Anguilla
SVP, Global Brand Creative: Steve Battista
SVP, Global Brand Marketing: Adrienne Lofton
SVP, Business Development & Entertainment: Todd Montesano
VP, Global Brand & Sports Marketing: Peter Murray
VP, Creative & Design: Brian Boring
Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships & Entertainment: Dre Wright
Creative Director, Story Development: Jed Jecelin
Director, Brand Basketball: Tai Foster
Director of Sports, Marketing, Pro Basketball: Kris Stone
Brand Marketing Director, Campaign Integration: Teresa Oles
Director Creative Operations: Eric Clemmer
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Henry-Alex Rubin
DOP: David Devlin
Partner: Patrick Milling Smith
Partner: Brian Carmody
Executive Producer: Lisa Tauscher
Executive Producer: Drew Santarsiero
Head of Production: Andrew Colón
Producer: Alex Waite
Editorial: Stitch Editorial
Editor: Leo Scott
Assistant Editor: Weston Cadwell
Executive Producer: Mila Davis
Telecine: The Mill
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Postproduction: Framestore
Senior Producer: Christa Cox
Senior Producer: Nicholas Dziekonski
VFX Supervisor / Lead Flame Artist: Martin Lazaro
Compositor: Leslie Chung
Compositor: Hieu Phan
Music Supervisor, Venn Arts: Jonathan Hecht
Track: "Giants" by Tamer, Pusher Music
Sound Duotone: Audio Post
Executive Producer: Greg Tiefenbrun
Mixer/Sound Designer: Andy Green
