Celebrates GALE as part of AOY Shortlist
Stagwell – just 1% of the market – is 20% of the AOY list
Observatory Included on the Small AOY Shortlist
NEW YORK – Dec. 12, 2022 – Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW), the challenger network built to transform marketing, celebrates its strategic and creative agency Anomaly which has been named U.S. Agency of the Year by Adweek, the American trade publication covering the advertising, marketing, and media industries.
Adweek editors applauded Anomaly’s ‘monster’ year of new business wins, which included 16 accounts ranging from Dunkin’, Vans, and the ‘pitch of the year’: Bud Light U.S. Additionally, Adweek said “the agency’s Super Bowl spot for Meta Quest tugged on our heartstrings.”
Business agency GALE – which continued its trajectory of triple-digit growth in 2022 – was also shortlisted by Adweek as U.S. Agency of the Year, one of only 10 agencies recognized. GALE’s notable 2022 new business wins include H&R Block and Dropbox, and it was earlier named to Adweek’s list of Fastest Growing Agencies for 2022.
“Our challenger network – just 1% of the market – boasts 20% of Adweek’s prestigious list. We’re proud to celebrate Anomaly as Adweek’s 2022 Agency of the Year. Led by Carl Johnson, Karina Wilsher and great office leaders in New York and Los Angeles, Anomaly lodged a remarkable year of new business growth and creative innovation. I am also excited to see GALE shortlisted for Agency of the Year and proud of Brad Simms and the fast-growing team there,” said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO, Stagwell. “I also want to congratulate Brendan Shields-Shimizu and the Observatory team on their recognition on the Small Agency of the Year short list for continuing to innovate for clients in a variety of formats.”
“If you define and fully commit to what you believe; identify what must remain and must change, what you’re prepared to do, and more importantly not do, then you can make significant progress in a turbulent, unpredictable world. We do and we did,” noted Anomaly co-founder Carl Johnson.
Observatory, based in Los Angeles, was also included on the shortlist in the U.S. Small Agency of the Year category, recognized for selling a variety of work including an action figure of Martha Stewart, two docuseries, a podcast, a film, and a concert. It also received nods for developing 15 sports films for clients as well as creating a sequel to an iconic Chipotle ad.
About Stagwell
Stagwell is the challenger holding company built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.
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Los Angeles Rams and ARound Introduce the Next Generation of Stadium Augmented Reality, Sponsored by SoFi
ARound Expands Stadium-Wide AR With Addition of In-Venue Broadcast Integration on SoFi Stadium’s Infinity Screen, In-Home Fan Experience; SoFi Signs on as First ARound Brand Sponsor
LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK – Dec. 5, 2022 – The Los Angeles Rams are introducing a new fan-focused technology experience at the stadium and at home. Debuting at yesterday’s game, fans at SoFi Stadium were the first to experience shared augmented reality (AR) in an NFL game with the launch of ARound, a next-generation fan engagement platform designed to enhance gameday fun with live, real-world AR experiences, sponsored by SoFi, digital personal finance company and SoFi Stadium naming rights partner. First launched in August with the Minnesota Twins, ARound expanded its platform to include in-venue broadcast integration as well as an at-home AR experience.
ARound, part of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, uses 3D spatial computing to localize content to individual users throughout the venue, enabling SoFi Stadium’s 70,000 attendees to see the same real-time 3D effects and participate in the same shared experiences. Using the ARound Stadium app, fans point their smartphone at the field to open up a universe of AR effects, interacting with the physical venue and fellow fans in real time. ARound and the Rams have taken shared AR several steps further through new fan experiences custom to the Rams and to the NFL:
- Infinity Screen AR: Fans can view effects like “Rampede” and “Make Noise” come to life on the Rams’ state-of-the-art 70,000-sq. foot videoboard, The Infinity Screen, with AR experiences incorporated into the gameday production in real time, such as when a touchdown is scored or when the team takes the field.
- Players in 3D: Key player callouts including Aaron Donald, Bobby Wagner, Cooper Kupp, Jalen Ramsey, Matt Gay, and Matthew Stafford are featured through special effects, making their personalities larger than life.
- The Best Seat in the House, At-Home AR Experience: Fans can join the gameday festivities and contests through a life-size virtual stadium experience from their homes, mirroring what’s happening during the game at SoFi Stadium.
- SoFi: Official ARound Sponsor: Opening the door to this new, connected marketing medium, digital personal finance company and SoFi Stadium naming rights partner SoFi has signed on as ARound’s first platform partner with stadium-wide AR games, contests, effects, and a remote experience amplifying the energy and excitement of Rams gamedays and the SoFi brand.
“We are thrilled to team with ARound and SoFi to incorporate AR into gamedays at the Rams House in unprecedented ways,” said Marissa Daly, VP & GM, Los Angeles Rams Studios. “This experience is a continuation of the game-changing ways we’ve partnered with SoFi at SoFi Stadium and across Los Angeles to elevate the fan experience on gamedays and beyond.”
“Fans come to the stadium to feel closer to the game, to the players, and to other fans. We developed ARound to enhance those feelings through highly immersive and interactive AR experiences that complement the action on the field,” said Josh Beatty, founder and CEO, ARound. “And with products like Apple and Google AR Glasses already in development we’re excited to open up the living room to blended TV experiences we know are the future of broadcast entertainment.”
“At SoFi, we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation to create seamless experiences for our members, all while fulfilling our mission of helping our members achieve financial independence,” said Lauren Stafford Webb, CMO, SoFi. “We are proud to sponsor ARound’s first-of-its-kind technology for Los Angeles Rams fans at the iconic SoFi Stadium to make their experience even more spectacular.”
Journalists interested in covering the Rams launch can access the press kit here.
About ARound
ARound is a first-of-its-kind stadium-level shared augmented reality platform and is part of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, a proprietary suite of SaaS and DaaS solutions build for the modern marketer. ARound keeps audiences engaged by capturing their attention through immersive, interactive and shared experiences with fellow fans across the venue. Where other AR products offer isolating, singular experiences, ARound’s massive multi-user AR – which uses 3D spatial computing to localize content – redefines what it means to be part of a connected fan experience. It was the winner of Stagwell’s annual innovation competition which invests in new product ideas proposed by the network’s 13,000+ employees. ARound and the Stagwell Marketing Cloud are a part of Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW), the challenger network build to transform marketing.
About Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams – Los Angeles’ original professional sports team and Super Bowl LVI Champions – stand as one of the oldest franchises in the National Football League and since its founding in 1937, have garnered four World Championships and sent 30 of its members to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As a professional sports team, the organization is committed to be a valuable civic partner and serving the greater Los Angeles area 365 days a year. The Rams play their home games at SoFi Stadium, which is located at Hollywood Park, a 298-acre sports and entertainment destination being developed by Los Angeles Rams Owner/Chairman E. Stanley Kroenke in Inglewood, CA.
About SoFi
SoFi helps people achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions. Our products for borrowing, saving, spending, investing and protecting give our over four million members fast access to tools to get their money right. SoFi membership comes with the key essentials for getting ahead, including career advisors and connection to a thriving community of ambitious people. SoFi is also the naming rights partner of SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams. For more information, visit SoFi.com or download our iOS and Android apps.
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By: Adrienne Adair, SVP, Creative,
MMI Agency
Originally Released in
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Creating content at a pace that continues to grow in response to consumers’ appetites can feel daunting. That each creative asset further needs to grab the audience’s attention in the first three seconds, and bears the responsibility of resonating with that consumer and garnering a like, click or sale, only adds to the challenge.
Continually optimizing performance is the key to a successful and diverse content strategy, and that requires a carefully orchestrated flights of assets to launch, test and learn to immediately develop the next round. The cadence of those assets must be constant and unwavering: assets that vary by message and by imagery. Static assets. Animated assets. Influencer’s assets. Now, multiply those assets by the number of unique audiences.
Given these challenges, how do we preserve the ability to curate original work without blowing the budget in the time it takes to produce it? AI can put invaluable time back in the hands of creatives by using features that allow designers to crowd-share a project in real time to finish a layout in far less time than had been possible.
Web and mobile apps are available to create content quickly through customizable templates and access to thousands of fonts. They can even intuitively reflow your layout from one size to multiple formats with a single click and allow you to publish the content to your social channels directly from the app. AI can be used to analyze and extrapolate an image from simple to complex backgrounds more quickly than with the original image selection tools, enabling designers to composite multiple images in one layout at breakneck speed.
There are also innovations still in development that promise to speed up the work of designers such as AI’s predictive technology that can uncrop portraits, not only showing a cropped subject in full frame, but also giving designers the ability to change the wardrobe or the surrounding background — all with a few clicks.
Want to create a motion video from a static photo? AI can analyze the motion from a selected source video and apply it to a static photo, allowing designers to make stationary subjects dance. Another such innovation on the horizonwill allow easy creation of packaging mocks that apply 2D design elements to 3D packaging composites, reducing an hours-long exercise to just minutes with a single click.
Why should brands be interested in how AI has enhanced these tools of the trade? Because time = money. If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, the path from imagination to realization on behalf of your brand is more direct than ever.
With these tools, tasks that once took four hours might take as little as 40 minutes. From pandemic repercussions to supply chain limitations to inflation, brands are challenged to make the same level of impact in the market with more conservative budgets. The time saved in production allows more time for creativity and more time to produce a greater number of the most impactful assets to amplify your brand’s presence and maximize performance.
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The UPS Store, the world’s largest retail franchisor, has partnered with full-service advertising agency Doner and Facebook’s Spark AR Studio to launch an out-of-this-world AR adventure featuring the Moon. The campaign, ‘Moon AR Ad-Venture,’ allows users to experience the many services offered by The UPS Store in new, fun, and engaging ways. Using AR, customers can shred the moon’s surface, send copies into orbit, use a planet-sized stamp, bubble-cushion with booster rockets, and pack and ship across the universe. Plus, users can place the moon in the palm of their hand – or in their living room.
One of the most robust applications ever seen on Facebook’s Spark AR platform, this AR experience pushes boundaries by using six different 3D models to develop five animations, all while maintaining high, photo-real quality of assets. As mentioned above, the campaign launches today. It will run for four weeks nationally across social media channels, specifically Facebook and Instagram. Doner and The UPS Store have enjoyed over two decades of collaboration, with this campaign marking a first for the partnership through its innovative usage of AR.
David DeMuth, CEO, Doner: “We’re always looking for new, engaging and interactive ways to dimensionalise our clients’ brands and this AR experience is a great example of that,” said David DeMuth, CEO of Doner. “For The UPS Store, we’re excited to use this technology to help bring the brand story to life in an interactive and memorable way.”
Michelle Van Slyke, SVP, Marketing and Sales, The UPS Store: “This effort moves beyond mere observation in advertising, delivering a multifaceted, interactive experience that engages people,” said Michelle Van Slyke, SVP, Marketing and Sales, at The UPS Store.
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Missed Advertising Week New York this week? We distill the biggest brand takeaways on brand fandom, political advertising, and media channel transformations below. Follow Stagwell on LinkedIn to keep up with the insights.
Rise of Brand Fandom – Move over, sports teams and celebrities.
Fifty-seven percent of consumers consider themselves a fan of a brand or product – higher than sports (48%), movies (52%), celebrities (54%), or online influencers/personalities (37%).
The brands that take a holistic stake in consumers’ lives will drive loyalty, affinity, and advocacy–and not just in the moment. Fandom is not a fad or a flash in the pan; 2 in 5 brand fans have been fans for over 10 years. Focus on helping consumers develop their personalities through your brand by delivering marketing, events and experiences, and content that gives them a platform to express that personality.
“Fandom is critical in the luxury space. Luxury is no longer defined as the most expensive thing –it’s defined by insider knowledge. We’re seeing a dispersion of brands being considered ‘wealth’ and ‘luxury,’ and price point alone won’t keep you in that luxury equity space. It’s important to have fan bases that really think of your brand as luxury.” – Neda Whitney, SVP, Head of Marketing, Americas, Christie’s
Political is the Biggest Media Story of 2022 – Get ready for hotter cyclical media environments as political advertisers diversify digital media channels to engage more voters.
Brands will feel the effect of political messaging as political advertisers spend a record $3 billion in the last three weeks of the election alone.
Many ads will tell Americans they’re poorer than ever because of inflation, for example – how will brands push back and get consumers to continue spending? Brands can no longer afford to be apolitical but risk looking too performative if they don’t back up their positions with actions. Lyft decided to foreground its identity as a transportation company when deciding to act, and as a result, it has provided ride services for voting, vaccines, and reproductive rights.
“We saw in 2016 that so many people chose not to vote because they didn’t have access to transportation. So we asked ourselves: how can we make an impact there? We created a voter access program and saw its immediate impact in 2020. It’s about looking at the issues consumers care about and our services. It’s our job to listen – to talk to elected officials and let them know we can come in as a partner to solve some of the issues our consumers care about.” – Heather Foster, Head of Government Affairs, Lyft
Digital Channels and Political Advocacy – Are political advertisers about to have the digital marketing efficacy reckoning?
This cycle will be the first many realize media buys are not driving impact because of mistargeting. Many voters in battleground districts no longer have traditional television – but there’s a disconnect between ad spending and consumption, with most dollars still going to broadcast. Brands need to get more comfortable shifting the media mix and taking risks with bourgeoning digital channels.
“The idea that there’s the TV generation and then there’s the kids – it’s an antiquated view. The fact is cord cutting is mainstream – now the majority of the population – and the idea that we can say we have a TV strategy and a different digital strategy is fraught with disaster. As we iterate, brands need to think about messaging across the full funnel, and know that TV and streaming work really well together because it allows us to do that. The future will be integrated streaming and linear in a really incremental fashion.” – Ashwin Navin, CEO SambaTV
Resurgence of OOH – OOH is resurging because OOH is modern.
When you start treating it like programmatic or digital it becomes a valuable tool in the funnel. Driving consumer engagement and social amplification through use of the OOH medium. (The Harris Poll found TikTok and other social media platforms are a major source of OOH ad visibility: 82% of TikTok users report frequently noticing OOH ads in content in their feeds, with nearly identical impact reported by Facebook and Instagram users.) And don’t sleep on the innovation underway here: location-based insights, shared AR capabilities, and more are all letting advertisers do more at scale. Embrace the underlying technology capabilities of Out of Home as a resilient pillar of your media plan for 2023.
”Out of home isn’t changing – the strategy is. Media is the new experiential and Out of Home is where people are. The technology that sits behind Out of Home is driving a different strategy lens, a different creative lens, and a different content lens.” – Brad Simms, CEO, GALE Partners.
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NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Code and Theory, a digital-first creative agency within Stagwell, announced today the formation of the industry’s first holistic Inclusive Design and Marketing Strategy (ID&M) discipline. In a crowded agency landscape where brands must choose either campaign-focused DEI or social impact marketing agencies, Code and Theory’s ID&M applies inclusivity to a digital-first strategy and uses intersectionality to unlock transformational value for brands. Code and Theory’s ID&M discipline is the first of its kind from Stagwell.
Kirstyn Nimmo, an award-winning social impact strategist behind the White House-recognized #IAmAMan campaign for criminal punishment reform, the Nestlé Purina partnership that opened NYC’s first pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, and launched the Anthem Award Winning Yahoo Allyship Pledge to provide education about the Black experience in America and more, will serve as Group Director.
Nimmo’s 14 years of social impact expertise will be applied to existing Code and Theory work streams across the agency, enhancing an already strong set of digital-first deliverables. She is tasked with building a diverse team of creatives, strategists and technologists to ensure every agency output is inclusive at its core; helping brands resonate with today’s diverse consumers, and increase retention among employees. To date, the agency has delivered breakthrough results while amassing an impressive body of inclusive work with The Washington Commanders, Con Edison, Adidas, National Council on Aging, and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few.
Diverse consumers are transforming the U.S. mainstream; representing the most dynamic and fastest-growing segment of the U.S. consumer economy and a multi-trillion dollar opportunity for brands. For Code and Theory, the demand has never been greater as clients are actively seeking insight and expertise in this space.
“Over a decade ago, it was exciting to witness the industry recognizing the importance of diversity and multicultural marketing, but modern consumers are demanding more than that,” explains Nimmo. “The pandemic and recent racial justice movements led to collective and individual changes in identity, agency, and accountability. Those events paved the way for an expanded focus on inclusion, where brands can honor consumers’ intersectional identities. Brands have the chance to evolve and accurately reflect our culture’s complexities and we’re proud to answer that call.”
“ID&M’s purpose is to approach Inclusivity the same way we have approached Digital Transformation for decades, which is to connect the dots for consumers and brands at every touchpoint,” says Dan Gardner, Founder and Executive Chairman, Code and Theory, “I am beyond thrilled to have Kirstyn join Code and Theory. Brands that want to tap into this massive market opportunity and realize a strong ROI – a return-on-inclusion – will benefit from her expertise on how to authentically embrace inclusion as a strategy and not a tactic across all areas of their business, including marketing and communications.”
The establishment of the discpline aligns with the agency’s commitment to being an anti-racist company. In 2021, Code and Theory hired its first Chief Diversity Officer, Renée Miller, and has since developed its 5% Shifts framework, which compels the agency to continuously revisit progress against all of their DEI commitments, and helps clients make real shifts which result in measurable change.
“At Code and Theory we knew that an ongoing commitment to growing a racially and ethnically diverse staff, wide-ranging in age and identities, would continuously expand our ability to bring our clients cutting edge, intersectional thinking that transforms business and impacts across our clients services, platforms and campaign ecosystems. By putting inclusion at the core of our agency, it’s become a clear focus in our work, birthing this new ID&M discipline.” added Renée Miller, Chief Diversity Officer, Code and Theory.
As part of the effort to drive brand evolution, the ID&M discipline created Words Up, an industry writing guide intended to bring inclusive discourse and collaboration surrounding language. Nimmo adds, “As marketers and builders grounded in digital spaces, we help clients reach people all over the world, and it’s critical that language resonates in the right ways, in the right places. When brands use inclusive language, they invite communities in, grow their audiences and create brand love with consumers they may have failed to recognize in the past.” Additionally, Nimmo and the ID&M team created a Linkedin Group and Discord channel for creative and brand professionals to further collaborate, share resources and knowledge in real time.
To learn more about Code and Theory’s Inclusive Marketing and Design discipline, please visit here.
To learn more about Code and Theory’s DEI framework visit here.
To access the first edition of Words Up, please visit here.
Click here to request access to the ID&M Linkedin Group and Discord Channel here.
About Code and Theory
Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve and create end-to-end solutions that flex to meet the needs of today’s ever-changing digital landscape.
About Stagwell
Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com
Media Contact
For Code and Theory
Natalie Black
press@codeandtheory.com
For Stagwell
Brandon Dixon
pr@stagwellglobal.com
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By
Mark Penn
Chairman and CEO, Stagwell
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When I ran campaigns, I used to lament that corporations would spend more on marketing a hamburger than marketing political ideas and efforts. Back then, campaigns were struggling shoestring enterprises. No longer.
Today, campaigns and issue groups spend billions of dollars (much of it ineffectively) on communicating to voters, and fundraising at large has become big business. Ironically, the rocket fuel for all this was not the much-maligned Supreme Court decision Citizens United that gave corporations political speech rights. Rather, it was the internet – opening up a far speedier and cost-effective method of motivating voters and fundraising from them. Everything we condemn about politics and social media today – the speed of clickbait, the sensationalizing of small news events, the partisan divide – has paved the way for online fundraising and its explosive growth.
Political advertising spend is rapidly breaking records
Political advertising will hit $7.8bn in the 2022 midterm elections – nearly approaching the $8.5bn spent across TV, radio and digital media in the 2020 presidential cycle. We are seeing continued growth in campaign spending, and each mid-term is coming close to the previous presidential runs in spend. Each president leaps to a new record in political expenditures. It will take a set of really mundane candidates with a runaway winner to break this ever-increasing cycle. Absent that, this is a double-digit growth spiral for several more election cycles. I never thought I would see $10m Congressional races and $100m Senate contests, and yet those are now everyday occurrences.
Digital fundraising is rising at a faster rate than overall spending
Of the $14.4bn in paid media spent during the 2020 cycle, 49% was raised online. The 2022 cycle should exceed $14bn in paid media spend, with over 60% likely to come from online fundraising. To put that in context – in 2014, less than 9% of the $4.4bn in contributions came in via online donors. Democrats, who are notably vocal about money in politics, spend the most – generally about 50% more than the Republicans.
Donors today are largely first-timers – and start small
For most donors over the last few cycles, giving to politics has been a new experience. Most of these contributions aren’t from big-dollar donors or PACs, but low-dollar donations from average Americans giving amounts between $30 and $100 (76.1% of Act Blue Democratic donors in 2020 were first-time donors).
Americans have a love-hate relationship with political giving. When asked to give $1 on their tax return to fund campaigns, most Americans said ‘no’ to the voluntary check-off, and the fund was running out of money. Taxpayers generally believed politicians should finance their own campaigns and leave the public out of them. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, candidates used direct mail to gather low-dollar gifts, but it was slow and expensive. In 2008, social media entered the scene and spilled over into news and politics. With its proliferation of inflammatory messages and clickbait, social media was the ideal incubator for online giving. While less than 1% of voters donated to campaigns in the past, that number is now up to 10% and continues to grow.
How companies can mimic political fundraising techniques
I always call online fundraisers the best marketers in the world. Why? Because in return for their funds, consumers get absolutely nothing of tangible value – no product and not even a tax deduction.
What makes them such good marketers? They believe in math. They have hundreds of people who craft messages, then test them methodically and go big with the ones that work. They refine their lists, carefully managing their communications to people to avoid overload or confusing and contradictory messages. And they utilize low-cost, effective messaging techniques, driving campaigns through email and increasingly via text messaging, as consumers switch their preferred communication modes.
Today, these fundraisers employ the process and rigor that most corporations should envy: ample message creation, thorough testing, careful media mix modeling and rigorous adherence to performance standards and return on investment. Politics once again leads the way in how to structure and carry out effective online marketing. This rigorous approach would and is working for commercial online marketing, though retail marketers have more limits on how aggressive they can be. Still, they can treat Thanksgiving, Prime Days and Christmas as a kind of commercial election day, working up to harvesting sales in the same way that political fundraising is mostly prospecting until the campaign’s final months. Commercial marketers can also be more aggressive via text messaging to mimic these successful political messages.
Political fundraising is only starting to hit its groove and has many potential roads for broad expansion. While online fundraising exploded in 2020, only 20% of the 180 million Americans who voted in that cycle donated to a campaign, and under 2% of the country gave over $200. By comparison, over 70% of Americans gave to charity in 2020, totaling $324.1bn in individual contributions that mirror the scale and spend of small-dollar political contributions. The addressable digital advocacy and political fundraising markets represent massive growth opportunities.
Galvanizing the masses around a cause: still the mandate
Online political fundraising is, in essence, fan marketing. It’s about getting those who care most about your brand to be even more passionate and committed. When an employee of a competitor company insults a customer, don’t just sit there – use it to your advantage and broadcast it to your loyal fans. Most commercial marketing, even online, is passionless and saccharine; if you want to be as successful as political marketers, you will have to take some risks and be bolder. Now, this may not fit all corporate brands, but that’s the advantage that upstart challenger brands have in the marketplace – they can be free to be out there, within the bounds of good humor and taste.
To be clear, political ads continue to be a discipline unto themselves, built primarily around negative messages with no clear analog in commercial marketing. Online fundraising also includes tough negative messages, but is built mainly around bringing people together as part of a group that wants to help a cause. This new technique is at the forefront of what’s possible in this new online world as more and more people are plugged into news and current events. Online fundraising can and will expand into the not-for-profit world, but it will surely lead the way in fan marketing for breakthrough companies as well.
Mark Penn is chairman and chief executive officer of New York-based marketing group Stagwell.
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NEW YORK – Sept. 29, 2022 – Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW), the challenger network built to transform marketing, hired Mansoor Basha as chief technology officer (CTO) of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud (SMC). Joining from the Applied Intelligence Practice at Accenture, Mansoor will be responsible for the technology roadmap, data strategy and cloud portfolio integration across the SMC, Stagwell’s proprietary suite of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and data-as-a-service (DaaS) products built for in-house marketers.
Mansoor brings more than 20 years of experience across product development, management and marketing, engineering, and new business development. While at Accenture, he was responsible for strategy and consulting, data-led transformation, cloud analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning-based use cases, and scenario analysis for several Fortune 500 companies.
“Every company is now a digital marketing company but most lack the resources to develop the tools they need to actually engage in modern marketing,” said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO, Stagwell. “With Mansoor’s deep background in both building and marketing innovative tech solutions, the Stagwell Marketing Cloud is well positioned to build a digital marketing infrastructure that any CMO, at any company, can take advantage of.”
“I’ve spent my career blending business strategy and technical acumen to bring transformative products to market – the very same special combination that attracted me to Stagwell and the Marketing Cloud,” said Mansoor Basha, CTO, Stagwell Marketing Cloud. “From the acquisition of Apollo Program to boost its first-party data infrastructure, to the recent launch of the first shared augmented reality experience in a live event setting with ARound and the Minnesota Twins, it’s clear that Stagwell takes a thoughtful, strategic approach to building the SMC, paving the way for organizations to deliver marketing innovation at whatever scale they need.”
Mansoor also currently serves as an investment advisor to 11.2 Ventures and Purple Arch Ventures, as well as an adjunct faculty member teaching digital marketing at New York University. He will join Chief Product Officer Abe Geiger, Chief Marketing Officer Elspeth Rollert and Managing Director Matthew Lochner on the SMC leadership team.
The Stagwell Marketing Cloud is a proprietary suite of SaaS and DaaS tools built for the in-house marketer, spanning capabilities such as brand intelligence to media activation and influencer management. Products within the cloud include ARound, a first-of-its-kind stadium-level shared augmented reality platform; PRophet , a predictive AI platform for PR professionals; Koalifyed, an end-to-end influencer management platform; the Harris Brand Platform, delivering competitive brand intelligence; and more.
About Stagwell
Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.
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Looking to highlight what separates itself from competitors, Vivid Seats is going all in on its rewards program.
The ticket marketplace is debuting the first brand campaign for its Vivid Seats Rewards Program, which offers fans a free reward credit for every 10 tickets purchased. To promote the loyalty plan, Vivid Seats, with the help of agencies 72andSunny LA and Assembly, engineered an innovative media plan that gives one of SportsCenter’s most iconic features a new look.
“We’re not just coasting off of our laurels and performance marketing,” Vivid Seats chief marketing officer Tyra Neal told Adweek. “It is something we’ve always been great at, but building the brand side and getting people to come back and want to use Vivid Seats again has been some of the focus of my time here.”
Developed with creative agency 72andSunny LA, the ad features a librarian imagining the endless possibilities of what her free 11th ticket will be. She then transports from the relaxed stylings of a library to the raucous experience of live events such as a music concert or a sporting event.
Why it’s pushing loyalty
Customer loyalty has been front and center in Vivid Seats’ marketing plan since it underwent a rebrand last summer and changed its logo. Vivid Seats’ brand messaging has focused on its rewards program, which is one of its differentiators from its competitors. SeatGeek does not have a rewards program while Vivid’s other competitor, StubHub, has an auto-enrollment program that offers perks such as early VIP access or discounts to customers who have spent $10,000 or more on ticket purchases within a 12-month period. TicketMaster’s loyalty program—Audience Rewards—focuses on just Broadway and the performing arts.
The focus on building connections with consumers has seen some returns. Neal shared that Vivid Seats saw upward of a 10% increase in repeat rates for NBA and NHL ticket sales and is seeing similarly fast repeat rates in MLB.
Vivid Seats’ loyalty program allows fans enrolled in the rewards program to earn a stamp for every ticket they purchase. Once a fan has 10 stamps, they gain a reward credit amounting to the average value of the 10 stamps they’ve collected. Vivid Seats also has a tiered system with three levels titled Rising Star, Super Fan and Icon. Through these levels fans can receive ticket upgrades, exclusive access to industry events and other VIP perks.
The power of 11
The spot will air starting tonight, with its debut taking place during ESPN’s Monday Night Football game. It will run throughout the season according to Neal.
As a tie-in to the number 11, Vivid Seats will also sponsor a bonus 11th play on ESPN’s SportsCenter Top Ten, making it the first brand to add an 11th play to the segment.
The media campaign was done in collaboration with omnichannel agency Assembly.
Vivid Seats is also taking over the homepages of publications and official ticketing partners Rolling Stone, Bleacher Report and ESPN on Nov. 11 or 11/11. Additionally, it is partnering with global influencer marketing and technology agency Viral Nation to feature 11 different influencers for its “Real Rewards for Real Fans” social campaign.
Picks and tix
Toward the end of last year, Vivid Seats purchased sports betting app Betcha Sports for $25 million. It rebranded the app as “Vivid Picks” and integrated it into Vivid Seats as one app this summer. The brand is also debuting a separate ad for Vivid Picks in the fall.
“We’re offering fans something that other secondary ticket providers cannot which is not just a ticket, but an experience, especially on the sports side,” Neal said, explaining customers can double down on their favorite teams by seeing them in person and making picks inside of Vivid Picks.
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By
Robert Sawatzky,
Editor, Campaign Asia
Read this piece in Campaign Asia.
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Stagwell’s chief affiliate officer Anas Ghazi and APAC managing director Randy Duax tell Campaign the new affiliations are the result of a mix of inbound interest, strategic planning around capabilities and geographies, but were mostly driven by tangible activations on behalf of clients.
The global programme
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