Table of contents for January 6, 2020 in Adweek

Despite the high-profile closings and acquisitions in 2019, 2020 could be a great year for independent agencies. Industry trends, including clients moving to project-based relationships and new capabilities leading to the democratization of data, are cutting down on scale-based advantages of global networks, allowing independent agencies to thrive. In December, Wieden + Kennedy was awarded Adweek’s U.S. Agency of the Year title for the second consecutive year, in part on the strength of being named U.S. creative AOR for McDonald’s over Omnicom’s dedicated unit We Are Unlimited. A few weeks prior, Knoxville, Tenn.-based independent agency Tombras expanded to New York with three new client relationships shortly after hiring Barton F. Graf and JWT vet Jeff Benjamin as CCO. Meeting previously unmet client needs Forrester principal analyst Jay Pattisall called W+K…

Brand activations have come a long way in achieving consumer engagement. The last few years, in particular, saw experiential marketing steadily mature, from a quirky niche tactic to a full-on, multiplatform strategy. And in this new decade marketers will only see more pressure to drive creativity to achieve a successful ROI and social media traction. Here, experiential pros from across the U.S. share their insights on what’s in store. BRANDS GOING DTC WITH TICKETED EVENTS Brands like Bravo, Eater, The New York Times and Revolt have recently launched multiday, ticketed consumer events and festivals, which will continue into 2020, according to Rich Goodstone, co-founder of live entertainment and experience agency Superfly. “Experiential will continue to go beyond a one-time brand activation to a monetized offering that will open up new…

FIND JOY IN YOUR JOURNEY I have chosen to find joy in every job. It’s a distinction that I’ve had to make that I learned pretty early on actually. Essentially, because I felt that no environment was optimized for me—they were optimized for other people. And so, if I was going to stay sane and also to be able to do the job that I really wanted to do, I had to find the joy in not just the job, but in the brand, in my colleagues, in the industry. I had to find it. And that is what has kept me so positive and optimistic. DON’T PLAY IT SAFE I feel like my career has not been safe at all. I’ve probably taken moves and jumps and decisions that…

When Swedish environmental advocate Greta Thunberg first stepped onto American soil in late August after more than two weeks of travel, it wasn’t on the carpeted floor of an airport. It was on the wooden dock of a marina in Lower Manhattan. Thunberg had sailed for 15 days from the U.K., pointedly choosing to travel by water in keeping with Europe’s flight-shame movement, of which she is a vocal proponent. While the movement, which urges people to fly less to combat climate change, has yet to take off here, it’s also no longer a distant possibility. American consumers are increasingly aware of the harmful effects of climate change. And that, in turn, has created a marketing challenge for the global airline industry, which has begun embracing carbon offsets in order…

Orchestrated photo moments Kleinhaut said brands should move away from building photo booths and floral walls simply for guests to pose, explaining that they often don’t connect with an experience’s purpose. “If an installation happens to inspire photos or look compelling in a space while also contributing to the overall message of the experience, then it has its place,” she said. The museum of everything The Museum of Ice Cream pioneered the “Instagram museum” concept when it launched in 2016, but the selfie factory model has become tired, according to Chiara Adin, co-founder and chief creative officer of N/A Collective, which creates events for Tinder and Twitter. “There is no need for another museum of tomatoes, color, rosé or pizza,” Adin said. “Brands’ multiroom experiences created around a single theme…

When Ken Brook founded the blockchain ad-tech startup MetaX in early 2017, the notion of applying the decentralized ledger system behind cryptocurrency to the ills of digital advertising was still relatively novel. A prolonged rally in the price of bitcoin had brought buzz to all things blockchain, and the company received plenty of early attention. Other startups soon followed in droves. But the transparency and security promises that the tech promised failed to materialize. Some blame the lack of technical infrastructure and the fact that even to this day, many people are at a loss to explain exactly what blockchain is and even conflate it with bitcoin. Others suggest the established ad-tech order was naturally resistant to such subversion. Whatever the reason, in just two years, blockchain fatigue has clearly…

In 1977, The Rockford Files on NBC was entering its fourth season. Playing the dashing but down-on-his-luck private eye Jim Rockford was veteran Hollywood actor James Garner. The gig made the handsomely weathered Garner one of the most recognized men on the tube. So when Polaroid hired him to pitch its latest product, Americans sat up on their sofas and paid attention. The product was the OneStep. “The easiest way ever to take pictures,” Garner assured viewers. No worries about focusing or light levels: “Just press the button and the motor hands it to you,” Garner said. Millions ran out and bought one, and the $39.95 OneStep became the best-selling camera in the U.S. That was 42 years ago. Today—a time of AI, blockchain and 5G—a little plastic camera that…

There was a time, not too long ago, that a TV set was the most substantial piece of consumer electronics in the American home. In the mid-1960s, a dashing young couple like this looking to buy, say, a 20-inch Zenith color console would be parting with around $500. In today’s money, that’s well north of $4,000. Of course, that couple would also have held onto their set for a decade or longer. Today, everything has changed. TVs are cheap (almost disposable), and they no longer have dominion in the living room. While the average daily time we all spend watching stuff is actually about the same now as it was in 1965 (6 hours versus 5½), we’re increasingly staring at laptops and smartphone screens. A 2017 Accenture survey found that…