ANA CEO Sets the High Bar for Driving Growth
Kym Frank Shares the 2018 ANA Annual Masters of Marketing Conference
What is on the Minds of the World’s Biggest Marketers?
by Kym Frank, President, Geopath
Kym Frank Shares the 2018 ANA Annual Masters of Marketing Conference
This week, 3,000 advertising professionals convened in Orlando, Florida at the Rosen Shingle Creek for the ANA’s Annual Masters of Marketing Conference. If you have never had the opportunity to attend this event, it is nearly overwhelming. It is easy to find yourself at lunch sitting down with strangers, and realizing they are marketing leads from major brands or agency planners or founders of emerging tech companies. The booths feature Virtual Reality, custom head-shots, caricatures, and tons of giveaways. I just saw LL Cool J in the hallway. And you cannot beat the entertainment. Dinner on Wednesday night featured a special performance by Train, and Thursday evening’s performance features Kelly Clarkson, sponsored by iHeartMedia.
Did I mention the content? The agenda includes speeches from the likes of Jeff Charney, CMO of Progressive (who got all 3000 attendees to stand up and sing “Heaven is a Place on Earth) and Vineet Mehra, Global CMO of Ancestry (which collected nearly 2,000 gallons of spit in 2017…enough to make more than 31,000 cups of rice). Yuck!
What does this have to do with Geopath, and why is Kym there? Well…
Geopath was founded in 1933 to establish a universal, transparent, measurement system governed by buyers and sellers. This was a combined effort between the ANA, the 4As, and the OAAA, organizations who all still hold a seat on the Geopath Board of Directors today. Bob Liodice, ANA CEO, personally represents his organization on the Geopath board, and we are grateful for his participation.
Liodice kicked off Wednesday morning’s main stage by telling us that “in order to grow, we must embrace fearlessness.”
Bob Liodice, “in order to grow, we must embrace fearlessness.”
One of the ways that the ANA is achieving this is through the ANA’s Masters Circle, which was launched in 2017. According to their website, the ANA CMO Masters Circle includes 1,000 of the topmost marketing executives from leading brands across ANA member companies. Liodice shared the group’s 12-point agenda that is “designed to remove obstacles and maximize opportunities to affect business growth and society worldwide.” These are the key matters important to advertisers, and as a result, they should be vital to the OOH industry.
12-point agenda that is “designed to remove obstacles and maximize opportunities to affect business growth and society worldwide.”
#1) Brand Innovation and Creative Excellence – The ANA will “prioritize brand-building innovation” and “double down on being customer-centric.”
#2) Data and Technology – One of the largest opportunities to reach consumers and positively impact brand growth, the ANA is working to generate best practices for CMOs.
#3) Talent Development – The ANA Masters Circle indicates that there is a “dearth of talent” coming into the industry. The ANA’s Talent Forward Alliance is working to find an develop marketing talent.
#4) Marketing Organization Management – The ANA is investing in research to help optimize “organizational structure, budget priorities, roles and responsibilities, agencies, and support functions.”
#5) Measurement and Accountability – The Masters Circle indicates the lack of capacity, capability, and transparency to effectively measure advertising. They are leveraging the Data Analytics Center (DAC) and the Data Marketing and Analytics Division to improve “data management, analytics, and accountability and provide overarching governance.” One of their key agendas is to open the walled gardens and improve transparency across measurement solutions. This is an issue that does not plague the OOH industry because of the investment in a universal, transparent and third-party currency (sorry for the plug).
#6) Brand Purpose and Sustainability – The Masters Circle is also prioritizing focus on driving marketing with a purpose that helps facilitate “societal good.”
#7) Equality: Gender, Multiculturalism, and Inclusiveness – The Masters Circle agrees that marketers have a responsibility to encourage diversity. Their #SeeHer Initiative, which partnered extensively with Clear Channel Outdoor, works to improve gender bias from advertising content. The ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) is also squarely focused on promoting change across the advertising ecosystem.
#8) Streamlining the Digital Media Supply Chain – According to the ANA, “Less than 40 percent of a brand’s digital media investment reaches the intended target audience,” resulting in more than $20 billion in wasted marketing dollars. The group is looking for solutions for optimizing consumer reach and streamlining the “unruly” digital ecosystem.
#9) Transparency – The ANA is encouraging marketers to demand transparency across four different verticals:
- Media Transparency
- Programmatic Transparency
- Production
- Viewability
#10) Brand Safety and Ad Fraud – The news continues to report on the unsavory organizations profiting from ad fraud. The ANA is working with the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) and other fraud-fighting organizations to improve the industry’s vulnerability, reduce fraud, and improve brand safety.
#11) Advocacy and Self-Regulation – Liodice and the Masters Circle encourage industry support of the ANA’s government relations initiatives. Key concerns include General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Privacy Act.
#12) The Future of Advertising, Marketing and Growth – The ANA and the Masters Circle continue their focus on rising opportunities to transform the advertising industry in the year to come, including the generation of best practices, protocols, and guidelines.
Liodice closed his speech with the following, “We build brands. We grow businesses. We create jobs. We influence lives. We build careers. We have an impact on society. As an industry, our job is to advance and defend the right of all marketers. Let’s be proud of what we do.”
“We build brands. We grow businesses. We create jobs. We influence lives. We build careers. We have an impact on society. As an industry, our job is to advance and defend the right of all marketers. Let’s be proud of what we do.”
This is an ambitious and inspiring list of priorities. I encourage us all to find ways that the OOH industry can advance these goals on behalf of the entire advertising community.
