In the category of I-need-to-write-this-down-now-while-it’s-fresh (and also afraid that if I don’t, I’ll get busy and this post will simply be backburnered, like the one I had written from the Town & Country Philanthropy Summit, yet to be posted, sigh), here are my notes from Thursday’s ANA Advertising & Marketing Conference @Citi that featured award-winning ad campaigns from brands ranging from consumer packaged goods and auto, to lifestyle and tech.

Now, before I get into the amazing campaigns explored, just a few preliminary FYIs…

  1. This ANA stands for Association of National Advertisers—not the American Nurses Association, nor the airline, All Nippon Airways.
  2. The event was in conjunction with the Effie Awards, with the brands mentioned below being recent winners. By the way, the official name of the event was “ANA/Effies Effective Marketing & Media Insights” (link takes you to the description and agenda page).
  3. Full disclosure: The primary reason I was pretty stoked about attending this conference was that it was being held at the Citibank building in Long Island City, as in steps away from my apartment building. That the topic was pretty on-point and useful for my line of work and that the event turned out to be very educational is basically me having my cake and eating it too.
  4. Oh, I’m not done with the Citibank bit. My husband (who is in digital marketing) and I always joke about wanting to work there given its location. Or Jetblue, which is also down the block. Two can dream, right?

Now onto the meaty bits!

JAGUAR AND THE BRITISH VILLAINS

“Have you ever noticed how in Hollywood movies all the villains are played by Brits?” mused the advertising folks at Jaguar. Well, ain’t it true?!

For its 2014 Superbowl spots, the British carmaker pulled out all the stops in spotlighting this canny coincidence via the endorsement of three villainous superstars none other than Sir Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong, and Tom Hiddleston (Loki, as loved by comicbook geeks the world over). Check out their #itsgoodtobebad video above.

AMERICAN GREETINGS’ NON-TRADITIONAL (CUSTOM) GREETING CARD PITCH

I have to talk about this NOW in case you plan on skipping over the rest of the post. 🙂 I got very teary-eyed and was a bit embarrassed so as I tried to appear “business-like” but alas, two teardrops trickled down by the tail end and I just had to pick up my napkin to whisk them away. No, but really, this is adorable and to be shared, just watch:


Did you cry? 🙂

NEWCASTLE BEER AND THE SUP*R B*WL AD THAT THEY DIDN’T MAKE

Now something to make you laugh, this is brilliant! I know, this was a big deal over a year ago and I’m pretty late to the party, but still worth a shout-out to the ad and marketing folks at Newcastle.

Part of the Heineken family, the “No Bollocks” beer brand created a whole campaign “If We Made It” about what would they have done if they had the resources AND legal permission to advertise in the Superbowl. Lo and behold, the crew ended up winning AdWeek’s Ad of the Year for an ad that technically did not exist.

Here’s the teaser:

A quick glimpse of the storyboard:

The full “The Mega Huge Football Game Ad Newcastle Could’ve Made”:

And the “behind the scenes” spot with Anna Kendrick:

IBM, WATSON, AND THE “COGNITIVE COOKING” FOOD TRUCK

TBH, I was the least interested in this one upon scanning the agenda. As it turns out, had I known exactly what it was, my starting opinion would have been different.

IBM created the supercomputer Watson, which competed on Jeopardy! in 2011 and went on to win the first place prize of $1 million (per Wiki). At 2014’s South by Southwest (SxSW), the company, in partnership with the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE), brought in the “Cognitive Cooking” food truck. I’ll let Fast Company handle the rest of the description:

“This weekend in Austin, IBM showed off Watson’s Cognitive Cooking program, a system that taps into the supercomputer’s analytics and machine learning tools to whip up novel recipes, depending on user tastes and food preferences.”

Recipes created include Peruvian Potato Poutine, Creole Lamb Shrimp Dumpling, Baltic Apple Pie, Swiss-Thai Asparagus Quiche, and more. View them here.

HBO’S “AWKWARD” CAMPAIGN
This was hilarious! The videos speak for themselves:

HBO GO – Awkward Family Viewing – Unconditional Love from SS+K on Vimeo.

HBO GO – Awkward Family Viewing – What’s He In from SS+K on Vimeo.

HBO GO – Awkward Family Viewing – Faithful from SS+K on Vimeo.