Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i Adweek

IT LOOKED LIKE your typical heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, but the message on the lid intended to stop the recipient in their tracks: “Let’s have period sex.” Inside were truffles labeled “sex chocolate.” The campaign from U by Kotex, a menstrual care brand under Kimberly-Clark, aimed to break taboos with a blunt, attention-grabbing message that would make many marketers nervous. The agency behind it, Quality Meats, likes to get straight to the point. ADWEEK’s 2024 Small Agency of the Year sells itself on a transparent, frank approach that has attracted both big-name clients and creative accolades. Like a butcher that serves only the finest cuts of meat (the inspiration for the agency’s name), Quality Meats wants to “make some great work and remove all the BS that…

A CARTOON YUNG Gravy parties with a bedazzled pink tiger, serenades anthropomorphic fruit, and showers a concert crowd with Dr Pepper’s new soda flavor, Strawberries & Cream. The rapper’s surprise drop of a cheeky earworm, “Strawberries & Creamin’,” along with the animated music video and quirky swag, would turn out to be immediate hits with the Gen Z target audience. But giving the green light to such an unconventional campaign, even though it came from longtime agency of record Deutsch, initially took some convincing, according to Andrew Springate, CMO of parent company Keurig Dr Pepper. “It made us a little uncomfortable and certainly pushed boundaries,” Springate said. “But we loved the concept—it was differentiated, it was on brand and on strategy, and it played on multiple [media] channels.” Tipping the…

TBWA HAS STRUCK a difficult balance many agencies seek: strong local offices bound by a firm global brand, methodology, and way of working. This collective model has attracted an enduring client base, tenured talent, and work that blends its signature “disruption” approach with deep global market expertise. “It has always been this federation of agencies with strong ties to disruption, but also very strong conviction and point of view in their own markets,” said Erin Riley, U.S. CEO of TBWA. The approach led TBWA to mid-single digit growth in a difficult year for creative networks. Client wins, including Telstra, Levi’s, Specsavers, Heineken, and Health Promotion Board Singapore demonstrate global prowess, while a diversified reel indicates a true local flavor. The agency defines disruption as a philosophy and approach that directs…

• BEST USE OF DRIVE-UP EXPERIENCE BRAND: FENTY BEAUTY AGENCY: REDROCK ENTERTAINMENT THE EAZE DROP Stick, from Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, was made for light touch-ups when you’re out and about—even, say, while riding in the back of a car. Appropriately, the Fenty Beauty Drive-Thru Experience stressed the on-the-go nature of its product. For three days, hundreds of influencers were immersed in car culture at a Los Angeles coffee shop that agency partner Redrock Entertainment had turned into a nostalgic yet modern drive-thru. First, they were chauffeured in restored classic cars up to a window, where they received personal shade-matching services from Fenty beauticians, and could order “sides” of other products. Their gifts were then packaged in burger and French fry containers and handed to them in a bag, as though…

• BEST EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BY A TRAVEL BRAND BRAND: TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TOURIST DEVELOPMENT AGENCY: VML TENNESSEE HAS PLENTY of family-friendly attractions, but it rarely gets Disney-sized crowds. Rather than try to lure parents, the state’s tourist department focused on another demographic: kids, the biggest influencers of their parents’ vacation decisions. Before the 2023 holiday season began, the state began mailing out lavish brochures aimed at children that turned the state’s major tourist attractions into actual toys they could buy, in hopes of enticing families to visit the real deal. QR codes in the brochure made it all the easier to book excursions. In just a few months, tourism to Tennessee sites like Dollywood, the Grand Ole Opry and Ruby Falls sharply increased, with more than 30,000 bookings and over…

• BEST EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BY A TECHNOLOGY BRAND BRAND: MOTOROLA RAZR+ AGENCY: MIRRORED MEDIA PRODUCT LAUNCHES ARE often done as TED Talk-style presentations. That trend has gotten old hat, and it certainly won’t reach young consumers who ignore traditional advertising. Motorola came up with something new to bring back a piece of old tech: the once-ubiquitous Razr flip phone, reimagined as the razr+ smartphone. The phone giant teamed with beloved genre-defying performers Cirque du Soleil and agency Mirrored Media to dream up an origin story for the razr+, about a character named Juno and the army of engineers who created them. For the launch, Motorola chose the stunning neoclassical former Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn, where over 400 VIPs watched performers cavort about and fly above them in typically phantasmagoric…

THE HUGELY POPULAR YouTube educational series Gracie’s Corner began with two university professors stuck at home during the pandemic with their three young children. Since then, the animated show about a little girl’s musical adventures—inspired by their daughter Graceyn—has been nominated for awards alongside shows made by Disney, HBO, PBS, and Netflix, and generates more than 80 million monthly views. The show took home the NAACP Award for Outstanding Children’s Program this year. “We were this little family that was doing most of our production at home,” creators Javoris and Arlene Gordon-Hollingsworth said. “To be amongst such amazing talent and people who have multimillion-dollar budgets and see us included—it was a true eye-opening moment.” The popular YouTube series covers everything from eating veggies to the beauty of natural Black hair,…

TWENTY YEARS AGO, I sold my namesake agency I founded at age 27 to Edelman. At the time, many accused me of being a sellout, but the truth is I would have sold out had I not sold the agency. I never intended to establish a shop of my own. But after a rather chilling #MeToo experience, I left the agency world and pursued freelance publicity work full-time. After a couple of years, I had a roster of clients, a business partner, and a brilliant team. JCPR grew to become a maverick, culturally connected operation. As our growth journey accelerated, so did our fame. We were approached with quite a few offers for acquisition, including by Dan and Richard Edelman. For most entrepreneurs, reaching this point is the ultimate marker…

ATLANTA-BASED MAJORITY doesn’t have a DEI strategy. The 3-year-old agency, ADWEEK’s 2024 Multicultural Agency of the Year, is built on a philosophy that reaches far beyond the industry’s definition of DEI—and even this award category. Its success is accelerating as a result. That’s not to say the 50-person shop isn’t diverse. Around 80% of Majority’s employees—including the C-suite—represent BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. But rather than engineering a fix for the industry’s representation failures, Majority’s founders are guided by a simple truth: Communities of color and queer people drive popular culture, and building a team comprised of people from those backgrounds is the best way to authentically tap into culture on behalf of brands. “There is a gap between cultural influence and the influence of those who look to connect culture…

FEW STARTUP AGENCIES get handed Super Bowl work in their first year of business. Even fewer follow up with more Big Game work and lauded campaigns, all while staying relatively under the radar. Mirimar has done all that, and keeps building on its success. But many still don’t know about the small, independent agency, as the team focuses on the work rather than notoriety. Founders Luke and John McKelvey, brothers from Australia, started their careers at big agencies before launching their own shop, based in Los Angeles with a presence in New York. They saw the shortcomings in the traditional agency model and sought to build a shop at the forefront of culture by coordinating original ideas, earned media, talent, and entertaining content. “To be one of the storied agencies…

• BEST INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION • BEST EVENT IN SUPPORT OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION BRAND: CEAFA (SPANISH ASSOCIATION AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S AND OTHER DEMENTIAS) AGENCY: MOMENTUM WORLDWIDE IT CAN BE difficult for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease to explain their symptoms to others. But one group found a way to convey its effects in creative and profound ways. CEAFA, the Spanish Association Against Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias, designed Lost in the World, a Fortnite map that turns the world’s most popular video game into the first immersive Alzheimer’s simulator. Designed in partnership with medical specialists, players could experience the disease’s most common early symptoms, such as disorientation, memory glitches and swapping words. In the game, players watch as night suddenly turns into day (time dissociation) or unexpectedly find themselves in strange…

• EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION OVER $1 MILLION • EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BY A SPIRITS OR ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE BRAND BRAND: JAMESON WHISKEY AGENCY: 160OVER90 IT’S NOT EVERY year that a new holiday is invented, but Jameson Whiskey did just that. The ideal day for St. Patrick’s Day is a Saturday, which allows revelers (162 million in the U.S. alone) to booze it up without fear of reporting to work the next day. Sadly, that hadn’t happened since 2012, but it would have happened in 2024—had it not been a Leap Year, thus bumping the holiday to a Sunday. So Jameson created St. Patrick’s Eve to encourage celebrating the day before and devote the actual St. Patrick’s Day to recovery. To get people excited, Jameson and agency partner 160over90 organized hundreds of bar takeovers…

• BEST USE OF A CELEBRITY IN AN EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BRAND: LAW & ORDER: SVU ON NBCUNIVERSAL AGENCY: NVE EXPERIENCE AGENCY LAW & ORDER: Special Victims Unit turned 25 in 2024, but there’s no easy way to create a fun celebration around a show about heinous crimes. And yet that’s what NBCUniversal did with Olivia Benson Plaza, which turned New York City’s iconic Rockefeller Center into a valentine to the program and its most constant presence. Played by Mariska Hargitay since 1999, the NYPD officer-turned-captain has been as much a source of comfort as the show’s signature dun-dun. So for two days in March, NBC and NVE Experience Agency gave fans a chance to immerse themselves the more lighthearted aspects of Olivia Benson’s world, such as grabbing La Colombe coffee…

• BEST CONSUMER ACTIVATION BRAND: MCDONALD’S AGENCY: WE ARE SOCIAL US MCDONALD’S HAS LONG been a fixture of anime, so it made sense for the fast-food giant to launch a campaign centered on the beloved Japanese style of animation. In March, a McDonald’s location on one of the busiest intersections in Los Angeles was reconfigured as the WcDonald’s Immersive Dining Experience, treating brand enthusiasts, foodies, and members of the anime community to a feast for all five senses. Guests were plunged into a multisensory alternate anime reality, seated together at dining tables—communal eating being another fixture of anime—while surrounded by 360-degree projected visuals and 4D sound. An animated host guided them through a four-act story designed by McDonald’s Japanese storytelling partners, each episode integrating a different menu item such as…

KATIE MACKAY-SINCLAIR has spent 17 years at Mother London. But it was on maternity leave this year that the agency partner got a new perspective on her work family. Between late-night feedings and gummy smiles, she experienced Mother’s “The Co-Worker”—an Ikea recruitment campaign that invited people to work for the brand on Roblox—through the eyes of a consumer. “Friends of mine were asking if I’d seen it,” she said. “Admiring Mother from the outside and afar, seeing a great piece of work for one of our longest-running clients, was so special.” Mackay-Sinclair returned in September to an agency at the top of its game. In the 12 months between October 2023 and October 2024, Mother’s fees from revenues shot up 17%. Mother’s roots have been firmly planted in the U.K.…

FOR GREG HAHN, co-founder and chief creative officer of Mischief @ No Fixed Address, the riskiest thing a brand can do is be “ignorable.” Mischief’s own brand of creativity has been hard to ignore the past few years. Producing brave work for clients, from Goldfish’s “Chilean Sea Bass” rebrand to Coors Light’s “Time Capsule” spot, Mischief has been on a mission to “create a stir and a conversation.” The agency has consistently earned a spot as one of ADWEEK’s agencies of the year since 2021. It keeps its place on the list as 2024 Midsize Agency of the Year, owing to a provocative approach that has delivered a revenue increase of 36% in the year to December. The agency has been profitable every year since its inception. Mischief has grown…

• EXPERIENTIAL AGENCY OF THE YEAR AN ACQUISITION DOESN’T need to be the end of a company’s story. For experiential marketing agency Sparks, it was just the beginning. In August 2023, multinational events firm Freeman announced it had purchased Philadelphia-based Sparks and its legacy business, dating back to 1919. At the time, Sparks already counted Amazon, Anheuser-Busch, Delta Air Lines, Google, Meta, Pfizer, and Salesforce among its clients, and had become a significant brand itself—working on 4,000 projects a year for 400 clients across 60 countries. “When we did come together, one of the things that we looked at right away was, where is the overlap?” said Kristy Elisano, Sparks’ chief marketing officer. “We knew that [Sparks’ brand] worked because of Google, ServiceNow, Amazon. We already have proof points, because…

• BEST USE OF VIDEO IN AN EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BRAND: METACORE AGENCY: JACK MORTON SINCE 2020, Merge Mansion has been one of the world’s biggest mobile games, with 45 million fans obsessed with restoring the dilapidated grounds surrounding Grandma Ursula’s mysterious mansion. But that residence had always been locked up, prompting players to wonder what Grandma could be hiding. That changed in 2023, when Finnish gaming company Metacore decided to finally open the doors and let players explore its freaky secrets. But how to make this grand opening even more newsworthy? By expanding into social media and real life with the help of agency partner Jack Morton. First came a video, Merge Mansion Unlocked, starring Pedro Pascal as a detective who enlisted fans to join him in unlocking the mansion’s…

• BEST USE OF PARTNERSHIP IN AN EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION • BEST SPORTS-RELATED EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION • BEST CAUSE-RELATED EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVATION BRAND: ELA X NEWCASTLE UNITED AGENCY: SPECTACLE FOOTBALL IS ONE of the most popular sports on the globe, but fans with hearing issues—more than 12 million in the U.K. alone—can’t experience a live game like everyone else. That changed with “Unsilence the Crowd,” a groundbreaking campaign between Manchester United Football Club and the sports event and marketing company Sela, with additional help from the UK’s Royal National Institute for the Deaf. Sela designed a special shirt to help a passionate yet underrepresented group of football fans feel closer to the crowd. The Sela Sound Shirt uses haptic technology to send the crowd’s cheers to the shirts, which have 28 vibration motors…