CW does Advertising Week.

Picture this. You and 15,000 other advertising enthusiasts are left to roam free in a four-story building in the heart of NYC’s Penn District. While it may sound like the premise for a new reality show (Squid Game meets The Pitch?), it’s actually just the intense, crazy, fun week that is Advertising Week New York. And I was thrilled to represent Crowley Webb there this past October.

Advertising Week New York is an annual four-day conference that brings together marketers, agency folks, influencers, and celebs to share thoughts, ideas, and trends across the industry and beyond. The week consists of thought leadership (more than 1,000 speakers were on hand this year), brand activations, networking events, and The Future is Female Awards.

It’s a busy four days for sure. And like anything in life, the more you put into it, the more you get out. Knowing I’d have to choose between many interesting overlapping sessions each day, I carefully plotted out my days based on my interests, and ultimately made it to around 40 sessions over the four days. I think I have the conference map permanently imprinted in my brain.

Advertising Week has been on my conference bucket list for a while now, and it did not disappoint. In the interest of sharing some of what I learned, here are a handful of themes that emerged throughout the week that I’m most passionate about.

Social listening is more important than ever.

A lot of the work everyone is loving these days was born out of social listening. For example, CeraVe’s Michael Cera Super Bowl campaign last year came from a comment on a conspiracy theory thread on Reddit. Knowing what people are saying about your brand – good, bad, or weird – is so crucial to creating authentic work. I think our instincts as marketers is to go looking for commentary around things we’re interested in saying, rather than truly listening to what’s being said. As one speaker put it, we should “listen without intention.” Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for and that’s when the magic can happen. (I can feel our analytics team’s hearts swelling from here.)

Storytelling is still key.

Regardless of industry, brand, or budget, storytelling is the great equalizer. As Radhika Duggal, the chief marketing officer at Major League Soccer, so perfectly put it, “Awareness is not the same as interest, that’s the power of storytelling.” Brands shouldn’t aim to only tell their stories, but rather look for meaningful ways to amplify others’. A highlight for me was when Anuj Bhasin, Gatorade’s chief brand officer, shared their partnership with Josh Allen – and how they’ve worked together to amplify his story. Reinforcing the idea that telling one truly impactful story well is more powerful than telling a handful of less impactful ones. You bet your blue cheese I gave him a “Go Bills!” from the audience.

If you want to win on social, you must be willing to take risks.

Advertising and pop culture have never been more connected than they are today. With pop culture informing brand strategy and creative decisions more than ever before. It’s no coincidence that we’re witnessing more brand collabs influenced by pop culture as a result too (Did you get your Barbie Stanley?). With all of that said, a majority of the disruption is happening on social – where the price of entry is risk-taking and timing. Every brand wants to know the secret to going viral. But the secret is there is no secret, but rather behaviors, that increase your chances of creating content people are excited to engage with and share. And one of those is volume. You have to be willing to put a lot out there with the expectation that most of it will fall flat. This is a hard pill for brands to swallow. Heck, it’s a hard pill for me to swallow. And when it comes to participating in trends – timing. is. everything. Two quotes I keep coming back to are, “If you think you’re too late to a trend, that’s your answer.” and “It’s better to be timely, than to be perfect.”

I could go on and on about what I learned and how I was inspired, but a 2,000-word blog post doesn’t feel like the move. I’ll leave you with this, if you’re looking for help with social listening, storytelling, or making a splash on social, let’s keep talking.