Focus included talk of tech company consolidation and new plans for VR/AR in commercial messaging.
From left to right, Hearst chief content officer Joanna Coles, Snap Inc. CSO Imran Khan, and HBO CEO Richard Plepler.
Advertising Week 2017, which ran across multiple New York venues last month from September 25-29, #AWNewYork, highlighted a number of themes this year, including short form video, tech company consolidation and the ensuing potential oligarchy / anti-trust issues stemming from such deals, and perhaps most importantly for Animators and VFX artists, the wave of AR and VR in commercial messaging and all things public. Below are some of the top panels, thought leadership, entrepreneurship, and personalities participating in Advertising Week 2017!
On Thursday, Sept 27, Snapchat hosted a Town Hall featuring Snap Inc. CSO Imran Khan, Hearst chief content officer Joanna Coles, and HBO CEO Richard Plepler, to announce Snapchat’s new 3D Augmented Reality World Lenses, which allow brands to create their own AR social media stars, as Snapchat did with the dancing hot dog. Snapchat touted its brand partnerships with Bud Light and Warner Bros., the first to try out the new tool. The team also shared some striking stats about the platform’s usage, including how users have played with the dog face lens for 7 thousand years-worth of playtime, how 75% of people aged 13 to 35 are on Snapchat and how ⅔ of lift in ad awareness come in the first two seconds of usage.
From left to right, Amy Elkins, SVP of marketing for STXfilms and Jennifer Prince, managing director of Twitter.
Amy Elkins, SVP of marketing for STXfilms, and Jennifer Prince, managing director of Twitter reviewed a case study of the theatrical release for the film ‘Bad Moms,’ in their ‘Evolution of Entertainment Marketing in a Connected World’ panel.
New to Advertising Week New York this year was the TechX Experience, a the hands-on journey through interactive installations, innovations, and bleeding edge tech advancements with haptics.
One innovative company highlighted was Meural.com and their Meural Canvas, a Wi-Fi-connected digital canvas that gives you instant access to the past, present, and future of art, from the paintings of the Renaissance to the digital art of today. Their new TrueArt technology combines software, hardware, and firmware to provide a lifelike art-viewing experience similar to a gallery walkthrough.
Examples of curated collections – playlists of images that can run on an endless loops in a meural canvas.
On Monday, September 25, Arianna Huffington was joined by Uber’s SVP of leadership and strategy Frances Frei, along with Julia Boorstin of CNBC, to discuss workplace culture, diversity and inclusivity. Frances and Arianna reflected on how they worked together to reform Uber’s culture, starting with their “no brilliant jerks” policy, saying that no one will get a pass on company culture just because they are a top performer. When Frances joined Uber, she was most surprised by the lack of cross communication that occurred even in top boardroom meetings, where she would have colleagues texting each other as if they were sixth graders passing notes. Arianna drove this point home by saying companies need to be a more hospitable environment for women, “If a company has mothers pumping in the bathroom but space for ping pong tables, there is a problem.”
From left to right, Julia Boorstin, CNBC entertainment & media correspondent, Arianna Huffington and Frances Frei, SVP of leadership and strategy at Uber.
