Each year, the HSMAI Adrian Awards are held to celebrate achievements in marketing across areas such as advertising, digital, and public relations/communications, with a focus on travel and hospitality. At this year’s 66th annual celebration, our “Life. At Your Pace.” campaign for Visit Williamsburg, won bronze in three categories. 

• Television (Advertising Division)
• Content Marketing (Integrated Campaign Division)
• Social Media Campaign (Digital Division)

In addition to these wins, the campaign has racked up a lengthy list of accolades, including a 2021 Silver HSMAI Adrian Award last year. 

Read more about the HSMAI Adrian Awards here 

Check out some of our work for Visit Williamsburg

Check out the details on last year’s win

Another round of congratulations are in order for CP Dublin and ZOO Digital, as they’ve placed in the 2022 Digital Media Awards. They’ve taken home three of the prestigious awards which reflect the very best in the industry. See the full list of winners on the DMA website. For more information on our nominated work, check out our previous coverage on the awards.

 Best Strategy – Silver

ZOO Digital – Electric Ireland

Best App – Bronze

ZOO – Digital – MyMilkman

Best Social Media Campaign – Bronze

Connelly Partners Dublin – MyExpressway

Alyssa Stevens, Director of Public Relations and Social Media

Set in the beautiful South of France, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is one of my favorite industry events to attend. While the Côte d’Azur is certainly a magnificent destination to visit, the speakers, content, and networking opportunities that this conference brings are also unmatched. Due to the pandemic, 2019 was the last time that Cannes Lions was hosted in person and judging by the undeniable energy of attendees and the all-star lineup of speakers, it was clear that I wasn’t the only one who was thrilled to be back!

This year’s visit marked my third time attending Cannes Lions, and as I reflect on all of the sessions and conversations, there are several recurring themes and topics that were woven throughout the conference. As marketers, especially those of us who specialize in the social media and influencer marketing industries, the future is bright. With Web 3 continuing to gain traction, TikTok dominating the social media landscape, and social commerce riding the coattails of ecommerce, I couldn’t be more energized by my experience at Cannes Lions.

While I wish I could have teleported you to the Mediterranean to soak up the knowledge and trends that Cannes Lions imparted, the next best thing is sharing a few of the key takeaways from my time on the Croisette…

Consumers’ expectations for brands are higher than ever before

Consumers are becoming more and more discerning about the brands they want to align themselves with, and as a result, we’re seeing a shift in how brands are approaching innovation. In a “CMOs in the Spotlight” series featuring chief marketing officers from L’Oreal, The Lego Group, and Marriott International, the focus was on how today’s shopper wants quality services/products that also help to change the world and the effect that mindset has on a brand’s internal innovation process. Brand purpose is more important than ever before, but those efforts and innovation have to start within the company before trickling down to the consumer level. Consumers want to feel like they are part of a solution when they invest in a product or service, and in turn, brands are working harder than ever before to use creativity and innovation to drive progress. This shift in the consumer mindset will continue to evolve, so it’s up to marketers to decide what their brand stands for and how that affects their upcoming initiatives and launches. It’s not just about what a brand says they do, it’s about what they actually do and how consumers can get involved with it. 

Influencer 3.0 focuses on “Join Me” vs. “Watch Me”

When influencers first became a thing, it was all about visually pleasing photos and perfectly curated feeds, but as the industry grows and more global brands invest significant budgets towards influencer marketing, we’re beginning to see a shift in both brand and consumer expectations around influencer content. During a session led by content creator @AlexisRen and the VP of Marketing and Communications (Americas) at Burberry, the idea of influencers building a community for a brand vs. just posting photos was a main theme. Influencers are held to a high standard by their followers to share authentic content because their audience craves a story around the products/experience that they post instead of just seeing a nice image. Brands can help influencers build audience trust by truly collaborating with them instead of just renting their ad space and reach. Influencer 3.0 is expected to place a higher emphasis on the “substance equation,” encouraging influencers and brands to create collaborations built around reliability, passion, humility, and vulnerability. These are the type of influencer programs that are expected to best resonate with today’s consumer. 

The customer journey is shortening and social media is leading the way

Brands are realizing that as consumer attention spans shrink, they need to maximize the time they have with shoppers and meet them where they are…and that’s on social media. 81% of shoppers were already using social media to discover brands/research experiences before the pandemic and now the customer journey has been shortened, allowing them to convert directly from social. With social media platforms evolving their shopping capabilities, we will see more brands play in this space and put additional marketing dollars into converting consumers directly from social. In a session led by WARC, the speakers acknowledged that while social commerce is exciting, it also puts a larger onus on the brand to make their social media and influencer collaborations compelling enough to entice consumers to click through to purchase within moments of seeing their product/service. As a consumer, I’ve personally done this and love the ease and instant gratification of the transaction, but as a marketer, I feel the increased pressure to ensure that my clients’ social presence is working as hard as it can to resonate with its target social media audience. 

NFTs may be here to stay

NFTs…a topic that everyone wants to discuss, but one that most people don’t know much about. According to executives from Vayner Media, NFTs are here to stay, and in order for brands to maintain cultural relevance, they need to begin evaluating a strategy. Right now, the majority of consumers are looking to buy NFTs for four main reasons: status, participation, trading, and collecting. But as this matures, it’s anticipated that NFTs will become less about collectibility and more about utility. Brands who want to join the fold as early adopters can mint NFTs that provide utility for consumers. For example, NFTs can offer access to an experience, build upon a brand’s loyalty program, showcase innovation, and give back to philanthropic causes. While only 0.09% of internet users currently have NFTs, it’s expected that this number will increase significantly over the next 12 to 24 months, and as a result, we’ll see price stabilization and the utility aspect of NFTs beating the collectibility. 

We are excited to share that our “Life. At Your Pace.” TV campaign for Visit Williamsburg has been awarded a 2021 Silver HSMAI Adrian Award, which recognizes excellence in advertising, public relations, and digital marketing. These TV spots highlight the variety of entertainment and attractions that Williamsburg has to offer, in addition to its rich history. 

In addition, we are proud to announce that Visit Williamsburg’s Chief Executive Officer, Victoria Cimino, was recognized as a leader in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. She was named one of the “Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization” by HSMAI.

This award marks the eighth in a series of accolades awarded to our work with Visit Williamsburg, including:

• Travel Weekly Magellan Awards: “Destination Marketing Campaign” (Gold) and “Destination Blog” (Silver)
• Virginia Public Relations Awards: “Reputation and Brand Marketing Campaign,” “Sponsored Content,” “Influencer Marketing,” and “Blog” (all Commonwealth Awards of Merit)
• eTourism Summit Excellence (eTSY) Awards: “Best Content Marketing Program – Large Budget”

This fall, Connelly Partners (CP) launched Connelly Partners Health (CP Health), a new dedicated health practice as part of the agency’s integrated offering that takes a unique human approach to healthcare marketing. Building off the agency’s Defiantly Human strategic approach to uncover human truths and shared values between brands and customers, CP Health taps this capability and applies it in working with life sciences, medtech, and healthcare organizations. CP Health works with clients through a process, leveraging anthropology, data, and technology to uncover what audiences want and guide brand strategy, creative, and integrated execution.

Read more here.

Additional coverage:
PM360: The 2021 Innovators

Clark Shepard, Senior Copywriter

I was recently granted the great honor of judging the inaugural Campaign US Big Awards. The judges, as they phrased it, were comprised of the “next generation” of creative voices in advertising.” The people who are supposed to have their pencils on the pulse of what’s cool – and what’s soon-to-be cool. It was gratifying, and equal parts humbling, to be able to sit in with writers and designers from around the country as we dissected the very best work our industry produced in the past year. I came away with some friends, an invite to a catered event in NYC (forever here for free food), and insights. So many insights. Here’s a few of my hand-picked favorites. 

Digital is hot, but print will never die. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the maelstrom of social activations, hashtag movements and, dare I say, viral tweets, but let us not forget the paper matriarch who paved the way for all of it. Perhaps my favorite ad I voted on this year was simple in its execution, and brilliant in its message. 

You booked Brad Pitt for a commercial, so what?

As someone who has never worked on a campaign with a $20 million dollar ad spend, I can say this with conviction: We need to celebrate creative problem solving as loudly as we celebrate Super Bowl ads. The creative thinking required to put out award winning, needle moving work that 1) isn’t aided by a multi-million dollar budget and 2) doesn’t need a celebrity cameo to make noise is what will always impress me the most. 

Don’t be anti-social. Even though it’s hard. 

There’s a metric ton of platforms at our disposal these days. That’s not changing anytime soon. In fact, the only thing that is inevitable is that by the time our industry has completely caught up to Tik Tok, it will be replaced by something else. This thought scares a lot of people in our industry to not even try to master these tools. Resist that urge, friends. Jump in with both feet. Ride the wave. Try and fail. And fail and fail and fail. Because the more you actively fail, the closer you’ll get to striking gold. It probably won’t make sense when it happens, so don’t try to make too much sense of it along the way. Remember, our job as creatives isn’t merely to make the stuff. Our job is to experience the world – and sometimes the world is a Tik Tok dance. You laugh, but no one’s laughing harder than Applebee’s right now. 

So, what can we learn from all this? Here’s my take: there have never been more platforms for us to tell stories on behalf of our clients. It’s all a little scary if you pause to think about it. So don’t pause. Keep learning new tools, keep studying your peers, keep living your lives (and taking notes). Oh, and if you get asked to judge an award show, do it. Your work will be all the better for it.  

Additional coverage:
Campaign US: Meet the next generation
Campaign US: Clark Shepard