Here are four key highlights from the AdForum Worldwide Summit in New York City, 13–17 May 2024, in which we pitch consultants met with 15 network agencies and 10 independents.
#1. Adolescent content
Adolescent is a female- and black-founded agency which positions itself as a global creative consultancy and content studio for Generation Z. It helps brands more effectively reach youth audiences by using its global network of diverse youth creatives and creators. The founders started it because they wanted to be authentic and to break rules, and they intend to keep to that promise.
This was a fascinating session: the agency had set up as a panel discussion with its founders and four of its youth creatives who were all Gen Z. Various questions tabled included:
Regarding content creation and influencers, how does Gen Z see them?
Although influencers started off more organically, there’s now too much product placement
There are now too many influencers pushing product too obviously; it’s no longer realistic
The original model is now outdated
How does Gen Z find out information about products if not via influencers?
Via TikTok, which is viewed as a search engine
MetaAI is also viewed a search engine
Regarding brands/department stores, do the brand’s ethics influence their buying decisions?
Most people will buy what they can afford, regardless of ethics
Every week there seems to be a controversy with brands; brands will focus on their bottom lines
If brands are ethical, that’s great but it’s not a deal breaker
A brand will be supported if it goes out of its way to support a community or niche market
How does Gen Z shop, instore or online?
Buying clothes must be in store
Sizing and fabrics are important to test and feel
Popup shops really help with the online support experience
How does Gen Z see the US elections this year? How do they feel?
They want to be informed
They’ll find out on TikTok
They’ll probably not vote so much (it’ll be interesting to see)
Brands shouldn’t get involved in politics
They trust their local community leaders
#2. Virtue
This was another strong session as Virtue shared the truth about what’d happened to it in the past couple of years since parent company Vice went into chapter 11 bankruptcy. Pandemic and other issues also played havoc during this period.
Agency leader Chris Garbutt — yes, he’s a South African whose dream is to open Virtue in South Africa — talked about how it as an agency had to “bet on the future”. His team stayed in place with him, some others who’d left previously returned, and 80% of its clients also remained.
The agency’s view on culture:
Brands need the courage to let culture lead
When brands get it wrong, they’re left outside of culture and become irrelevant
When brands get it right, they thrive
Virtue positions itself as being born on the inside of culture — cultural change makers. Its global head of strategy talked about its “cultural operating system”, which is a four-stage process.
We consultants were taken through a deeper look at the five trends and culture drivers today:
The big pink rethink: Girls have redefined their roles and masculinity is also evolving
Day capsules: Living in the moment/simple living/living in little moments
Embracing chaos: Free-form living/“a lawless era”/amoral misfits
Passion advocates: What once was niche is now mainstream; a “fandomonium” is upon us eg Taylor Swift
The FriAInships: Friends via artificial intelligence (AI) with AI
#3. The Brandtech Group
With the theme of AI front and centre, David Jones, The Brandtech Group global CEO and founder, started us off with an excellent session focusing on how AI’s already changing things in advertising, as well as on a global scale across all types of industries. Here is why he believes that AI will change the world:
The tech companies are saying it
Company leaders are saying it
People are saying it
It’s a horizontal, not a vertical; it can apply across everything — it’s not a platform
Its quality is already amazing and its imagery, for example, has dramatically improved and very quickly
We were shown examples of how things have improved and what’s happening:
A creator economy revolution is under way; this won’t reduce the number of people in our industry but will improve the quality of their outputs
But how do you exceed expectations when everyone can create their own ads? It’s not about what can be created but how it’s created.
Brandtech has developed its own tools to enable its various processes to be even better with AI. It’s commercialising this mainly through its in-housing content — where Oliver and Jellyfish agencies are active — and this is where growth is expected. Better, faster cheaper but what humans need to become really good at is prompting as this is what makes the difference when using AI.
#4. Media Monks
Media Monks is the purely digital agency brand of S4Capital that consists of 8 600 digital natives across one global team. It combines media, data, social platforms, studio, experience brand and technology services to help its clients continuously reinvent themselves through increasingly rapid cycles of disruption.
Eight out of 10 of the world’s most innovative companies work with Media Monks, which focuses on brand performance and AI business transformation. The agency was the inaugural Adweek AI Agency of the Year in November 2023.
Media Monks believes that AI can outproduce us, claiming AI currently can beat any work done by a manual media planner, as well as that AI can out-create us — “software will digest the world” — and, therefore, the question of ethics is an important one.
Naturally, the agency has developed its own tech, Monks.flow, an AI-centric professionally managed service for marketers. Its uses are as follows:
Brand integrity
Global consistency
Collapsing the cost of creativity
Effectiveness and conversion
Media buying and planning, which will become more direct and have less need for digital media agency buyers; AI will handle most of this via algorithms
More pipeline
Fewer people
More insights, much quicker and leading to a faster strategy
Output- and outcomes-based commercial approach
Media Monks shared its growth figures and did some forecasting for the industry: in year three, it grew by 46%; in year four, by 23%; and, in year five, by 2%. For the current year, the growth is flat and will be tempered by tech costs continuously decreasing. What does this mean for the industry? There will be more consolidation; the number of staff will continue to decline; and holding company staff numbers will decline, too.
In terms of AI and ethics, Media Monks believes that ethics will become more and more important, far more so than legal issues.
Overall trends
In conclusion, here are my overall trends from this latest AdForum Worldwide Summit:
Social media is now more powerful than paid digital media
A creator economy revolution is under way; this won’t reduce the number of people in our industry but should improve the quality of their outputs
Culture drivers are becoming more and more important for brands to remain relevant
Influencers are more important than ever, the original model is now outdated and authenticity is key, and
TikTok is being used more and more as a search engine.