HIGHLIGHTS: January 2024
January is always a busy month with all of the tech news coming out of CES, followed quickly by the NRF show in New York. I was excited to be back in Vegas for my 18th CES, and helped to pull together the 4A's Wrap Up report highlighting key themes and implications for agencies.
MOST INTERESTING EXAMPLES:
Under Armour testing "Toolkit" GenAI service - While legal, copyright and ethical questions remain, more and more brands are moving past experimentation and into implementation of GenAI tools…
Hilton partners with Hilton for metaverse activation with real world reward potential - This is a really interesting collaboration - Paris Hilton’s Roblox world, Slivingland, is integrating a new Hilton Hotels activation. Players can earn actual Hilton Honors reward points by engaging with the experience. And, the hotel chain re-created it’s “It Matters Where You Stay” commercial using Roblox avatars - marking the first-ever commercial to be fully recreated virtually by a brand on the Roblox platform.
Google/Samsung/Clash of Clans take over the Sphere - The Las Vegas Sphere captured a ton of attention during CES and with good reason. It is a technological and engineering marvel that features the world's biggest screen on the outside and the world's second biggest screen inside. Brands continue to create really cool ads on the "exosphere," including this great example.
Publicis Groupe uses AI to send 100k personalized videos to employees - When I was at Razorfish, the annual Publicis Groupe holiday greetings were something I always looked forward to. It was great to see senior leadership showing off their lighter side (or, when appropriate - a very serious side). This year’s greeting turned into an AI-powered personalized message that seems like it took a village of Groupe employees and a handful of tech partners to pull off. Fun stuff…
MOST INTERESTING DATA:
More than half of CTV users want to shop from ads - A recent survey from LG Ad Solutions indicates that CTV viewers have a strong desire to collapse the funnel and shop directly from CTV ads. Grain of salt and all considering the source but…
