From the Jury President's Perspective: Emma Harman

First up is Emma Harman, Digital Craft and Social & Influencer Jury President for 2023 and Whalar's Global Chief Client Officer.

'Do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you.'

Sir John Hegarty

I love this quote as it is so important to pull away from your screen, immerse yourself into culture, music, books, art and everything in between, talk to people no matter who they are - connect with them, ask questions, be curious. Put yourself in places and positions that are interesting, say yes to things, and I often find that's where the magic happens. As John also says 'don't be ordinary'.

My break into the TV world at age 22 working for Ynon Kreiz at FoxKids (he is now the CEO of Mattel, spearheaded the Barbie film). He was an inspirational leader and role model and set a high standard.  Creative storytelling is naturally at the heart of FoxKids (Disney) laid the foundation for a lot of my work today.

I do think a lot of food brands have so much fun on social. I really enjoyed Heinz's collaboration with Absolut Vodka "Heinz Absolutely" which translated well on social. The collaboration was inspired by Gigi Hadid's viral Tiktok recipe and I loved how bold it was. Full of personality and fun - exactly as social should be!

Through social media listening and exceptional community management, we are seeing small brands eat market share from big brands through personality, influencer marketing tactics and leveraging the latest and greatest social platform tools esp. Social Commerce.  Many of the bigger brands are catching up and turning the ship towards a social first approach.

Social media marketing particularly is about 'being social, not doing social'  - and I think we'll continue to see more brands cultivating community to drive business growth in entries this year.

From a strategy perspective:  'The Freedom of a Tightly Written Brief', insight, time and a big idea.

And from an execution perspective:  Leverage social first creators to take the big idea out to communities and audiences in their language.

Remarkable business outcomes. Transcending audiences.

Accept the process will likely be dysfunctional. Information goes in through the heart. 

Showcase the creative, cultural and emotional power in this work, and demonstrate contextual proof that it worked. 

It's amazing for your agency, team morale and career progression. It provides confidence to CMOs who are not fully embracing digital and social media. 

Hire a diverse team, from every background and every lived experience.  Foster safety at work. Have lots of fun and laughs.