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A Few Words of Wisdom From Clio Creative Summit Sponsors
Lessons from Michelob Ultra, Twitch, FCB and more
Industry experts on four sponsored panels at Tuesday’s Clio Creative Summit tackled issues such as sonic branding, the creator-viewer relationship and how to think like a fan across sports and tech.
We’ve collected some highlights below.
In “Tech and Joy: Harnessing Technology to Celebrate Human Endeavor in Sports”—sponsored by Michelob Ultra—Alex Abrantes, ECD at FCB New York, shared five notions to help nurture successful client-agency relationships:
- Live the strategy: “This is ideal for sports,” he says. “Athletes don’t have to choose active lifestyle and a having good time.” (Because Ultra is a low-calorie brew.)
- Tap into culture
- Ask if not but how: “Make joy accessible to all,” he advised, referencing the agency’s “Dreamcaster” initiative to help blind folks follow game action.
- Get yourself a great partner
- Don’t give up
Just as technology supercharges creativity by enabling new forms of expression, it can elevate sports by transcending the boundaries of human endeavor. Ultra has been pioneering this concept, consistently pursuing the joy in sports while spotlighting talents and teams. Through engaging tech-infused experiences like “Lap of Legends”—the first real vs. virtual auto race presented in a one-hour TV special—the brand demonstrates that sports are all about the emotions they evoke.
In “Streaming Synergy: Unlocking the Unique Value of the Creator-Viewer Relationship,” Steve Marzocca, influencer relations lead for Twitch at Amazon Ads, spoke with Carmela, a musician and Twitch streamer, about the streamer-viewer relationship and how advertisers can join in.
“Streamers are spending hours a day streaming live to their community. And you’re getting their true, raw self,” said Marzocca. “When you’re watching someone on Twitch, you’re seeing them in their raw state. You’re getting their highs, you’re getting their lows, you’re getting their in-betweens.”
Carmela wrote a jingle for Squatty Potty—and fans noticed. She has also worked Colgate, two non-music brands.
“When someone’s making a YouTube video and it’s sponsored by blank, you skip, right? But on Twitch, it’s very innately embedded into the content you’re already making,” she said. “And as long as it’s just an authentic partnership, I think it’s just a total shoe-in, and it can really benefit brands to make these long-lasting partnerships.”
For “Spotify: Think Like a Fan, Act Like a Creator,” the brand and its agency, FCB N.Y., looked at some standout campaigns and why they worked.
“Don’t tell me who you are, show me your daylist,” says Kay Hsu, global head of Creative Lab at Spotify.
“Thinking like a fan to me is like really knowing your audience, knowing what makes them passionate, knowing what makes them tick,” said Jessica Levinsohn, associate director, business brand marketing, Spotify. “Acting like a creator to me is about knowing the canvas in which you’re painting with. It is knowing your canvas and the tools that you’re painting with so that you’re telling the story in the best possible way.”
Case in point: FCB N.Y. created “Spreadbeats,” targeting media buyers with a customized Excel spreadsheet that housed a unique video in its RFP.
“Personalization is core to what Spotify does as a company, and people experience that every day,” said Danilo Boer, global creative partner at the agency. “So in this case, every media planner was receiving the proposal in the Excel spreadsheet, but we made sure that each proposal was individualized for that person.”
The team of MassiveMusic rounded out the day with “The Sonic Advantage: How Music & Sound Shapes Memorable Brands.”
“We actually work on the creative. We work on thousands of different variations,” says Roger Sho Gehrmann, VP of integrated solutions at Songtradr. “We work with artists. We work with internal composers. We have a bunch of technology that we use. We use some AI technology now, as well as our own platform to bring it all together under one house.”
Bottom line: Brands are going beyond visual identity; memorable sounds—pioneered by Netflix, TikTok and Intel—can echo years into the future and spark instant consumer recognition.
