Industry innovator, Neil Dawson, Global CSO at VML, lends his strategic expertise and vast industry perspective to AME’s Grand Jury and our new interview series, Strategy Icons.

With over two decades of experience shaping strategy for world-leading brands,Neil Dawson is a renowned strategist and a driving force in marketing effectiveness. As Global Chief Strategy Officer at VML, he focuses on creating connected brands by integrating brand experience, customer and commerce to fuel growth.

His impressive career spans top creative agencies, including Wunderman Thompson, Publicis Sapient International, and TBWA/London, where he held one of the city's most successful planning departments. Recognized six times as a Top 10 Account Planner by Campaign UK, Neil has been instrumental in winning multiple IPA Effectiveness Awards and has judged some of the industry’s most prestigious competitions.

In this exclusive conversation, Neil unpacks the future of marketing effectiveness, exploring brand innovation, the role of effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards, and how brands are reshaping strategies in the era of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer models.

From AI-driven personalization to the rise of "fan models" and the blending of brand-building with performance marketing, Neil shares key insights shaping the industry in 2025 and beyond.

View the Strategy Icons Featuring Neil Dawson video interview:

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards essential for measuring impact and industry growth?

Neil Dawson: For me it boils down to 3 things:

First, they are a vital showcase for the value that agencies can add to their client’s businesses by providing easy access to talent and specialist capabilities across creative, strategy, technology, and data. Second, they help provide inspiration to everyone in the industry, agency and client-side, in terms of what is possible and new ways to grow businesses and build brands. And third, they help keep us anchored in work that works. It’s sometimes easy to get carried away with ‘the latest new thing’ and innovation for the sake of innovation. Ultimately the work must deliver proven impact and commercial returns, and Awards like the AMEs help focus us on that and help keep everyone honest.

AME Awards: What future-forward trends and innovations will we see brands adopt for 2025?

Neil Dawson: While AI is refining audience targeting and buying signal identification, the use of generative AI for content creation is being approached with caution due to potential risks to brand-consumer relationships.

A key trend is the rise of the "fan model," where brands focus on engaging high-potential communities within their target market with richer experiences enabled by new technologies. Coke's collaborations with Marvel and EA Sports, creating unique storytelling and collectible experiences, illustrate this approach.

To elevate customer experience, brands are increasingly acting as "advisors," offering personalized style and product recommendations based on individual preferences, current trends, and personal style. Amazon's "shop the look" feature, which suggests complementary products, serves as a prime example.

Furthermore, the traditional distinction between brand building and performance marketing is dissolving, with brands seeking to achieve both simultaneously. Mazda's "One Word" campaign demonstrates this integrated approach, delivering compelling brand experiences directly to high-potential buyers actively in the market.

AME Awards: With the rise of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer channels, how are brands reshaping their advertising strategies to reach consumers directly?

Neil Dawson: These channels are clearly hugely attractive with their ability to target high-potential consumers at times when they are most receptive. While not a complete solution for brand building and growth, they are no longer a mere performance marketing add-on, but rather a crucial part of the brand marketing ecosystem. As a result, more brands will use these channels for brand messaging and experiences, as well as direct calls to action, blurring the lines between "brand" and "performance" channels.

This shift is driving a new era of "compressed commerce," where brands must simultaneously build equity and drive sales. This requires creative and messaging that not only strengthens the brand but also facilitates immediate purchase through channels like social commerce and direct purchase links. To achieve this, brands are leveraging shopper and audience data (from sources like panels and loyalty cards) to understand consumer behaviour at a granular level, enabling personalised content at scale. AI tools are key to automating this personalisation and reaching consumers efficiently, without excessive costs or time. Ultimately, the ability to aggregate and analyse behavioural data to glean strategic insights, rather than simply collecting data, will be crucial for success in this compressed commerce landscape.

AME Awards: What challenges do brands face in maintaining effectiveness across diverse global markets, and how do you approach creating strategies that resonate across different cultures?

Neil Dawson:There’s a natural tendency for local teams to focus on differences, and there’s always plenty of them. The short answer here is to look for and build on commonalities, certainly respect differences but don’t focus on them.

So, you build brands and strategies around fundamental and universal values, you focus on universal occasions or moments, you engage communities of interest that cross borders. For instance Coke builds around the universal values of optimism and human connection/ community, it focuses activity on celebrations (the specifics of which may vary by culture, but their essential nature is very similar) and seeks out global communities of interest (e.g. film, music and sports).