The 2024 AME Grand Jury Spotlight Interviews celebrate the exceptional minds shaping the landscape of advertising and marketing communications. Our esteemed panel for 2024 includes visionary leaders renowned for creating influential, results-oriented campaigns for leading brands worldwide.This diverse jury coming from top-tier agencies around the globe represent some of the most recognized creative and strategic trailblazers in the industry. Their dedication to driving impactful, innovative work not only sets the standard for excellence but also inspires future generations of marketers and advertisers.

2024 AME Grand Jury member Josh Taylor-Dadds is Group Strategy Director at Special New Zealand, where he contributed to the team winning ‘Agency of the Year’ at both the New Zealand Effie Awards and the APAC Effie Awards in 2023. He brings years of industry experience and strategic expertise to the jury panel. Prior to joining Special, he held senior strategic roles at TBWA and VML and has worked on clients including Optus, Tourism New Zealand, ANZ, Wendy’s and Pfizer. Before being seduced by agency life, he grew up client side at News UK and ITV.

In the interview below Josh explores how brands can excel in corporate social responsibility, the key characteristics of award-winning work, the seismic impact AI will have on the industry and much more.

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?

Josh Taylor-Dadds: Effectiveness competitions are the most robust demonstration we have as agencies, clients, and the industry at large that our work works.

That matters on so many levels. It’s proof we’ve delivered for clients effectively. It demonstrates the value of marketing internally in a client’s business and it generates confidence for the future.

Competitions like the AME Awards also add to our collective knowledge base. It’s only through effectiveness competitions like this that our understanding of the power of creativity continues to grow.

Given the volatility of the last few years (and the certainty that the next few will be no different) I’d argue that understanding the impact of our actions is more important than ever, and therefore so are competitions like AME.

AME Awards: As a creative strategist, what stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Josh Taylor-Dadds: Unequivocal evidence that your actions have delivered the reported results.

It’s the first, and unfortunately for many the hardest hurdle. To be awarded in an effectiveness competition you need to provide the jury with certainty that the campaign has directly impacted the business and delivered on objectives.

Beyond that, the work that really stands out compels you from the first line – a super smart understanding of what’s going on for the audience, an honest assessment of where the brand currently is, where it could be, and the shift required to get there.

There’s no formula for how all of this comes together. No set structure or silver bullet metric. It’s dependent on the audience, the brand, the idea, the time. That’s what makes winning shows like AME so hard, and something any brand and author can be proud of.

AME Awards: What future forward trends and innovations are brands embracing for 2024?

Josh Taylor-Dadds: On my first day back after a holiday at the start of the year I opened LinkedIn (procrastinating while trying to remember what my job was) and saw two images.

The first was an AI generated Nike yoga ad, at the top of a long article professing the ‘Age of AI’ and the death of shoots, expensive creative ideas, and the ‘old’ way. The second image was Jeremy Allen White on top of a New York skyscraper in his underwear. One of those images dominated conversation for the rest of the month, and it was captured with a camera not a laptop.

Don’t get me wrong, AI is going to a seismic impact on our industry, and it will happen fast.

AI is the trend that will undoubtedly dominate client conversations this year, and rightly so. Its capacity to add value to every part of our process and it’s creative potential is boundless. I don’t work on a single client who isn’t thinking about it in some way.

The brands who thrive however, as Calvin Klein reminded us at the start of the year, will be those who remember that nothing trumps fame, creativity, and a brand’s ability to set the cultural agenda.

AI is a tool to aid that pursuit, not an alternative answer.

AME Awards: With an increasing emphasis on corporate social responsibility, how do brands effectively communicate their values and societal contributions in their marketing strategies?

Josh Taylor-Dadds: I’m not sure the problem is communicating CSR and societal contribution, the problem for brands is delivering on social purpose and truly making a societal contribution.

Brands are not shy in communicating their impact, often without having a real impact. That leads to purpose-washing of all kinds. As a member of the LGBT+ community, nothing infuriates me more than seeing a brand slap a rainbow on something and call themselves an ally.

Before you start communicating anything of this type there are a few things you need to consider.

You have to earn the right to speak. What is the tangible contribution that your brand has made to this community or societal cause?

If there isn’t one, you’re not ready.

You have to understand your current and past impact. What are the dark truths, the limitations of the impact you’ve had or the historic missteps made? Are you willing to own them?

If you’re not, you’re not ready.

You have to be prepared to accept short term cost. If you’re going green, how will it affect short term profitability? If you’re coming out in support of a community what if there is a backlash? Are you willing to stay the course?

If you’re not, you’re not ready.