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Kate Midttun, Chief Executive Officer, Acorn Strategy United Arab Emirates
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2022 AME Grand Jury Perspective: Kate Midtun, Chief Executive Officer, Acorn Strategy UAE

2022 AME Awards Grand Jury member Kate Midttun is Chief Executive Officer for Acorn Strategy. Kate has 18 years of experience in strategic marketing consulting with a specialization in destination marketing and a deep sector knowledge across the real estate, leisure and hospitality industries in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

New York, NY | February 28, 2022

The AME Grand Jury panel is comprised of strategy experts, industry thought leaders, innovative creatives, and branding experts who are award-winning executives who thoroughly understand the partnership between creativity and effectiveness.They are respected globally as executives who bring innovation, industry expertise, and a 360-degree global perspective to the judging panel.

2022 AME Awards Grand Jury member Kate Midttun is Chief Executive Officer for Acorn Strategy. Kate has 18 years of experience in strategic marketing consulting with a specialization in destination marketing and a deep sector knowledge across the real estate, leisure and hospitality industries in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and other countries. She has demonstrated success in creating impactful strategies with quantifiable business results for large global brands, including Mubadala, Miral Asset Management (Yas Island), Duracell, Oman Arab Bank, Hilton Worldwide, Viceroy Hotel Group, World Future Energy Summit, and National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed), amongst others, giving her a deep cultural understanding and adaptability to local and international markets.

In the interview below Kate shares her perspective on innovations brands are using to create engagement, the evolution of brand messaging, stand out attributes in award-winning advertising and more

AME Awards: What stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Kate Midttun: High-quality execution, resonates with a target audience, relevant, clever, has a measurable impact, tailored to the place and the moment where it is consumed, and most importantly, serves a strategic objective.

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

Kate Midttun: At Acorn Strategy we firmly believe in recognising and celebrating excellence. Because recognition matters. Finding good work, understanding how it made an impact, and developing a framework to recognise it will incentivise further innovation and creativity across the industry. It is also an invaluable window for a company to measure and evaluate its value and the organisational impact it is having on behalf of brands. It allows us the opportunity to acknowledge the work of our industry peers helps us continually improve and capitalise on opportunities as we go.

AME Awards: Speak to the evolution of brand positioning, values, and tone of voice during the past few years.

Kate Midttun: In the wake of the pandemic and the massive surge in consumption it engendered, the values of cohesion, purpose and responsiveness became quite crucial for brands. Those who failed to align themselves with consumer values or dedicate enough attention to determining their tone of voice, ended up shedding relevance, and consequently, profit. Modern consumers expect a lot more from their brands than in the past, and the story must be cohesive enough to be credible, familiar enough to resonate with consumers, and responsive enough to the community's needs to maintain its position.

AME Awards: How has brand messaging evolved and succeeded these past few years?

Kate Midttun: It has become strategy driven. The modern communications landscape was shaped by several advancements in technology that have also impacted consumer behaviour and ultimately the connection between consumer and brand. And at a time when the consumer wields far more power and leverage than in the past, brands have had to develop their communications and targeting tactics, bringing them under overarching strategies that made sense. There’s certainly a lot more attention to messaging now as opposed to a few years ago. A lot of thinking now goes into brand communications, and into integrating marketing efforts across platforms and channels to communicate with consumers consistently.

AME Awards: What innovations are changing the way agencies engage consumers on behalf of brands?

Kate Midttun: A huge shift to online and digital adaptation has driven agency work over the last couple of years. We’ll see that further develop into 2022/2023 as metaverse and virtual take on a seemingly parallel universe. Both real-world communities and virtual engagement will have competing priorities, both requiring innovation and attention that could really make or break some agencies.