The AME Awards Grand Jury is comprised of respected global thought-leaders whose expertise lie at the intersection of creativity and strategy. They are recognized for delivering ground-breaking results-driven campaigns for international brands and bring innovation, industry expertise, and a 360-degree global perspective to the judging panel. As award-winners themselves and experts in effectiveness their ability to recognize ficerly creative and effective work sets the bar for 2022's competition.

2022 Grand Jury member Andreia Tavares is Head of Strategy at VMLY&R Brasil. At the agency, since 2014, she has accumulated successful cases for major brands in the Brazilian and international market such as Colgate-Palmolive, KC (Huggies, Intimus and Plenitud), Nespresso, Mattel, Deezer, Tinder. Before that, the Portuguese-born journalist worked at Luminosidade (SPFW and Fashion Rio) and at Cosmopolitan Brasil magazine. In Portugal, she worked for six years at Ogilvy, as Account Planning, serving local and global accounts such as Ford and Nestlé.

Andreia shares her perspective on the evolution of brand positiong these past years, emerging technological trends, how brands are adapting to consumer's lifestyles and spending habits, her favorite most successful ad and much more.

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

Andreia Tavares: The attributes that a creative has to have to stand out in award-winning effectiveness are mainly connected to the KPI’s and goals that help the business of the client.

A creative can be effective mainly in 2 ways:

1. the communication itself and the consumers reactions to it, in which the creative will be evaluated by the number of people it reached, how is the engagement rate, the relevance rate (number of people that talk to the brand about the content), favorability rate (positive vs negative sentiment), number of brand mentions on social.

2. the effect it has on sales / brand equity leverage in which the creative can be evaluated by the brand lift on digital platforms, sales, and SOM lift and eventually ROI.

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

Andreia Tavares: Aside from serving as an inspiration and a leverage of creative content, effective awards are important to show the clients what the right communication can do for their business.

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

Andreia Tavares: Over the last 5 years, brands have been the spotlight and the reflection of cultural changes, and these changes have affected not only how brands look at themselves and the way they position themselves to the consumers, but also, the way they interact and talk to their consumers. The main and I think the most relevant shifts are:

1. Millennials and Gen Z’s consumers buy what brands stand for, not what they sell. On recent research, almost 80% of consumers say they prefer to buy brands that are aligned with their purpose. That’s why having a strong positioning among the category the brand is in, is crucial to success.

2. On a world where governments are more and more criticized, Brands play an important role as social and political agents, standing out and defending the causes of their consumers – Women CEO’s, Companies that stand out for LGBT rights, etc. So having clear and relevant values and mission is key to be aligned with our consumers values and together with them be an active agent of change.

3. The social movements like “Me Too” changed the way companies work and organize themselves – the most important voice is the co-workers voice and the CEO / C-Suite need to be the defenders of this public corporate opinion. 

4. The rising of social media and the facility that brands have nowadays to feel the pulse of a communication as it airs, not only allows the brand to make real time changes but also gives space for consumers to quickly state their opinion. 

5. From 1: many to 1:1 – also with the growth of social media, the way brands communicate with their consumers changed significantly. It’s not a monologue anymore, but a dialogue 1:1 between the brand and the consumer. So, what was a matter of the brand speaking to their audiences, now it’s more reverse. Consumers need to feel they are talking to a person, to a human being that has its own way of talking, its way of tweeting, its way of mocking, its way of laughing, etc. A clear and assertive Tone of Voice has become a must have for all companies because it defines the personality of the brand and also states how it interacts with the consumers. It is also important to direct the creatives and the brand activations, for example, a brand that has a more jester tone of voice can be on humor territories and activations whereas a brand that is seen as the sage is more likely to be on more educational formats.

6. The rise of audio and the humanization of technology – spaces, alexa and all the other AI gadgets have forced the brand’s need to have a strong and recognizable voice to stand out among the crowd.

7. Phygital: More and more, brands are forced to reproduce the physical experience into the digital experience, which affects and shifts the priorities when it comes to the touchpoints the brand should be in. Nowadays it can be more effective to offer a seamless consumer experience on an app than to have a TVC airing at Super Bowl.  

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

Andreia Tavares: With the segmentation of audiences and the clear identification of where the consumer is on the purchase journey on digital, we can create a more assertive and directed communication leaving out the target that is more unlikely to interact with that specific content. This allows us to optimize our media investments as well as the engagement with the brand.   

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

Andreia Tavares: Social and media buying innovations have obliged agencies to rethink the way they function. Special teams for special needs have been created and the teams are more hybrid, agile and dynamic.

AME Awards: What new technological trends have emerged and how have they helped deliver creative and effective results?

The gaming territory, for instance, has become an attractive place for brands to be present in many ways. Creatives had to update themselves to be present on this universe that lives and breaths different.

Also, the rising of audio has also made creatives rethink their campaigns to be more and more audible and less focused on visual layouts.

NFT’s and digital innovations have also become a big trend that some brands are acting upon.

AME Awards: What mediums will be front and center in 2022?

Andreia Tavares: Tiktok, dark social such as whatsapp and influencers.  

AME Awards: How have brands successfully transformed to adapt to consumers’ lifestyles and spending habits the past few years?

Andreia Tavares: New ways of buying – social commerce (IG and Whatsapp), signature clubs, alexa and automatic shopping.

AME Awards: Why did you agree to participate on this year’s AME Grand Jury and What do you hope to learn by viewing entries into this competition?

Andreia Tavares: I think this is a great opportunity not only to be inspired but also to understand how different brands and categories are innovating to answer the recent challenges.

AME Awards: What is your favorite most successful ad and why? What campaign resulted in a global brand making an impressive pivot?

Andreia Tavares: Wendy’s that moved from a fast food brand to a social media guru.

AME Awards: What advice would offer to potential entrants on earning an AME Award?

Andreia Tavares: Trust your gut and your work. ;)