Press

Nadine Müller-Eckel , Head of Strategy, Anomaly Berlin
Jury-Interviews

2022 AMe Grand Jury Perspective: Nadine Müller-Eckel , Head of Strategy, Anomaly Berlin

2022 AME Grand Jury member Nadine Müller-Eckel is Head of Strategy for Anomaly Berlin and a member of the management team. With a background of 13 years in German agencies like Aimaq & Stolle, Jung von Matt and Heimat as well as international shops like R/GA, TBWA and as CMO for the DTC start-up Sitzfeldt.

New York, NY | March 16, 2022

Strategic, Innovative, Analytical Critical Thinkers, Creative Storytellers dedicated to ensuring brand awareness and equity, all of these qualities define AME's Grand Jury. AME's Jury members are emisaries of effectiveness, their global reputations as both industry leaders and award-winning marketers guarantee that all entries submitted into the AME Awards are evaluated with the utmost of care and consideration.Their commitment to ground-breaking effective work and their understanding of the partnership between creative and effective work have delivered impressive results for prominent global brands.

2022 AME Grand Jury member Nadine Müller-Eckel is Head of Strategy for Anomaly Berlin and a member of the management team. With a background of 13 years in German agencies like Aimaq & Stolle, Jung von Matt and Heimat as well as international shops like R/GA, TBWA and as CMO for the DTC start-up Sitzfeldt. Throughout her career Nadine had the chance to work for many prestigious clients including Google, Netflix, Nikon, Opel, Spotify and E.ON matching deep German and European grounding with a lot of international experience, applied across brand, cultural and communication strategy.

In the interview below Nadine shares her perspective on how effectiveness in advertising has evolved, how brands are becoming more intentional about value and purpose, and new lanes of emerging technology.

AME Awards: How has effectiveness in advertising evolved in the past few years?

Nadine Müller-Eckel: We can see three major developments in ad effectiveness: 1. The channels we measure effectiveness: with have evolved tremendously. From classic TV and print trackings to a holistic approach where social KPI’s such as engagement, net promoter score and conversion as well as data in general have become key parameters of how to measure the success of communication. 2. We can also see that effectiveness: measures have broadened their scope from a major focus on ad awareness, brand recognition and image related objectives to real commercial impact. 3. Overall we see in our daily practice into a holistic key practice of developing and shaping creative work as well as evaluating the true business impact of communication.

AME Awards: How have brands become more intentional about their value and purpose and how has it changed the overall creative tone of campaigns?

Nadine Müller-Eckel: If the pandemic has learned brands one thing it is that commercial success needs more than the focus on short term conversion. Business impact is unmistakably tied to cultural and social impact today. And, whereas those two things have been a nice to have or even an award incentivizing add-on in the past, these parameters have become crucial factors for business success. Because consumers today, especially Gen Z and Millennials, are increasingly demanding meaning- and purposeful value from the brands and products they buy into - be it diversity, inclusion, equality or sustainability. And the pandemic as well as the current global state we live in have become an accelerator of this. At the same time, this audience holds these brands accountable for the values they proclaim to stand for. Thus, we can see more and more brands across industries intentionally striving for resonance and relevance though real and authentic cultural impact in order to build successful long-lasting relationship with their audience aligning their company and brand values with the values of a new generation of conscious consumers.

AME Awards: What lanes of technology are agencies/brands investing in to deliver more effective messaging?

Nadine Müller-Eckel: A lot of companies and agencies are investing more in data capabilities. Because data, if treated correctly, can be a strong force to deliver effective comms: (1) It acts as a powerful tool to leverage or support real-life insights that spark creative work, (2) it serves as an enabler to optimise comms while being developed or tested in market, (3) it unlocks new opportunities to measure marketing and commercial success, (4) it helps us to evaluate current and optimise future work. We can also see the ongoing integration of comms strategy into the overall strategy practice of ad agencies. At Anomaly, we treat comms strategy as a key enabler of effective creative work, just like brand and creative strategy. Because we strongly believe, that the “how” and “where” you send the message is as important as “why” and “what” you say. So, we’d be stupid to disconnect those strategic pillars from one another when striving for effective communication.