AME’s award-winning Grand Jury members have a world-wide reputation for innovation, creative excellence, strategic prowess, and the ability to deliver distinctive and effective results for global brands.

The AME Awards honors not just campaigns that are creative, but campaigns that hit the bullseye for brands, triumphing in both creativity and effectiveness. AME’s Grand Jury are the genius minds behind many of AME’s award-winning entries.

2020 Grand Jury member Bettina Garibaldi is a Senior Vice President at Ketchum, a top global communications consultancy. She brings 15+ years of experience leading integrated marketing communications campaigns to the jury panel.

AME Awards: Tell us about your process of creating and delivering effective results.

Bettina Garibaldi: Everything we do at Ketchum is driven by data. Data drives smart insights. Smart insights drive founded ideas that will work.

AME Awards: As a strategic creative, what do ads that have taken the brief and turned it into campaign that transforms opinions, evokes action and raises the bar for the brand have in common?

Bettina Garibaldi: They’re all tied to a human truth and address what makes us tick.

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

Bettina Garibaldi: Because it sets the bar higher for agencies and brands to truly innovate their marketing efforts/practices. We live in an ever changing uber connected world, so we need to accept it and adapt to it with unique and smart campaigns. 

AME Awards: What makes you share you time and energy to participate on the AME Grand Jury and what do you hope to learn?  

Bettina Garibaldi: Strategic creatives can learn from one another. In my opinion, no one can ever score a perfect 10 in creativity because creativity has no bounds. 

AME Awards: What campaign or campaigns are you most proud of and how did it move the needle for the brand?

Bettina Garibaldi: I’m incredibly proud of the campaign Ketchum’s Travel team worked on for Discover Puerto Rico, the destination marketing organization for Puerto Rico. #CoverTheProgress was a bold and purely public relations led effort that asked the media to cover Puerto Rico’s progress during the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria vs rehash old imagery and focus on solely the negative. The local tourism industry along with Discover Puerto Rico rallies for progress and Puerto Rico’s current reality to be shown, as we knew perception of its current state was still in question. That, alongside a “come see for yourself” press and influencer strategy helped change the Island’s perception. Fast forward a few months and earlier this year, numerous top tier media outlets named Puerto Rico THE place to visit in 2019, including The New York Times, topping their list as #1 Place to Visit in 2019. Today, tourism is flourishing, and the tourism industry is thanking visitors for visiting and enjoying what the Island has to offer and its hospitable people.  

AME Awards: Any advice for entrants? Will you share your tips for entry success?

Bettina Garibaldi: A strong WHY you did something is needed, followed by RESULTS. 

AME Awards: What cultural and/or social changes do you think will influence this year’s work?

Bettina Garibaldi: There’s an uprising that we’ve all been witnessing around the world. We’ve moved from a world of latent publics to active publics. Those who are vocal are even more vocal, and those who weren’t as much are being influenced and becoming vocal. Whatever your views are on any subject matter, being a force for good and making it known—whatever that good means to you—is prevalent and not going anywhere anytime soon.