Join us for AME's exclusive interview series, where we shine a spotlight on the 2024 AME Awards Grand Jury. Known for creating impactful results-driven work for prominent brands, these innovative strategists are respected globally for their award-winning campaigns. AME's jury panel includes creative and strategic minds in advertising, marketing communications, and brand building from around the globe whose stellar reputations and commitment to both creative and effective work set the benchmark for innovation.

2024 Grand Jury member, Tanya De Poli is a Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Founders, an independent Agency that was born in November 2019 & a Board Member of By The Network. Founders has been cataloged as a “Phenomenon”, by many in the industry, after opening 6 offices in its first 3 years. They currently work for Spotify, Netflix, New York City, Lipton, Casa Azul Tequila, Paramount, Wonka, The Heineken Group, amongst others.Before deciding to branch into the world of the indie agencies, Tanya became the youngest appointed GM in Ogilvy global history, at age 29. Under her leadership Ogilvy Miami worked with very large accounts such as: Starbucks LATAM, KFC (40 markets across LATAM + Caribbean), and Universal Orlando Resorts.

Tanya is an advocate for gender equality and is proud to lead a team that is 75% female, most of which occupy leadership roles at Founders.

In the interview below Tanya shares her perspective on AI, the evolution of media marketing, and why effectiveness competitions are important. 

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

Tanya De Poli: Effectiveness competitions are important because they award ideas that achieve that very difficult to land on sweet spot of having something new, unique, diverse and that manages to hit a chord with the target audience. An idea that manages to connect, that manages to transcend the norm and that does it differently. In the everyday sea of ads that don’t breakthrough, and that are filling our minds and time, these competitions show the industry what we should all be striving towards, they set the bar. 

AME Awards: How has the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence impacted the effectiveness of advertising campaigns?

Tanya De Poli: AI is unquestionably a tool that’s growing & becoming more powerful each day. However, the copy that it provides & the ideas that it generates can lack integration of key terms utilized by certain brands, learnings that come from long term relationships with teams based on campaign history and only the creative team that has worked on them is aware of and analyzing client reactions through empathy & observation throughout idea presentation / co-creation. For this reason, creative teams should be trained on how to use AI tools to enhance certain ideas, but should also be trained on the importance of sticking to originality based on client relationships & experience.

At the same time, the fact that a mere random image could be interpreted as a majestic landscape with AI, opens a wider inspiration field for creatives. One of the most awarded campaigns at Cannes Lions this year “Women’s Football” was created with AI. So more than a matter of balance, it's a matter of roles: AI is an invaluable resource but requires a creative human mind to be applied in the best way possible. And while AI might be the exact representation of effectiveness, it is not without the creative human mind that we can use it to create impactful work.

AME Awards: In what ways are brands incorporating augmented reality and virtual try-on experiences in their advertising to enhance the online shopping journey? Can you share examples of successful campaigns that used AR or virtual try-ons to drive consumer engagement and conversion?

Tanya De Poli: I think one of the brands that has excelled at this is Snapchat. They have merged their ecommerce + AR filter capabilities to create a world of virtual shopping that is not only interactive, useful but also fun. We worked on the “Open your Snapchat” campaign a few years ago and I think this was a very successful case of a creative campaign that integrated the world of virtual try-ons and led to consumer engagement. As part of the campaign we partnered with brands for which AR filters were developed such as Nike, Disney, Ralf Lauren, Farfetch, Piaget, amongst others. The fact that you can now try on clothes on your phone and then purchase with one click is something that we still must see more brands take advantage of.

AME Awards:  How has media marketing changed the way brands engage with consumers? Are there standout brands who are excelling at skillfully reaching consumers in their own personal lane of interest? 

Tanya De Poli: I think we are now in the era of “entertaining your audience” with ideas. Take a look at Liquid Death, they create ideas that make people laugh, that make them want to share with their friends, and they invest close to zero dollars in paid media. Their brief every day is “lets try and be the best thing a person sees that day”. They are so true to entertainment that they don’t need the ad dollars. They have managed to break that barrier with their consumer, and speak to them directly without the need of a media strategy. I think we will see more of this, brands being relevant in culture and engaging with their audiences based on being on point with what they are saying at exactly the right time. Heinz is another great example of this, they are so true to their brand platform “Irrational Love” that they build real time ideas based on things happening that same day like they did with “Heinz Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch”. They grabbed on to a consumer tweet & insight and built out a huge idea that became one of the most viral ideas of the year.