AME's Grand Jury Spotlight Interviews celebrate the exceptional minds shaping the landscape of advertising and marketing communications. Our esteemed panel for 2024 includes visionary leaders renowned for creating influential, results-oriented campaigns for leading brands worldwide.This diverse jury coming from top-tier agencies around the globe represent some of the most recognized creative and strategic trailblazers in the industry. Their dedication to driving impactful, innovative work not only sets the standard for excellence but also inspires future generations of marketers and advertisers.

2024 AME Grand Jury member Andreas Moellman helps brands and business get future-ready. As a seasoned brand and marketing strategist he brings over 30 years experience in transformative roles to the AME Grand Jury. Previous leadership roles include from strategic planner to Chief Experience Officer at network agencies (Publicis, BBDO, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi) and digital agencies (SapientNitro, Isobar) in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Andreas’ focus lies in connecting brand and marketing thinking with digital understanding to help brands and businesses succeed. His award-winning work has been recognized at global, European, and local effectiveness awards.

In the interview below Andreas shares his insights and industry observations on what makes creative great, disconnect between brand thinking and digital marketing, emerging technology, data and AI and much more.

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

Andreas Moellmann: Marketeers have two choices: engineering results or hoping to be lucky. Effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards prove that good strategic thinking combined with creativity leads to extraordinary results – one doesn’t need to hope.
Marketing’s purpose is to help business succeed. Yet most businesses are skeptical about the impact marketing has on the bottom line. Effectiveness competitions mitigate that skepticism. They illustrate the value marketing contributes to business, turning marketing into an investment instead of a cost.

AME Awards: As a creative strategist, what stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Andreas Moellmann: Creativity is a multiplier of effectiveness. Great creative generates multiples of return. What makes creative great? Many points but here are the key ones in my opinion:

• It not only delivers on strategy but it transforms strategy, evolving and sharpening it.
• It resonates with the audience on rational and emotional level, triggering a response
• It is ‘un-ignorable’ – it gets an ‘unfair’ share of attention, not by media money but by the power of the idea
• It is often built on some truth that is visible but not recognized

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

Andreas Moellman: When John Wannamaker said ‘Half the money I spent on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half’, he didn’t have data analytics. Data and AI to process these are the most powerful tools a marketeer can have today. It can prove the impact of marketing on business in hard, undeniable numbers. And it enables the marketeer to optimize any activity while it happens thus increasing its effectiveness.

AME Awards: How are emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and interactive content shaping the landscape of advertising effectiveness?

Andreas Moellmann: Bill Bernach said ‘in 100 years from now, the idea is still going to be more important than all the technology in the world’. While technology offers incredible new human experiences,they don’t replace them.Behind each screen and button is a human being. It’s a thought, an idea that influences that human being, not the technology that enables and delivers it.

AME Awards: How have brands adapted their advertising strategies to capitalize on the growing trend of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer models?

Andreas Moellman: Most brands are behind the martech development. There is a disconnect between brand thinking and digital marketing, with digital marketing focused on sales. Brand’s largest value has always been to differentiate. Currently, most marketeers are busy catching up on the latest technology. As martech matures and become established, it will also become table stakes – and the need for differentiation will arise again.