Of course, this affects what many consumers expect of the companies they do business with, which forces brands to decide how actively they want to participate in the public forum and how much they want to align with a cause or express a political viewpoint.

There are opportunities and risks associated with this choice—and getting it right isn’t always easy. The decision sends a message. Recent research suggests that diving in is the way to gain and maintain relevance and currency with today’s consumer.

Particularly for brands eyeing the Millennial and Gen Z demographics, the benefits of taking a stand are significant. We dug through the latest market research reports and surveys and found common themes:

• Activist Youth. Support for brands taking political stances is strongest among younger consumers.
• The Politics of Wallet Share. Brand engagement with politics is more important to liberals than conservatives.
• CSR is Table Stakes. Corporate responsibility and social-good brings the most opportunity for brandbenefits and societal impact, without isolating different audience segments.
• You Can’t Fake It. The more closely and authentically connected the issue is to the brand’s identity, the more it resonates with consumers and engenders trust.

Like any good communications effort, your strategy should begin with knowing your audience. What is important to them? How does that align with your brand values? Without a doubt, if you are focused on a younger employee or customer base, you’ll take a hit—or be ignored—for not standing for something.

If you are going to have a perspective, be authentic in your voice and consistent in your actions. Any hint of surface-level programs or lack of knowledge on a topic will create blow back. It’s the intention and effort that builds trust, credibility and ultimately brand lift. If you take action, do it because your brand’s community truly believes it’s the right thing to do. Speak your truth, and theirs.

With all the updates that happen on all our social channels on a weekly basis, it’s sometimes hard to keep track. The recent news of Facebook/Instagram’s rollout of new video features caused a lot of people within the communications industry to stand-up and take notice—and rightly so. This got us thinking about chess and communications. In chess, the queen is ultimately the most powerful piece on the board. If content is king, then video content is queen.

So, what happened? Instagram (note: Access supports other divisions of Instagram), rolled out a new feature and standalone app called IGTV (short for Instagram TV), which curates longer-form vertical video within a separate tab of the Instagram platform. With IGTV, users with more than 10,000 followers are able to upload videos up to an hour in length. The rest of us can upload videos of up to 10 minutes.

Why does this matter? With brands and organizations placing more emphasis on video   content to help drive awareness and engagement, IGTV is the perfect way to create in-the-moment video to tell longer stories without the expensive production required with other platforms like YouTube.

A viable video alternative

The net-positive of the IGTV launch is that, as we know, activating with YouTube creators can be somewhat cost prohibitive for clients who have smaller budgets. IGTV is a viable alternative for product reviews and integrated videos. As videos are usually shot on creator’s mobile devices (and less expensive to produce), those savings can be redirected to other marketing activities across the paid and earned spectrum.

Impact for brands

With content channels evolving and changing, it’s important for brands to experiment with different methods of storytelling. IGTV is another example of platforms evolving to meet the changing needs of the social marketplace, where content kings and video queens seek to drive awareness, affinity and sales*.

What are your thoughts on IGTV? Let us know.

*In addition to IGTV, Instagram rolled a host of new features including integrating shopping tags into story content. This could help prove out the value of social media in the consumer journey, a topic for a future post.

At Access, our mission is to impact every life we encounter. Through The Access Point, our mission is to educate, entertain and engage. The Access Point aims to uncomplicate the complicated as we explore the roles of brands, communications and their impact on society.

The blog explores issues related to communications strategy, brand reputation (including issues and crisis management), and the intersections of commerce, creativity and culture. We celebrate free speech and the freedom of the press and the evolving nature of trust—and truth. We poke at business culture and the changing nature of work. We will also celebrate our clients and our staff, and share research and insights. We hope to provide helpful guidance along the way.

We look forward to your thoughts.

Bob Osmond, GM, client services

The state of play

There were 65 national ad spots in the Super Bowl game and over 50% of those included a celebrity spokesperson *ahem* brand ambassador when you take out the nine movie/TV show trailers. In the current state of global affairs, brands and their agencies ran various options toward playing it safe with their Super Bowl ads, with a celebrity appearance their go route to the end zone of dull ideas.

The authenticity imperative

Whereas a few brands tried to tackle the elephant in the room by celebrating diversity and humanity through motivational voice-overs, they mostly fell short of the goal line, especially this completely tone-deaf Ram spot which is rightfully taking a beating on social. It is very interesting that year after year, brands walk right into the hypocrisy of some of their messages.

Insights for the win

Audiences are savvy enough to realize they are trying to be sold products by brands who pay an exorbitant amount for the ad space, which is why it pays to come clean. My favorite ad this year was the Tide series where David Harbour passes on the insight that in all the commercials you watch during the Super Bowl, everyone has clean shirts. What I like most about this is that the basis of the ad comes from the insight. Saatchi & Saatchi didn’t simply take a celebrity and hope they have enough star power to carry a lame and retold idea, it kicks off from a relatable observation for the viewer while demonstrating a knowledge of their audience by referencing fan-favorite advertising classics.

Hail Mary for creativity

Advertising is clearly an inexact science, and maybe as a marketer myself, I’m too finicky and skeptical, especially given that four of the top five rated ads according to USA Today’s Ad Meter included a celebrity and the top ad was the most star-studded of them all. I believe, however, that brands and their agencies may come to realize this investment is untenable, especially as they focus more spend on digital. But despite the digital marketing revolution, the Super Bowl continues to be the outlier in all of advertising where it has not evolved with the rest of the industry. It’s a place where brands don’t have social calls-to-action in their adverts outside of “watch the full story on our website,” while people are talking more about #selfiekid and the baby announcement turned branded content the morning after than anything that happened in a very exciting game. I hope that creativity emerges again on the richest of all playing fields. When the pinnacle in Super Bowl advertising was reached 34 years ago and has yet to be touched since, there’s a problem with creativity that needs to be spiked.

Therefore, the question is this: How do you avoid information-overload from Cannes’ campaigns and sessions, internalize the lessons of the festival, and provide real value to your clients (whatever their budgets) after the festival concludes?

The answer: Be solution-oriented.

Let’s face it – much of communications and marketing is not glamorous in the way that our Instagram photos may indicate. Like most jobs, the vast majority of what the role requires does not receive recognition beyond the walls of your and the client’s offices. This doesn’t mean that communications and marketing are without value, however.  To the contrary, I am convinced that if you consistently come from a position of providing solutions then you’ll end up with happier and more successful clients and colleagues. This is certainly easier said than done, but is something that we should all strive for and could all improve upon.

One could make the assertion that every award-winner at Cannes provided a solution on some level. I, however, want to focus on two campaigns that turned unfortunate events into positive outcomes.

Tourism Ireland’s “Doors of Thrones”

The hit HBO show “Game of Thrones” has used Northern Ireland as the backdrop for some of its scenes. Unfortunately one iconic shooting location (The Dark Hedges) lost some of its famous trees to Storm Gertrude in January 2016. On the surface, this was bad for Tourism Ireland. One of the country’s most popular attractions had just suffered considerable damage, which would likely have an adverse effect on tourism. Instead of dwelling on this potential setback, the team decided to turn the unfortunate event into a positive. The team enlisted world class artisans who transformed the fallen wood into intricately designed doors that portrayed episodes from Game of Thrones Season 6. The doors were then placed in pubs throughout Northern Ireland, which resulted in an entire new conquest for fans to embark on throughout the countryside. The campaign generated a ton of visibility for Northern Ireland, and it is estimated to have brought in an estimated £11,000,000 of revenue.

The Glasgow School of Art’s “Ash to Art”

The Glasgow School of Art suffered a catastrophic fire, which destroyed its Charles Rennie Mackintosh library. Not to wallow in self-pity, The Glasgow School of Art Development Trust in partnership with J. Walter Thompson London enlisted 25 renowned artists to turn the ashes from the fire into distinctive pieces. The artwork has already raised more than £700,000 for the efforts to rebuild the library and has drawn broader awareness to the importance of art preservation and funding.

Both of these Cannes winners serve as examples for what happens when a team turns a negative into a positive. This tells us that we should be solution-oriented and opportunistic no matter how potentially devastating a challenge may appear. This approach shouldn’t just be applied to the moonshot ideas, but to our daily work.

We did this last year with the merger of Access Communications and Emanate, two powerhouse boutiques, to create a mid-size agency with the talent and resources to strategically support our clients’ needs in a rapidly changing communications landscape.

Today, we take this one step further by changing our name to Access Brand Communications. It’s more than a name change, it’s the next chapter of what defines and differentiates us.

Since the day we started twenty-five years ago, our mission has been to provide companies with access points to new audiences by making the complicated uncomplicated. This started with working with emerging internet companies to introduce new technologies to corporate and consumer audiences.  Two decades later, we help our tech and consumer clients more meaningfully connect with their target customers via social media and new digital influencers.

Our core value proposition is even more essential today when dealing with a complex, noisy, multi-screen marketing world where there has been a shift of power from brands to consumers.

Our new name is reflective of our roots and how brands of all types are looking for less costly and more effective integrated communications. It’s about the transition from clip counts to engagement, from messaging to influencing, from a broad reach based on circulation numbers to targeted relevance through multi-dimensional touch points.

We’ve streamlined the complexities and costs of “integrated” communications with a non-siloed structure that blends earned media, digital and experiential teams. Through this seamless approach we are giving brands like Facebook, Capital One, Nivea, Blue Diamond and Dr. Pepper and a growing roster of B2C and B2B brands access to audiences that count.

We also believe every relationship is earned. Grounded in the discipline of earned media, Access earns every relationship – with clients, influencers, media and audiences of all kinds – with authentic story-telling and smart campaigns that drive impact.

As part of the new Access, I’m thrilled to be bringing on board a new General Manager for our New York office – Bob Osmond, whose blend of B2B and consumer brand-building experience mirrors the history of Access. He will be an important part of the agency’s growth goals.

It’s an exciting and rapidly changing time in communications. We operate in an increasingly cluttered and noisy world. At Access, we believe connecting the dots between PR, digital and experiential channels doesn’t have to be overwhelming; instead it can just be a great opportunity for brands and the audiences they serve.

The Barry’s Bootcamp fitness studio recently opened near our San Francisco office. For those not familiar with Barry’s, the class is an exciting combination of running on the treadmill and lifting weights on the floor. Nine of us faced the challenge, most for the very first time to see what all of the hype was about.
Some of the group was skeptical and had heard that the class was insanely difficult. We all were excited to try something new as a group.

“It was awesome to hang out with my coworkers outside of work and try something new. I definitely wouldn’t have been brave enough to give Barry’s a try without the encouragement and support of my colleagues.” – Katie Sells, Senior Account Executive

“The class was hard but worth it. I would never push myself to run that much on my own.” – Tara Holiday, Assistant Account Executive

“It was fun to do such an intense and challenging workout with my coworkers! I’m more of a yoga gal but it was still a great class.” – Carolyn Linck, Account Supervisor

While some of us enjoyed the class more than others, we all agreed it was a great way to distract ourselves from the pressures of the PR world and focus on our fitness. We all left sweaty and endorphin- filled, ready to take on the next work day!

Where are you from and what brought you to Access Emanate?

I am from Montclair, New Jersey and attended Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. I studied Media & Communications, so I learned the basic how-to’s of PR such as writing and the impact of media coverage on a brand. It was a great foundation to get started and helped me figure out that PR was the industry I wanted to enter.

Your role at Access Emanate includes:

As an Assistant Account Executive every day is different, but a few duties include brand communications, media relations, event coordination and creating visibility opportunities for my clients through speaking opportunities and trade show/conference involvement.

What inspires you throughout the day?
Living that New York City #commuterlife, I am forever amazed by the people I interact with on the subway each day. I’ve seen really strange and unexplainable things, but I have also witnessed the most genuine acts of kindness during chaotic and stressful times (morning commute, anyone?) and it reminds me that there is a still lot of good in this world.

What brand do you think gets PR right and why?

Airbnb is doing a great job at PR and is a really interesting company to watch. They seem to have a good understanding of influencer relations having worked with celebrities such as Lady Gaga, (who stayed at an Airbnb accommodation for the Super Bowl and gave it some serious publicity) Beyoncé, and various social media influencers who were able to promote a grand lifestyle in conjunction with Airbnb without being overtly promotional.

If you could grab a drink with anyone from any point in history, who would it be and what would you talk about?

I would love to meet my grandfather who passed away before I was born. I’d bring a tape recorder, and we’d talk about family history, probably make fun of my mom/his daughter for a bit and he’d regale me with hilarious stories. Plus, I heard he made a mean Bloody Mary.

What’s one thing about you that might surprise people?

I was the captain of my varsity soccer team in high school but never played in a game. I think that I was more of the “motivational cheerleader” for my teammates.

What are you passionate about pursuing outside of work?

I love listening to good music and enjoy attending concerts around my community to support local artists. I’m lucky to be in an area with a lot of great venues so it’s convenient to pop by and catch a show after work.

To kick off the weeklong fundraiser, Access Emanate Account Coordinator and 200-hour certified yoga instructor Sam Scheetz taught a donation-based vinyasa yoga class for the office on Monday afternoon. From yoga newbies to seasoned practitioners, more than a dozen staff members attended the class to get their downward-dog on and donate to the great cause.

Closing out the week, the AE Cares team organized a special Office Hours celebration featuring Southeast Asian treats and an overflowing tip jar for EHC. By the end of the week, nearly $200 was raised for the organization.

This money will be used to help the girls and young women at Tom Dy Center in Cambodia receive educations, including training in therapeutic yoga, English classes and computer skills instruction. EHC believes investing in these three key areas will help the girls share their stories more broadly, help others in their community and pull themselves and their families out of poverty.

“Our Empower Hearts donation-based class celebrated the core principles of yoga: unity, gratitude and compassion,” explained Scheetz. “The Empower Hearts Campaign is near and dear to me as it provides education and holistic healing to recovering survivors of sex-trafficking, re-instilling their self-worth and giving them an opportunity at life. I can’t think of a more worthy cause.”

If you’d like to donate or learn more about EHC, visit www.empowerhearts.org.

We thought it’d be a great idea to get the San Francisco and New York offices together to both create cards for these deserving kids. Not only would we be giving back to a really important organization that is helping do something small to brighten kids’ days, but we’d get to have some fun and put our creativity to good use.

In SF, a group gathered in a conference room and channeled their inner artists to create some really adorable cards toward the end of a work day. With glitter glue, construction paper and some heart stickers, the team was able to create a bunch of valentines with sweet messages inside. We also learned that crafting is quite a stress reliever. Everyone enjoyed taking a brief break from their desks to use their creative spirits for something good.

The following week, the NYC office, armed with glitter, plenty of heart stickers and doilies, penned Valentine’s Day cards for dozens of children to be distributed in hospitals around the country. Inside, encouraging messages included phrases like “Keep it up!” and “We’re so proud of you!”

Across both offices, we created more than 100 cards to be distributed to kids who are looking for an extra smile this Valentine’s Day. We hope our messages of love made their day a bit brighter!