Thoughts — Creativ Strategies

Challenges Welcome

The Creativ Brief: What are Advertising NewFronts

The Creativ Brief: What are Advertising NewFronts

Next week thousands of advertisers, agencies, and media owners will coalesce in Manhattan for Newfronts, hosted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, more commonly known as the IAB, is an American advertising business organization tasked with conducting research, and supporting members via public policy. The group also sets general standards for digital advertising, including what constitutes a view, digital tracking rules, cookie enablement, and more.

Wes MortonApril 26, 2024advertising, marketing, newfronts, newyorkComment

📓 The Creativ Brief: Metacognition in Advertising

📓 The Creativ Brief: Metacognition in Advertising

The novel branches of neuro and behavioral science have ascribed our innate human ability to learn by doing, collaborate in groups, and even story tell to metacognition.

Wes MortonApril 19, 2024Comment

The Creativ Brief: Creativ Insights launches with new executive leadership

The Creativ Brief: Creativ Insights launches with new executive leadership

This week we made the biggest strategic move in our young company's history, joining forces with data science firm TalkAItive to form a new division, Creativ Insights.

Our bet is two-fold:

The marketing industry needs better methods to evaluate their consumer data, campaigns, media valuations, IP values and…
Applying machine learning to those marketing challenges will provide the best solution.

To deliver on that strategic bet, we had to expand our team.

Wes MortonFebruary 2, 2024marketing, advertising, NYC, Ad Sales, StrategyComment

The Creativ Brief: Data Weaponization

The Creativ Brief: Data Weaponization

Ignited by the promise of artificial intelligence (AI), a war for your data has erupted.

In the well-cushioned boardrooms of silicon valley, executives plot, litigate, and jockey to possess the fuel of the future. These synthetic fuels are not the AI or machine learning systems so fawned over in the media, but the oceans of data that feed them.

Wes MortonJanuary 26, 2024Marketing, Advertising, Data Weaponization, News, AdsComment

The Creativ Brief: Digital Detachment

The Creativ Brief: Digital Detachment

Who hasn’t been personally insulted on the internet?

A VP of sales recently called me a corporate loving misogynist in the LinkedIn comment section of a Variety post.

At first I was upset. Then amused. Then positively tickled that I appeared important enough to be the target of such self-serving virtue signaling.

Wes MortonJanuary 19, 2024Data, advertising, Marketing, Markets, Data Science, New YorkComment

The Creativ Brief: How Technology Affects Language

The Creativ Brief: How Technology Affects Language

Traditional English grammar is degrading in favor of readability.

Where the Oxford elites would call for a comma - there is now a dash.

Instead of formal capitalization, one can capitalize ANYTHING for emphasis.

In lieu of a word, one can put a simple 😊.

Wes MortonJanuary 12, 2024marketing, advertising, nocap, technology, languageComment

The Creativ Brief: Habits and New Year Resolutions

The Creativ Brief: Habits and New Year Resolutions

The vast majority of new year resolutions fail.

According to the IHRSA, the health and fitness association, 12%, more than 1 and 10 new gym members join in January. 80% of those people will cancel their membership within 5 months.

The statistics reveal a massive discrepancy between ambition and will in most people. The remedy? Make your goals easy to accomplish.

Wes MortonJanuary 5, 2024Comment

The Creativ Brief: 2024 Predictions and Learning Something New

The Creativ Brief: 2024 Predictions and Learning Something New

For many professionals, today is the last work day of the year. I want to thank you for reading the Creativ Brief this year.

We leave you with a few rapid 2024 predictions to ponder over your break.

Wes MortonDecember 22, 2023marketing, advertising, creative, new years, 2024Comment

The Creativ Brief: Discovery, How We Find New Things

The Creativ Brief: Discovery, How We Find New Things

I discovered Jungle, the British electronic music project founded by J & T.

I discovered the band on TikTok.

Then I texted my musically versed friend the clip. She said ‘how do you not know about these people, check this music video out.’

Wes MortonDecember 15, 2023Comment

The Creativ Brief: George Santos, Bad Behavior, and Hollywood

The Creativ Brief: George Santos, Bad Behavior, and Hollywood

George Santos became one of six people in the entire US history to be expelled from Congress this week.

His documented antics include lying about his education, employment, age, being Jewish, ties to Sept 11th, founding an animal charity, swindling disabled veterans, using campaign funds on Hermes, Botox and OnlyFans, and embezzling from the unemployment office.

Wes MortonDecember 15, 2023Creativ Strategies, Advertising, Marketing, Online, Google, Robots, George SantosComment

The Creativ Brief: Ads Come to Ridesharing and Digital Grocery

The Creativ Brief: Ads Come to Ridesharing and Digital Grocery

Lyft and Uber recently announced they are bringing advertising to their platforms.

For the ridesharing apps the calculus to add advertising was simple - the app boasts millions of users, consumer specific datasets on credit card type, location, and spending habits, and a captive audience.

Wes MortonDecember 1, 2023Comment

The Creativ Brief: How Gratitude Builds Grit

The Creativ Brief: How Gratitude Builds Grit

Grit, resolve or perseverance in the face of obstacles, has proven to be the most vital skill I’ve developed as a founder.

It’s not as if everything goes wrong; it’s that things go wrong constantly. As the company leader, you have to resolve every nuisance, issue, dispute, problem, situation, ask, or meltdown all while managing a team. The cumulative stress wears on you. Something I took for granted when I was an employee.

Wes MortonNovember 24, 2023Marketing, Advertising, Gratitude, DigitalComment

The Creativ Brief: In-game advertising frontiers

The Creativ Brief: In-game advertising frontiers

Video games will soon become the largest entertainment medium in the world.

Publishers, tech solutions, and agencies have taken notice, racing to fill that demand and battling to become the leader in the next frontier in marketing - in-game advertising.

Wes MortonNovember 17, 2023Marketing, Advertising, GamingComment

The Creativ Brief: Sara Yazdani Expands PR Practice

The Creativ Brief: Sara Yazdani Expands PR Practice

This week we grew our team, appointing Sara Yazdani as Director of Media & Entertainment PR.

Sara will run overall strategic planning and day-to-day PR campaigns for the company’s roster of clients, managing a team, supporting the CEO Wes Morton, and marketing the company’s line of services.

Her decade+ career includes stints at The Walt Disney Company, Recording Academy, PMK*BNC and BIZ 3. She’s led initiatives for global brands such as Disney, Star Wars, Samsung, Google, Techstars, Grammys, and more, garnering millions of media impressions.

Wes MortonNovember 10, 2023Marketing, Advertising, PR, EntertainmentComment

The Creativ Brief: Structure, Growth and Employees

The Creativ Brief: Structure, Growth and Employees

We are entering a new phase at Creativ Strategies in which we need to create structure in order to scale.

That means hierarchies, policies, procedures, and codes of conduct - you know, all the fun stuff people love from corporations.

Many of these business norms are unspoken or written in dry prose in a quickly forgotten employee handbook.

Wes MortonNovember 3, 2023Creativ Strategies, Marketing, AdvertisingComment

The Creativ Brief: Onboarding Employees and Clients

The Creativ Brief: Onboarding Employees and Clients

We’ve gotten better at onboarding over our two+ year existence, developing our own process to onboard new employees and clients as we scaled. Here’s the best practices we’ve learned:

Research for understanding

Establish goals and objectives

Check in regularly

Wes MortonOctober 27, 2023advertising, Marketing, NHRL, Fighting Robots, Ads, Streaming, STEM, Content Marketing, Short Form, Long Form, Fighting, iSports, SportsComment

The Creativ Brief: Advertising Week Recapped

The Creativ Brief: Advertising Week Recapped

We’re ending our day with The Creativ Brief, recapping Advertising Week which officially wrapped yesterday.

The annual advertising conference gathers several thousand marketing and advertising professionals in midtown, Manhattan.

Here’s the biggest trends emerging from our conversations:

In-game advertising panel with Activision Blizzard, Livewire, Spark Foundry, and Digiday

Wes MortonOctober 20, 2023awny, Advertising Week, Advertising, MarketingComment

The Creativ Brief: The Quality-Price Index

The Creativ Brief: The Quality-Price Index

Quality is often perceived as inversely related to price.

As the quality increases prices increase; as quality falls price decreases.

However, in business choosing the cheap option usually costs you more in the long run.

Wes MortonOctober 13, 2023Marketing, Advertising, Streaming, Messi, Sports, Quality, PriceComment

The Creativ Brief: Networks and Their Effects

The Creativ Brief: Networks and Their Effects

Network effects refer to the phenomenon that the more people use a product or service the more valuable that product or service becomes.

Social media/networks are the primary example. The more people that use a social media service the more valuable the network becomes for both consumers and advertisers.

Entertainment, Digital, Marketing StrategyWes MortonOctober 6, 2023Marketing, Advertising, Networking, Networks, businessComment

The Creativ Brief: Proving Your Value

The Creativ Brief: Proving Your Value

What’s your value?

Whether you are entry level, a company executive, or client partner, people want to understand the value you bring. It’s the inescapable reality of capitalism.

A new partner or employee has an unknown value. The key to bringing on new employees or partners lies in aligning value to goals.

Are your deliverables or value propositions aligned with costs?
Do your clients/employer properly understand the value provided? Do they value it more or less?
Are your goals specific and measurable so both sides can judge success?

Wes MortonSeptember 29, 2023Marketing, Advertising, Media, TechComment