The Big Impression

Heritage sports brands may be tempted to rely on their history to appeal to a new generation that wasn’t there to see it. But in the fast-moving digital attention economy, that’s a mistake, says Antonio Gnocchini, chief marketing officer at Diadora.

He joins The Big Impression podcast to explain how the iconic Italian brand is reclaiming its spot in the performance market. By leaning into a challenger brand mindset during the Paris 2024 Olympics — without the price tag of official sponsorship — Gnocchini and his team are shifting the focus from nostalgia to high-performance innovation.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler, and welcome to this edition of The Big Impression. Today, we're looking at how a heritage sportswear brand carved out its own spotlight at the Paris 2024 Olympics without being an official sponsor. My guest is Antonio Gnocchini, Chief Marketing Officer at Diadora, the iconic Italian brand known for its made in Italy craftsmanship. In the lead of the Paris, Antonio and his team launched a global brand campaign built around Diadora's roster of Italian athletes from Trackstar, Larissa, Yapacino, defensers and speed skaters, all while showcasing innovations like the Atomo Running Shoe. That's the first high mileage running shoe made in Italy in three decades. We're going to break down how Diadora timed its campaign to maximize the Olympic moment, how it differentiates itself from giants like Nike and LVMH, and what this strategy says about building awareness in a crowded high-stakes marketing landscape. So let's get into it.

(01:07):

Antonio, can you tell us about why the Paris Olympics was such an important moment for Diadora as it sought to elevate its brand name again?

Antonio Gnocchini (01:18):

So if you are a multi-category sport brand, Olympics is certainly the big event, the main event, your main catwalk of the main show. And you prepare for it for a long time because you need to be in one of the most competitive environment with the best product, competitive athletes. Everything needs to be perfect. And it's also one of those moments in which you can go deeper with attention, with messages. If you are serious about sport and you want to communicate, sport brand values, what you really stand for, it's not easy, especially today in moments in which the attention is not much, few seconds from everybody. Channels are very fast and flattened messages very easily. The Olympics is a moment in which for a few weeks you have the attention. You have people connected and engaged. You have people who care. And so it's a perfect environment to talk again about what you stand for.

(02:41):

And so going back to the Olympics was a statement to say, we actually are a competitive sport brands, a performance brand, not only lifestyle of it. And so yeah, it was such an important environment for us. Also, these Olympics was maybe one of the first ones that I've seen since I started doing this job when you could see some challengers brands activating and being visible.

(03:15):

In the past, this was really an event only for main sponsors and official sponsors mostly. Now this is a moment of challengers. And if you find the right way and if you had a good connection with your outlets, you could be doing a successful marketing campaigns and actions.

Damian Fowler (03:35):

That's really interesting to hear you say that. And I think, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Is the kind of media environment that we exist in now, does that make it possible for challenger brands to find a way to reach audiences that they otherwise might not be able to find back when it was the main TV channels and big glossy mags, there are more niches now in many ways.

Antonio Gnocchini (04:00):

There's a very interesting report that Business of Fashion and McKinsey release every year. And the most recent one was a study from McKinsey, which they were showing displaying how the sport market, which was dominated by only few incumbents. And you could see that at Olympics, still today, the most recent one, the usual suspects are dominated most of the sports. But in this past few years, there is a change going on in which incumbents are really under pressure from Challengers brand in the sport industry. They're gaining momentum. Challenges are gaining space, gaining market share, and also visibility. And you can say that maybe this is linked to the explosion of running as a global movement, but it's not only that. Running certainly as contributed, because running is one of those categories that is really extremely democratic. And yeah, sure, track and field main athletes, famous names help, but you can become a successful running brand without having only the most amazing hundred meters runners.

(05:37):

You can be successful by working in other ways. And you see brands starting to become more visible through running in the sport industry.

Damian Fowler (05:47):

What's interesting about Diadora is that it has this very significant legacy as a sports brand. I mean, I think back to my childhood when I used to absolutely love Beyond Borg. And as soon as I saw the name Diadora, I remember Borg. And of course there's other soccer legends like Roberto Baggio or Francesco Totti. But in recent years, it's been a little bit maybe eclipsed by bigger brands that you just mentioned. So you're a challenger brand, but you're also a legacy brand. Could you explain a bit more of the context around the history of the brand?

Antonio Gnocchini (06:24):

If you are passionate about sport, when you land at Diadora and you visit the museum, it is a kid in a candy store. That was my experience at the museum is you could see in real life the objects of desire of your youth. In my bedroom, I had posters of all these heroes and there's a moment, there's a scene in King Richard with Will Smith, in which you hear for a moment in the movie, you hear Venus and Serena Williams coach telling Richard Williams to wait on the Nike offer because the perfect offer for any tennis player at the time was the one Jennifer Capriati was getting from Diadora. When I watched the movie, I was like, whoa. So we wear really the tennis brand and the brand that was in relation with athletes, especially tennis athletes. We were the tennis athletes brand. What happened?

(07:34):

I think that the brand, the company really focused for few decades on product, product marketing, sports marketing contracts, traditional marketing actions. While in the meantime, other brands, other sport brands have become very sophisticated, very innovative in their marketing strategies, films where Nike's main language and they were exciting product of their marketing department. I think the brand here, the Theodo has been focusing on other things and lost the engagement with consumers globally. And then for a few years, as I was saying, the focus had been really on capitalizing on its legacy and becoming more of a lifestyle brand. But in reality, the market can tell you that if you're not serious about sport, you lose your credibility as a lifestyle of sport brand.

Damian Fowler (08:42):

Yeah. So the new campaign or the more recent campaign is about reasserting that sports connection. How else would you define the brand as it is now?

Antonio Gnocchini (08:57):

I think that what we needed to do ... So the first thing that I wanted to do is to prove that the sensation, the feeling that we had was correct. So we run a long and insightful brand health monitor study, and the results of that study was showing that, yes, that we were a legacy brand, people recognized the name, but they couldn't really link it any longer to specific performance product, and they were not buying performance product any longer from the Adora. So we were also associated linked to values like being Italian, but at the same time, it was this idea of romantic Italian, quaint, Italian, traditional. If you want to be successful in sports, you have to talk about innovation, you have to be recognized for your capacity of being a technological advanced company. And so the main effort for us in the beginning was to go back into making sure that our research and development center was up to speed and that the marketing department was capable of telling these type of stories because these stories were in fact very important for our consumer, for our focused consumers, the focus of our target, a younger consumer that wanted to talk about sport, they wanted to be capable also of discovering innovative brand sports.

(10:44):

So even if we were not one of the main incumbents by being authentic in sport, especially in running and in other categories, by being authentic, we could engage with this young consumers who was interested in discovering new brands that have an innovation angle that was really relevant.

Damian Fowler (11:11):

Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. I'm interested to hear you talk a bit more about that audience group that you really wanted to reach and the profile of that group. And presumably there's an element of conquesting going on because you've got to get them from some of the bigger names that we've already talked about.

Antonio Gnocchini (11:29):

Yeah. As I was saying, running has become one of those category, goes beyond just track and field, goes beyond the daily jogger, goes beyond ... It is really something that touches wellness, fashion is playing into running a lot. Everybody is doing running collections today, not just the usual suspects. We wanted to make sure that in this environment in which you had a lot of noise, we could be recognized as authentic, as separate from the noise. So we wanted to talk with a niche and then make sure that that authentic young athlete was putting the mileage out. So it wasn't talking about running, but putting also the miles and the sweat in running. There were those consumers that were scheduling all their weekends around the run, around the race, so the real authentic runner could recognize that we weren't distracted by all this running noise. We were serious.

(12:48):

So our messages were we run a campaign that is called Normalize iMileage that was directed only to that type of consumers that could recognize the acts and the gestures and the typical struggle of that type of runners. Even if that meant alienating for a little bit a wider audience, because we know that with a wider audience, we had less capacity of rich. We didn't have the muscle for them. But we see today that when you are authentic and strong with that type of niche, that niche creates expansion and creates influence, and then you start to resonate also in other markets and with other type of consumers.

Damian Fowler (13:39):

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about how you set the stage leading up to Paris to build that buzz that's going to resonate across all these different outlets?

Antonio Gnocchini (13:51):

Yeah. We decided, as you can imagine, getting attention is ex extremely difficult, especially today. The new channels are flattening everything and everything is so few fraction of a seconds between your thumb and in your face, it's very hard to go deeper with messages. And if you want to go deeper, you need to find ways in which you can. And for us, our strategy was, okay, we need to stop their attention, stop their eyes for longer.

Damian Fowler (14:35):

I'm curious now to see, given the kind of media exposure that you started to establish, how did it play out during and after the Olympics, and how did you capitalize on it essentially?

Antonio Gnocchini (14:49):

So we monitor during the main events at the Arsenal, we made sure that all the guests and all the people, all the stakeholders of sport were well-informed and also capable of giving the right message out with the proper information. And then we started collecting and amplify this type of information, then feed them also to our partners in the market, retailers, key accounts. All of this helped us make sure that the product was properly displayed and also was selling out in the right moment in time. And by being nimble and agile and fast, we had a great success on this. The content that we had created, we noticed that they were getting a completion rate of 97, 98%. We never had completion rates so high. So we knew that we had something that was resonating. We only needed to be insisting on it and fasting the reaction by feeding athletes, giving the same content to them, and that's it.

Damian Fowler (16:08):

And you mentioned that 97% completion rate on videos and things like that. That's obviously an important metric. What else did you do to measure brand buzz? And then maybe then how did you connect that to sales?

Antonio Gnocchini (16:21):

Every year we do a brand study, a brand health monitor in order to understand the feeling and how our values are perceived by consumers. If there is any change in what we're doing that is affecting their point of view on the brand. Then we do social monitoring on a daily base, especially when we post and when we have athletes performing our.com and a good connection with key accounts, get us data on results and how what we do resonates on the market. That's pretty much what keep us informed and get us a good understanding of what we're doing.

Damian Fowler (17:05):

How did this push around Paris help define the current market right now? And what does it also tell you about where you should build next?

Antonio Gnocchini (17:15):

It is a confirmation that it is a challenger moment. It is a confirmation that if you establish a conversation with your consumers, you can expand and you can gain market in a market that was completely polarized and dominated by only a few brands. It is also confirmation that if you are authentic, at times, maybe even very vertical in your attack to the market through the category, we don't do every sport. We only are focusing now on few sports, but to do them with authenticity, this is also resonating a lot and you have to be ready for sport moments, which means every sport moment that it's not only Olympics, even minor sport moments, if you're capable of being ready and capitalize on it with your athletes, it's a great tool.

Damian Fowler (18:20):

You talked about using innovation, being on the cutting edge to reach a new generation of fans, but do you also still infuse that with some of the golden age narrative that Diadora has? Yes,

Antonio Gnocchini (18:33):

We do. We balance. We try to balance the messaging in that sense, but I think what I've learned in this past few years here is that this is no longer the sneaker culture generation where you could go and have long session and education and talk about the history of that specific model, and you would have this passionate nerd of Sneakers that would then storytell the whole thing to Hollist friends and everybody were buying into it. Everybody was buying into it. I think every time we preach about our history, every time about we try to give lessons, especially the younger generation, it doesn't seem to be interesting and doesn't like it also. But what we see that they like is what they discover. So we have to be ready with the right information. We have to give them a story that is compelling in term of product, in term of innovation, and then let them discover the history behind it, the art, let's say, the origin of the whole story, and where is this coming from?

(19:54):

So maybe one thing that I'm seeing that it's also a learning is the fact that brands ... I've seen brands just trying to capitalize on the fact that one product story has to be successful because it's linked to this specific moment in time, and you consumers should know about it and should buy about it because of that. It doesn't really resonate to consumer any longer. You need more than that. And so, yeah.

Damian Fowler (20:27):

I love that. I think it's so interesting to hear you say you can't preach to consumers, but you can allow them the opportunity to discover. I think that's such a great insight. I think that goes for any storytelling, to be honest.

Antonio Gnocchini (20:45):

I think you're right, but I think it's specifically more valid now in which I believe that you need to have your story perfect and you need to have the details of your story needs to be really well done. People think that you can simply post in every second and be very fast in making sure that consumers will see fresh things every second, digest it very quickly, and then post new ones. Especially for us, this doesn't prove to be right.

Damian Fowler (21:24):

I had a good guest on this podcast a few editions ago who talked about how brand messaging is in everything, the tactile element of the brand. He used Harley Davidson as an example, it's not just a bike, it's everything you encounter in the showroom, the quality of the materials. And I'm getting that sense when I look at Diadora and the Diadora site that their brand messaging comes through in the product line.

Antonio Gnocchini (21:55):

This is very true and very valid. Again, if you want to be serious in your relationship, in your conversation with that niche audience, it means that every touchpoint, every single touchpoint needs to tell something about that story, otherwise they will immediately perceive that it's not authentic

Damian Fowler (22:21):

Any longer. So let me ask you big picture here. So for marketers listening, what's the lesson here that you can tell? You came from Nike, but now you're at Diadora. So you've seen what the big heavyweight brand has done and can do, but what can a smaller brand learn from your experience, I guess, whether it be about future forward channels like CTV or retail media or programmatic or social? Sorry, let me just ask you ask that more simply. What can a marketer learn from your experience trying to market this, bring this brand back into view? I

Antonio Gnocchini (23:04):

Think the most important thing for us has been to be capable of focusing on doing few things and do them perfectly, or at least as perfect as we could do. You are challenged to be very active and be reactive and also try to capitalize on every single product you have in the line and every sport that is played is an opportunity of doing something. The reality is if you want to start to resonate, you need to establish a valid conversation with your core focused consumers. And to do that, you need focus. And this means also at times being capable of saying no to things that you could be doing or that you get pressure from anybody or everybody in the company to do, and also the pressure from the market many times. Again, let's remember that this was a market in which you were supposed to drop a new product every few weeks, so we don't do that.

(24:23):

And we try to talk about innovation only when we have real innovation to communicate. And then when you do build an authentic story and a strong story with every touchpoint connected in the right way, this to me proved to be successful.

Damian Fowler (24:44):

Going back to Paris, that was obviously a huge high watermark for sport last year. As you look ahead to next year, is there anything that's on your calendar that's one of those moments where brand and moment have that synchronicity?

Antonio Gnocchini (25:01):

Olympics is not something that you prepare the season before. So next Olympics is already something that we are studying, preparing for, sweating about. We have to prepare all our innovations. We have to be ready with the right messaging. We have to find the right athletes, and we have to have a strategy on what type of messages we want to focus on. So LA Olympics is certainly something that we look at and we dream of.

Damian Fowler (25:40):

Let me turn to the last section here and just ask you some quick fire questions, if I may. One of the things I wanted to ask you is, is there a sports marketing trend that you think is overrated?

Antonio Gnocchini (25:51):

Maybe there is something that is a bit underrated, which is the fact that some lesser known sport events and maybe not the main athletes, but the local athletes, they are underrated. You can build excellent engaging campaign through those.

Damian Fowler (26:17):

What matters more in the next five years? Heritage, innovation, or cultural storytelling?

Antonio Gnocchini (26:24):

If I may try to put them in order, I would say cultural storytelling for me, then innovation and then heritage. If you do cultural storytelling well, I think your legacy, your heritage is probably already well told in there, but I think that you, again, it's a moment in time which I will never stop stressing the fact that you need to be capable in storytelling properly.

Damian Fowler (26:57):

Is there anything missing in the ad marketplace today that you perceive?

Antonio Gnocchini (27:01):

Data that goes beyond just the reach of a campaign. And even the reach at times is not really ... And not everything is so perfect and reliable. If you could find a way ... You remember where you were studying marketing and the sentence from Wanamaker, I don't know which half of my money spent is wasted. I go back to that. I've been promised by these new tools and these new digital tools that I will know better, but it seems that to be capable of really reading through the noise and getting valuable data that goes just beyond rich, it's still hard and it's still at times not that reliable. And then the other thing is I see an inflation in the attention economy that makes me think that I need to find new ways and new channels and not only finding great storytelling. The reality is my stories, if I even have a great way of telling, if even when I have a great story, at times I need to change it and distort it in order to be played in these new environments, in new digital channels.

(28:40):

These channels at times distort the values of my brand, and I want that not to happen. So I need to find better ways and better channels.

Damian Fowler (28:55):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression. This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns. And remember.

Antonio Gnocchini (29:04):

I think the most important thing for us has been to be capable of focusing on doing few things and do them perfectly.

Damian Fowler (29:15):

I'm Damian, and we'll see you next time.

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As Dish Media’s new head of programmatic partnerships, Kristinnsson is helping turn advanced TV into a single, addressable marketplace. 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today, we're joined by Liam Kristinnsson, head of programmatic partnerships at Dish Media, where he's helping shape how the company connects advertisers with premium audiences across both linear and digital environments.

Damian Fowler (00:23):

Dish has been pushing hard into the programmatic space. From Dish Connected, it's addressable solution across the ecosystem to Advantage, which links programmatic buying with linear inventory in real time. It's all part of a broader move to bring automation and accountability to advanced TV.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:39):

We'll talk with Liam about how Dish is tackling fragmentation, what premium really means in a mixed green world, and where the next phase of programmatic growth is headed.

Damian Fowler (00:51):

So let's get into it.

Liam Kristinnsson (00:57):

Dish Connected has really revolutionized our product in the marketplace. We've been able to convert an additional four million to five million households into tangible CTV devices across real-time bidding systems across the industry. And it's kind of given us a leg up against some of our more linear competition where we now have full autonomy over our inventory and can enable and provide transparency downstream to any client.

Damian Fowler (01:28):

That's amazing. I mean, there was a moment there where there was a sort of either all linear or CTV, but this is something that's kind of connecting those

Liam Kristinnsson (01:38):

Two worlds. I think this is the start of the convergence. I know it probably truly started post-pandemic, I would say, but the reality is now that what is perceived as underutilized impression-based audiences are now becoming tangible and kind of overlapping with their traditional legacy linear purchases. And there's much more value to it because we are not enabling people to find attribution in a more roundabout extrapolated way, but we can provide meaningful real time results to third party attribution vendors or measurement vendors.

Damian Fowler (02:20):

And that brings us to Advantage, which you introduced in May to Power Programmatic and Linear at the same time. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Liam Kristinnsson (02:30):

Yeah. So the beauty of Advantage is it really expands upon what we've already built for Programmatic in Disconnected, but it provides solutions across the whole suite of products we have. Our addressable business can tap into real-time kind of innovations, real-time optimizations against audiences, ensure that we are better delivering across the target audience and finding that incremental reach that in the past may have been next to impossible to verify. And now we have all that inventory in one place. It's kind of like a grocery store when I think the industry has become accustomed to going to a bodega. That's very New York with me, I understand. I like that. But sometimes bodegas have eggs, they have a deli, they might have milk, but they might not always have milk and seltzer and all the little things that you want on a day-to-day basis. And the reality is something lacking when it comes to you being able to actually fill your fridge.

(03:35):

Now we have all those components that the customer or the client is looking for.

Damian Fowler (03:40):

Yeah. I like that analogy.

Ilyse Liffreing (03:41):

It's a good one. Yeah, no, I like that. And now Liam, I'm curious about the advertisers you're working with. Is there a new segment of buyers that Programmatic is really opening the door to here? What is basically your sense of that cohort?

Liam Kristinnsson (03:58):

Yeah, I think it really has grown overnight programmatic in general, but I think it allows us to have expanded exposure across all clients that are looking for that more meaningful kind of results. I think we are seeing a lot of success in generating a lot of traction across the CPG world, the direct to consumer world. And I think we're finding a nice overlap from a category perspective of what we traditionally looked at as direct IO or addressable business, but maybe not all those brands or clients in maybe like a pharmaceutical vertical would tap or earmark dollars for commitments early in their planning phase. Now they have the liberty and the luxury to find that right audience and enable dollars downstream where we're just not hunting in that lane and now we can kind of, instead of spreading ourselves thin, the technology can enable us to really kind of tap into all those brands, whether it be the CPG or the pharmaceuticals.

(05:05):

Now on the CPG side, I would double down further. I think because in the linear world, traditionally there's a level of fragmentation when you were to buy linear and you're only getting a percentage of the marketplace. Now the transparency and data that we're passing downstream really changes that, right? Because now these CPG brands are looking to trade off their kind of gross rating points, but kind of understand, all right, am I serving a family that would buy my products? And now we're freeing up the inventory and making it available to those brands that maybe were not always keen on addressable or linear didn't provide enough eyeballs. We're compensating for that with the data we're

Ilyse Liffreing (05:49):

Providing. Do you have an example of a brand you're working with?

Liam Kristinnsson (05:52):

Yeah. So I mean, more specifically, even though that wasn't in some of the categories I called out, there was one or two major financial brands that we've been able to elevate our profile quite significantly with and then partner with them around some of their initiatives on the backend. And I think it kind of shows some of the flexibility that a publisher can now provide brands that I don't think they ever associated with a conglomerate or a media company like ourselves.

Damian Fowler (06:23):

On that point, there is a perception that the space is fragmented and that there's linear here and then there's streaming here. Do you think that that is changing that perception, maybe thanks to some of the work that you're doing?

Liam Kristinnsson (06:36):

I think that's a lot of our goal. I think that we are simplifying the process and enabling a household or a device level, right? And the device level tends to be at the unique user level and we have the ability to kind of triangulate that and make sure that we're providing good and strong data down to our partners. I think that as a marketplace holistically, I think the fragmentation has changed and I think a lot of that's around some consumer behavior that has changed or specifically around the way consumers are watching more free content or there's pockets where they're not required to provide a subscription. And I think that there's still a gap there and we do have some front porch access to our apps, but we are looking on our end to continue to develop and then enable through Advantage how we can kind of provide those, specifically those returning viewers, that clean look to the advertisers on the back end and really kind of leveraging deterministic data and first party signals to really define that audience more cleanly in some ways that competitors of ours maybe can't do.

Ilyse Liffreing (07:53):

Overall, how would you describe your measuring the success of these programmatic partnerships?

Liam Kristinnsson (08:00):

Yeah. So I think that that's a really unique place because that's something that has been our bread and butter. We have our own targeting and attribution team. They've worked very diligently on the direct IO side. I think a lot of the legacy information that they've been able to provide clients and the insights and the ways that we've been able to either cut our inventory or kind of group or the target audiences for these clients have helped demonstrate the programmatic partners the value in not just our audience, which I think is somewhat being underserved because Dish tends to be middle America and maybe they have less apps or maybe they leverage less apps. So they have been underserved. We have a legacy of success around specific verticals and we're able to kind of provide that to these brands. I think the challenge is it's a little bit of a black hole sometimes of how they tie it back to each other.

(08:56):

And I think there needs to be a little bit more assistance on our end. And by us, I mean the royal we across the industry of like providing some of those insights that I kind of alluded to earlier, whether it's, are we targeting and talking about unique users? Are we looking at success at a household level? And there is some innovation that's required there in the industry, but I think what we're doing is really at the forefront of enabling that.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:23):

Are there any particular channels that have surprised you in terms of performance or even advertiser adoption?

Liam Kristinnsson (09:31):

Sure. I mean, I think I imagine everybody talks about the success of sports. Sports has been a real catalyst to the boon of CTV enablement in general, but I think that I'd be remiss not to call out that a lot of our entertainment brands have shined, but not in the ways that traditionally they've been leveraged, right? Even though certain pockets of inventory is not super desirable in the marketplace at times, like news, there are a ton of clients that we've seen a lot of traction there and like pick up incremental success and really drive reach by anonymizing the content that they buy and focusing on the audience.

Damian Fowler (10:20):

That's interesting. Is there still some resistance to the idea of being around current affairs and news?

Liam Kristinnsson (10:26):

Yeah. I think I myself came from the website world years ago and I saw firsthand when a certain brand would be next to a certain type of content. And I understand the urgent need to not expose a valuable legacy luxury brand to something that may or may not be bad, right? Yeah. But the reality is often there is a disconnect from the content being consumed and the pod of commercials that's watched, right? Yeah. And while we often, and I'm sure we ... My mother certainly will watch news for hours and hours upon day, which is maybe not healthy for her lifestyle, but I think what's great about it, specifically when she goes to sit down, she is glued in to the TV. And that's something I think that a lot of people are trying to figure out, are people watching? Are they tuned in? Are they walking away?

(11:30):

And that's the black box of advertising, but I know that people that watch news are glued into the TV and consuming the content between segments. It's kind of like sports, right? Yeah.

Damian Fowler (11:43):

I think that's true. And I think that's true across all channels as far as I know people reading digital news as well, but I don't want to go off on a massive digression about news, but anyway. But it is fantastic. Can we pull back and look at the big picture a little bit? And we were wondering if there were any precedents or points of inspiration inside or outside of media that inform how you think about programmatic partnerships at Dish?

Liam Kristinnsson (12:10):

Sure. I mean, I think that back to what I was saying about evolution, I think often in the media industry, we look at things like baseball teams are run today. Not to use a sports analogy. I know you guys are probably sick of them, but- We love sports analogies here. Nelly said the trade death.

(12:32):

But the reality is these days people want home run hitters. And I think back in the day, that's a little bit of a cyclical history. People always want home run hitters and like big stats, but you win championships with diversity. And I think what partnerships means today is not what it maybe meant 12 or 13 years ago. I think there's a ... We're becoming a world where people, we're all playing Tetris and there's a way to make it all fit together if we cooperate and enable each other. So it's not one size fit all fits all. I think there's a lot of small partnerships and that's good for the competition of the industry and it doesn't take away from the value of these big partnerships. And I think I don't think in my time in TV there's ever been more opportunity there than there is today.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:28):

Something we often write about at the current is the value of like premium content versus maybe like user generated. For instance, what would you say is the importance of premium and I guess what kind of premium content is most popular? I mean, you brought up sports, but are there any others?

Liam Kristinnsson (13:50):

Yeah. I mean, I think premium content, I'm sure many people discuss across the course of ad week or just in the industry and in general, how valuable, unique and what's deemed as traditionally primetime TV is. But the reality is it's even more valuable than that because you are in a lot of ways demanding an eclectic audience to watch your spectrum of content and you can't always guarantee that in other places. There is also, sure there's some oversaturation for specific channels and maybe the product that they air, but the reality is it is not what everybody is consuming these days, right? It's Halloween. Everybody can find a bunch of great horror movies or Halloween's coming up, I should say. Everybody could find a bunch of great horror movies across the board, can't always guarantee what is in that content, how glued in they are versus just kind of like, "Oh, it's in season." I think with premium content, specifically around live TV, there's 365 days a year of people competing against each other from a content perspective, but it demands eyeballs.

(15:07):

And I think we're also starting to see a surprising jump in the youth getting app fatigue, I suppose, that is better enabling that premium content to ensure eyeballs there, but they're paying attention and I cannot stress that enough. In a world of a short attention span, they want to know what's going on and they consume

Damian Fowler (15:28):

It. I would almost say it's short form content fatigue to a certain extent. There's something nice about a long form, a game,

Liam Kristinnsson (15:41):

A

Damian Fowler (15:41):

Football game,

Liam Kristinnsson (15:42):

A soccer game, or a movie. To that point, right? I was probably part of the problem with TV from a consumer point of view. I became like a cinephile which didn't help a company's ability to monetize myself, but the more meshed I get into the industry and the more, I don't know, popular I get, the less time I have to go find a film, right? The more time I have to maybe watch a drama about women in New York and I will watch the rerun that I just saw the week before at eight o'clock in anticipation of what's going to happen at nine o'clock, but really because I want to see the reunion or the interview at 10 o'clock, right? So now I'm consuming the same content twice, but I'm even more engaged in the live TV and there's something afterwards that is actually, maybe taped, but it feels live, right?

(16:37):

Yeah.

Damian Fowler (16:37):

And that's the proposition that Dish is getting into. I'd want to ask you, how's Dish Media building on the momentum that you've already created?

Liam Kristinnsson (16:45):

Yeah, I think right now it's what more can we do and how can we keep providing and enabling inventory for the right providers? I think that the assumption in the marketplace for any new product that comes out is, wow, this is it, it's here. 100% of it's enabled. That's never the case, right? It takes a year to ramp up typically for the average product, sometimes as much as three for us. We've been hitting the gas and I think now we're about to go from fifth to sixth speed and really kind of enable our inventory holistically to the marketplace. So for us, it's a little bit of crawl, walk, run from an enablement perspective and with that comes even greater insights into what are they consuming, what's the audience? How do we help define and clean up that audience downstream and then let others maybe do what they do best.

(17:45):

But we are really in a great position to keep kind of growing that and exposing net new insights about users that I'm not sure everybody's contemplating.

Damian Fowler (17:56):

Yeah, I'm sure.

Ilyse Liffreing (17:57):

Very cool. I have a question here about the economy and as you know, and everybody does, it's on kind of shaky ground, you don't know. How do you see spend evolving in the programmatic space at this time?

Liam Kristinnsson (18:16):

Well, I'm glad you asked that. I think there is marketplace concerns about what is happening on the demand side and a lot of them are valid. A lot of them are maybe being overthought perhaps, but I think there's some rocky roads ahead for specific industries, but it presents a unique opportunity. And I think from a publisher perspective, maintaining the value of inventory and the premium content that they have is absolutely a must because we are going to continue to provide insights and improve products that ultimately will provide better outcomes for backend users. If we kind of enable knee-jerk reactive spend, I think that actually goes against the grain of supply path optimization and increasing outcomes holistically under the guise of potentially lower rates or what have you. But I truly believe that if one category is down, another needs to go up. And I think advertising is like a mutual fund like that where I have lived in Europe in the past and there's a phrase in Scandinavia that like, no matter what happens to our small economy, people will advertise beer because somebody will buy it, right?

(19:46):

And I think that's much more universal than just in a few select small countries. And I think in a lot of ways we saw that in the pandemic, right? Direct to consumer brands, a lot more variety of entertainment companies or hardware products or TVs were able to kind of put their best foot forward and give the consumer options, right? And I think it's some of their responsibility to provide those options. What we, the publishers can do is enable and ensure they're getting the right results for the content and fitting them in the content or audiences that they really can get the best out of them, right?

Damian Fowler (20:28):

Absolutely. Okay. We're going to bring this home now with some quick fire questions, right? And here's the first one. What are you obsessed with figuring out right now?

Liam Kristinnsson (20:38):

Well, this might be a little divisive, but I am obsessed with continuing to improve supply path optimization, but I believe that comes with the slow sunsetting of linear. When I got to Dish, we were still primarily, while our bread and butter was addressable, we were still primarily from a percentage basis, linear, right? Since then, we've completely flipped the script. We are by far and away, mostly impression based. And the reality is I think that we are leveraging too many legacy tools to tell and provide stories on outcomes that are not always as accurate as they should be. We live in a world where transparency is key, maybe not full transparency all the time, but enough transparency where I, the client or brand should be getting a return on our investment or understanding why the audience or the content I was targeting is not working for me.

(21:42):

And I think that's, those are the pockets we need to start exploring and understanding, not so much the, how do I understand foot traffic on a day-to-day basis, but not convert that to sales when I'm extrapolating out 32 families, right? So that's really, really what I think needs to happen. And I think there's a lot of work to be done there and it's not going to happen overnight, but it starts here and starts with an advantage really.

Ilyse Liffreing (22:06):

Wow. And why do you think that the slow death of linear, as you said, has to happen for that?

Liam Kristinnsson (22:15):

I shouldn't say it has to happen. I think there is a time and a place for it, right? I think if I'm going to a bodega and I think I want a soft drink, that's their goal is to make sure that the first thing I think of is whatever the product is, but I think that time and a place is actually creating a lot of noise downstream and creating a lot of challenges for folks on the attribution and measurement side to actually understand and holistically look at their media purchases. And I think it's okay to have gross in terms of volume, ways of looking at how media should be purchased and leveraged, but I believe nine out of 10 clients really, they deserve the insights and the understanding of who is buying their products and how we can figure out how to kind of tie that together and improve into the next year.

(23:10):

That's how their products are going to build, especially with some of this like in certain categories. There's maybe too many brands or too little, right? Better data will inform beyond individual clients, but it'll enable people to start unique businesses that can compete in an area where there's clearly a lot of eager consumers,

(23:35):

Right?

Ilyse Liffreing (23:36):

Very cool. What's one piece of wisdom you'd pass on to other media leaders navigating the shift to programmatic?

Liam Kristinnsson (23:43):

Yeah. So I hate to say the same thing twice, but if I were to give one piece of wisdom is value your inventory that is going to be the future of your business and there are ways that you can improve your product and enable and improve a third party client or vendor's product, but racing to the bottom for what is happening tomorrow will not enable you next year. And it's a real concern in the marketplace, but my concern is actually twofold that it doesn't actually just hurt publishers, but it ends up ultimately hurting the brands and the people buying the inventory because they are going to receive exponentially more noise, right? And I think that as an industry with a lot of noise, we should really think about like how we can kind of isolate it into, and harness it into, into actual meaningful outcomes.

Damian Fowler (24:48):

If you could pick one brand that's really nailing programmatic right now, who would it be?

Liam Kristinnsson (24:53):

Without explicitly calling out a unique brand, but I'll give you two types of folks that are really nailing programmatic. One, I think is second tier auto brands where they are unlocking, and I really think Disconnected plays a great role here. They are unlocking and understanding how they can better access inventory for the right audiences, period. That could be isolating and understanding how I could serve ads from a reach perspective across the city of Des Moines, or it can be somebody looking for blonde-haired men that have two boxer dogs. Secondly, and I think this is part of the paradigm shift across the industry. I think there's quite a number of CPG brands that legacy-wise have really had outstanding success reaching mass eyeballs, whether it's through billboards, radio, traditional linear television. But now again, like they are able to fill a void across the whole ecosystem by getting better, more dynamic insights into the audiences that they're selling to, but also they're actually getting insights, period.

(26:13):

Retail data, you're talking about? Retail data, yes. And I think if I'm a chip brand, sometimes I want people to know my name first. And that's great. There's a need for that, but eventually you have to start focusing on how you can get money back from that. It's not just about getting your name out there, or it could be diversified. Maybe your name is out there, but now other names have come in, right? Now, how do you leverage the dynamic component of programmatic to diversify your creative and your ability to deliver to the same audience? It'll change the way we think and look at maybe traditional frequency capping or traditional exposure, but now the brand through Programmatic can really lead the new age of creative storytelling and how people understand or change the way people think they know products.

Damian Fowler (27:13):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (27:15):

This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Liam Kristinnsson (27:22):

And remember ... We're also starting to see a surprising jump in the youth kind of getting app fatigue, I suppose, that is better enabling that premium content to ensure eyeballs there, but they're paying attention.

Ilyse Liffreing (27:37):

I'm Damian. And I'm

Damian Fowler (27:38):

Ilyse. And we'll see you next time.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Editor’s note: This episode of The Big Impression was recorded prior to Jessica Bryndza’s departure from Lyft.

For years, ride-hailing has been optimized for speed, price and efficiency. Jessica Bryndza believes that’s only part of the story. During her tenure as Lyft’s vice president of brand marketing, she focused on reminding people that getting from Point A to Point B can still be personal — shaped by emotion, culture and the everyday moments that happen along the way.

That philosophy is at the heart of Lyft’s new “Check Lyft” campaign, which launched last fall in San Francisco and New York City. The work reframes transportation as something human and choice-driven, not just transactional.  

Bryndza argues that the future of mobility won’t be defined solely by technology, but by how intentional and human the experience feels when you’re actually inside the ride.

“I’ve cried in the back of Lyfts; I’ve laughed with friends,” she says on The Big Impression. “We have this spectrum of emotions.” Rather than treating mobility as a pure utility, Check Lyft taps into those moments — the small trade-offs, the waiting, the savings and the lived reality of getting around a city.”

Bryndza also discusses how Lyft’s founding DNA continues to influence its brand voice, why empathy matters more than ever in the battle for attention and how the campaign comes together across out-of-home, social, in-app and hyperlocal executions, with no “AI slop” in sight.  

“There’s a lot of slop out there,” Bryndza says. “How do we respect our customers enough to not put crappy work in front of them?” 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In conversation with The Big Impression, Brian Monahan, SVP of retail media at Albertsons Media Collective, explores how shopper insights, creative storytelling and omnichannel strategies intersect.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

CMO Kimberly Ito shares how Mitsubishi, a challenger brand, drives big impact through audience insight, digital precision and a redefined spirit of adventure.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Discover how Kate Wik, CMO of Las Vegas, drives bold innovation and storytelling to transform the city into a global destination brand.
 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're joined by Kate Wik, chief Marketing Officer at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The team behind the city's newest brand campaign, which launched in September,

Damian Fowler (00:20):

Las Vegas, is known around the world for its energy, its entertainment, and its edge. But this ladies' campaign takes a closer look at what the city means today beyond the casinos and into its growing identity as a cultural and sports destination.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:34):

We'll talk with Kate about the ideas behind the campaign, how Vegas is connecting with new audiences, and what it takes to evolve one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Q,

Damian Fowler (00:45):

Frank Sinatra. It's okay. You have an unusual role in that you represent a city as an iconic one, but could you tell us about the role?

Kate Wik (00:56):

That's exactly right. So I work for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Nobody knows what that is or what that means. So really, I shorthand it and I say I am the CMO of four Las Vegas. Las Vegas is my product, which is very unique. It is a city, it's a destination. It's unbelievably dynamic. And what's so unique and thrilling for a CMO of Las Vegas is that our product is always changing, always evolving. If you think back, we were known as the gaming destination. We've evolved into, we're the number one hospitality destination in the US with more hotel rooms than any other destination. And we are the entertainment capital of the world. You've got the world's best artists coming and performing on stages across destination every single night. And we've worked really hard to evolve ourselves into the sports destination as well through a lot of recent things. So really the exciting thing for me in this role is no one day is ever the same. Our product is constantly iterating and evolving, and that is a marketer's dream come true.

Damian Fowler (02:10):

Just on that point about the evolution of the city and the perception of it, how fast has that happened in the last, say, five, 10 years?

Kate Wik (02:20):

Yeah, absolutely. Incredibly fast. And so today we are known as the sports and entertainment capital of the world, but less than 10 years ago, we did not have any sports teams. Yes, sports has kind of always been in our DNA. We'd host major boxing matches in the eighties, NFR we've had for decades. NBA, we hosted their in-season tournament, NBA Summer League, but really it was through infrastructure development that really led to the explosion of sports today. So what I mean by that is we had T-Mobile Arena, which was a joint venture between MGM resorts and a EG that enabled NHL to come to town with the Vegas Golden Knights in 20 17, 20 18, we purchased the WNBA team, which we renamed the Las Vegas ACEs. And so now we've got A-W-N-B-A team. And then in 2020, of course with Allegiant Stadium, we welcome the Raiders. And so now we've got the Las Vegas Raiders, and we are, so actually in four years, we went from having zero professional sports teams to having three, and we're actively working to bring our fourth to town, which is the major league baseball. We're welcoming the Las Vegas a,

Damian Fowler (03:34):

Not to mention Formula One.

Kate Wik (03:36):

Yes, exactly. And Formula One now an annual event on our calendar. So it's a lot. It's a lot. And it creates new reasons to come to Las Vegas for our visitors. And what we found through research actually, is that the sports traveler, number one, we know sports tourism has just exploded the sports traveler. Through our research, we found that it creates a new reason to come to Las Vegas for those that haven't been here before. It creates a reason to explore the destination, see it, consider it, and then ultimately come. And then most importantly, we find that they spend more money than the average leisure traveler. So it's a really rich new audience for Las Vegas. And F1 has definitely exploded that for us too.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:24):

Do you know by just how much more do they spend?

Kate Wik (04:27):

It's usually anywhere from 500 to 800 more per trip.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:31):

Wow, that's a lot. And the rest on gambling,

Kate Wik (04:36):

Anything

Ilyse Liffreing (04:36):

Extra? It's

Kate Wik (04:37):

Funny. Gambling hasn't been, revenue from gaming hasn't been the primary source of how consumers are spending their budget while they're in town. Hasn't been that for over a decade.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:51):

And

Kate Wik (04:51):

I think it speaks to the diversification of the experience in Las Vegas. And when I say we're the entertainment capital of the world, we absolutely are. People come here to see shows, to see comedians, to experience not just like a touring show, but unbelievable residencies where our property resorts will build these amazing theaters where Lady Gaga performs, Bruno Mars performs, Adele performs, they'll create these residencies, which is unlike nowhere else in the US or world.

Damian Fowler (05:26):

I mean, I've been aware of that. I mean, obviously it goes right back to the Rat Pack, but more recently, like Sting had a residency there. I've been aware, I

Kate Wik (05:34):

Just saw Backstreet Boys at the Spear, which was probably mind blowing, which was mind blowing. That's a whole nother level to the entertainment experience where it's just completely immersive that has changed the game for live music.

Damian Fowler (05:48):

The perception of Vegas has changed or is changing, and maybe that teases up to talk a little bit now about the new brand campaign and why this is the right moment to do it.

Kate Wik (06:00):

Yeah, absolutely. So we just launched a new campaign September of this year, so just a couple of weeks ago really. And the intent behind it is this notion that there are so many different reasons to come to Vegas, but there are also so many different vacation options. What we wanted to do was break through the noise and make sure that people understood that Vegas is the ultimate destination regardless of the experience you're looking for. We have it all, the breadth and depth that exists within our destination iss, it's uncomparable to any other destination. So we needed to get out there and get that message out there in big form. And why now what we found was through a lack of big brand messaging over the summer, we actually took a hit with a lot of negative headlines. And so we needed to get in front of that. And I think one of the big takeaways for marketers out there is that if you're not actively talking about your brand day in and day out, you create room for others to create their own narrative. And so after we launched the campaign, it's been about a month in market, we've seen a lot of that negativity drop because now everybody's covering, oh, here's the new elements, here are the new promotions they're doing, here are the new experiences that you can find. So it's really about driving the narrative that you want for your brand.

Ilyse Liffreing (07:29):

Very cool. And could you tell us a little bit about the campaign itself, maybe the creative, and then what channels are you leaning into?

Kate Wik (07:36):

Yeah, absolutely. In looking at how we were going to develop the work around this new brand campaign, what we wanted first and foremost was to be really authentic about Las Vegas and be very unique to a message that only Las Vegas can deliver. And so we took inspiration from our iconic welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. So it's the sign that exists literally on Las Vegas Boulevard as you drive into town. And that sign, it's 65 years old today, but it is more iconic. And the awareness on that is it puts it as one of the highest elements assets within our portfolio. So you think Las Vegas, you think of Bellagio, you think of Wynn, even Luxor or all these amazing resorts. When we show that sign, the amount of awareness of what that is and where it is and what it's for just exceeds every other asset that we have out there. So we took inspiration from that. We took the neon, the lights, the really, the notion of setting the example of fabulous Las Vegas. That's the experience that our visitors can come to expect when they come to Las Vegas. So it truly has been our brand promise for over 65 years. So that's the inspiration behind the campaign.

Damian Fowler (08:57):

Yeah, I can see that sign now.

Ilyse Liffreing (08:59):

Yes,

Kate Wik (08:59):

That's right.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:00):

Yeah, that's right. Do you have a sense of the audience that you're trying to reach and through, I guess, which channels are you trying to reach them?

Kate Wik (09:10):

Yeah, so we have a really diverse audience set, which is very unique for a marketer, which usually has a single product or they've got a very specific audience for that product. Vegas is really the 21 and older adult playground. And so if you look at just an average audience, it's like a 45-year-old split, 50 50 male, female, et cetera. But what we offer is an unbelievable unbeatable experience at every single price point. So we absolutely cater to that high-end luxury market, that luxury traveler, all the way down to the entry level budget conscious traveler. And so we've got products from a circus circus all the way up to a win Las Vegas. And so for us, our audience is very broad, but generally it's adult travelers, people that have traveled in the past year looking to travel again,

Ilyse Liffreing (10:11):

We just had Marriott on the podcast and we were talking about how more travelers now are singles and single people. And I would think that might be particularly true for Vegas. For some reason, people are coming for a new experience and to get away.

Kate Wik (10:28):

I think that's exactly right. Not necessarily single travelers, but the idea of it's a getaway, it's a new experience. What we find from our visitors is number one, it's really high repeat visitation because every time they come, they're finding something new. So we usually get at least 80% repeat visitation from our visitors and really high satisfaction rate, but it's that mindset of wanting to try something new. For sure. Yeah.

Damian Fowler (10:56):

One thing that just occurs to me as we are talking is how the awareness of Las Vegas has been so kind of embodied in so many movies and TV shows. I was just thinking, I watched the studio recently, the Seth Rogan

Kate Wik (11:09):

Show,

Damian Fowler (11:09):

Which I think that has a combination in Vegas while

Kate Wik (11:12):

I actually haven't seen it yet. So no spoilers on my list.

Damian Fowler (11:16):

I mean, I was thinking about Oceans 11, you can go back and back. I have to see it. But that is all kind of part of the kind of braided cultural iconography as it were of the city, I guess.

Kate Wik (11:27):

Yeah, I think movies represent, you almost have to think of it as a channel for marketing. It represents an amazing opportunity to penetrate culture, reach new audiences that you wouldn't normally get to talk to. And so we have a history of iconic movies. Actually this past summer, you might've seen it, but the F1 movie, that was a partnership that we did with them to make sure that they filmed in Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit. That was really important. But again, reaching new audiences, keeping us sort of at the pinnacle and sort of leading culture. Also really awesome to have Brad Pitt lead in that. I'm not going to lie. That was pretty awesome. But a ton of movies. And it's kind of interesting to think of it as almost like a marketing channel, not a traditional

Ilyse Liffreing (12:17):

One, but yes. Yeah, like free marketing too sometimes, because a lot of things are based in Vegas,

Kate Wik (12:22):

Right? On the marketing channel front, I know you had sort of asked about how do we launch the campaign, and it was very much an integrated multi-channel approach. We did everything from brand marketing, product marketing, I call it value, but it's really promotional as well as experiential. So of course, from a brand marketing point of view, TV or movies are wonderful, but there's also tv. And we launched the campaign actually with NFL kickoff, so September 4th. We know that when people tune into tv, they're tuning in really into an NFL game. That's where the most eyeballs are at any single time. So from a marketing point of view, it's great return on your investment there. So we launched with a 62nd ad on September 4th on kickoff, but really it was about making sure that this is not just a TV campaign, but it's a platform that reaches the consumer at every different touch point throughout their travel journey or through their daily life.

(13:27):

And so we maximized the viewership by making sure that, yes, we had a TV spot, but we partnered with the Raiders to actually take over the tunnel walk. And so when players arrive at the stadium, any stadium across the us, it's usually sort of this gray back of house space. And what we did was we installed neon all over the wall as the backdrop. And so it gave our players the sense of pride as they're walking in where they see this huge fabulous Las Vegas neon sign, and then they get a bit of a swagger. And then we partnered with GQ to cover sort of the fit that the players are wearing because that's a whole thing, this sort of new cultural moment where you've got the intersection of professional sports and these athletes in fashion. And so GQ wants to cover that. And so now the backdrop for all of this is the fabulous Las Vegas neon sign that we installed.

(14:22):

And so then CVS and ESPN want to cover it because they're like, oh, what's going on with the Vegas tunnel walk? And so every time Vegas shows up, we want to make sure that we're sort of breaking through the clutter. We're doing something very unique, bold and different, and whatever we do, it's sort of Vegas worthy. So I guess another channel is outdoor. We don't just buy outdoor. We worked with media partners to find these super high impact spectacular units that just command attention. So around the corner, in Times Square, we have this huge 3D board where you've got a 3D view of the iconic welcome to Las Vegas sign that rotates and dice come out, chips come out, an F1 race car comes out, right? It's a showstopper. And when you walk into Times Square, you see people taking pictures of advertising and that blows your mind.

(15:21):

And then on the other side of the country, we've got an actual neon installation on Sunset Boulevard. So we took, quite frankly, one of the ideas behind the campaign is let's take the neon and export it. Let's take our Neon National. And so we've got these big neon relics all across the us and so this one on Sunset Boulevard is spectacular. And then you walk across any of our resorts in Las Vegas and you see our Neon Signs Launch week. We took over all of our, well in our top 10 markets, we took over our digital outdoor boards and we had a roadblock for the whole week of launch. So just doing these big spectacular moments to capture the attention of our viewers. Wow,

Damian Fowler (16:08):

That's a lot that you're doing a tremendous amount, but on the other side of it, how are you kind of measuring and tracking all of these moments that you've created?

Kate Wik (16:18):

Yeah, I think measurement is incredibly important for any brand. We are actually consistently in market every single week with a research tracker, a brand health tracker. We've been doing it for decades. Making sure that we're keeping a finger on the pulse of our consumer is really important to us. So before we launched the campaign, obviously we tested it to see, number one, does it break through? Does it resonate? Does it deliver on the message of escape? Does it make people want to go to Las Vegas? It actually tested stronger than any other campaign that we've tested, and we test all of our campaigns. So that was pretty exciting. And then post-launch, again, we're in the market every single week. We found that we continue to uptick in terms of likability of the campaign, the campaign that makes you want to travel to Las Vegas. Those metrics are really important to us, intent to travel, and so it's continued to climb every single week since we've been in market. That's really strong. I think outside of traditional campaign testing, something that we consistently do is social listening, and so understanding what the current conversation is on social, I had mentioned this summer was a little bit rough. There was a lot of negativity out there for us. What we found was we had peaked in terms of negativity online in, gosh, in August. We launched Campaign in September, and that number has dramatically reduced, which is fantastic. It goes back to this point of you have to constantly be talking and driving your own narrative.

(18:01):

Otherwise if there's a void, others are going to fill it for you. That's was a

Ilyse Liffreing (18:05):

Quick turnaround time too from

Kate Wik (18:07):

In

Ilyse Liffreing (18:07):

August to launching in

Kate Wik (18:08):

September. Absolutely. So a couple weeks. So I would say early August was peak and then Campaign formally launched September 4th, but working with our property partners to seed components of the campaign before, that was a big part of it as well. And then I think a very tactical measurement is we launched actually the first ever destination wide sale, so we called it the Fabulous Five Day Sale. Our campaign is Welcome to Fabulous, so fabulous five day sale. We wanted to make sure that we were putting a spotlight on the value that exists across the destination. And what we found was we drove four times the amount of website volume that we normally do to visit las vegas.com and that we actually were driving more referrals, so people were coming in to see what these deals were, what the sale was, this first ever limited sale, and then the traffic, the referral traffic that we were sending out to the booking engines of each of our property partners. That was 120 times the normal weekly average that we have in terms of, oh my gosh, yeah, referral, wait. So really unbelievable. It was kind of mind blowing for us in terms of the results of that. Nice.

Ilyse Liffreing (19:28):

And what was the reception from businesses in Las Vegas too, because that involved all of them?

Kate Wik (19:34):

Absolutely. Yeah. We don't launch a campaign without the support of our property partners. The reception was fabulous to use a cliche, incredibly fabulous. They leaned into it, you'll see part of the campaign. We created these neon elements and literally handed over this toolkit to our property partners so they can push out on all of their digital signage, on all of their marketing elements, sort of reflections of the campaign work as well and tie into it.

Damian Fowler (20:05):

Great. Just out of curiosity, is the campaign driven from the ground up by businesses or does it come top down as it were, from what your office, what's the kind of interaction?

Kate Wik (20:19):

Yeah. Well, the interaction is we are the DMO, the destination marketing organization for Las Vegas. So what we do is we work closely with our property partners to understand what's the business needs, what are the trends they're seeing. We do research and provide them top level trends, and then we work with them on what do we need the advertising to accomplish, and then we develop the campaigns. We're funded by them. We're actually funded by a room tax, which is paid by our visitors. And so there is complete coordination with our property partners, and we really do all of the upper funnel marketing for them. That's kind of the role we play for them.

Damian Fowler (21:00):

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask you, actually, I guess this is a big picture question. Are there other big cities that kind of have similar outreach or similar marketing campaigns, or are you unique in lots of ways?

Kate Wik (21:15):

I think the big destinations like New York, la, they will have a tourism authority within their destination that we'll do it for them. I think what's unique about Las Vegas is how we're funded. Again, it is through this room tax. And so generally, I'm not out there every day trying to drum up membership funds or anything. Our job is to go market the destination 365 days a year. That is why we exist. And so I think other destinations have something similar, but not quite the structure or the support behind it. And I think what is unique for Las Vegas is tourism is the number one economic driver for southern Nevada, and so we're the engine behind that. We have to make sure we're continuing to fuel that. Tourism represents 55 million or 55 billion, excuse me, in direct economic impact. That's visitors coming, spending fueling the local economy. And so the role we play matters. The advertising that we do matters because it fuels the entire ecosystem and the economic climate for Southern Nevada. Wow.

Damian Fowler (22:33):

Another quick question, follow up question there because you keep making me think of things. You have a lot of international visitors. Do you have a sense of where the majority of them are coming

Kate Wik (22:42):

From? Yeah. Yeah. So international visitors are really important to us. Interesting. Canada's typically is our number one market. We have seen a decrease this year from our Canadian visitors. That's true for the US overall. We love our neighbors to the north and we welcome them back. But Canada is generally number one. Mexico is number two. Mexico is still going strong. They've actually seen growth year over year. UK is our number three market. We love our UK visitors and our partnership with F1 continues to grow that, which is phenomenal. And then interesting, our fourth market is actually Australia, and we don't have a direct flight there today, but it's an easy stopover from la. But the Australians and the Aussies, they love coming to Las Vegas. Great cultural alignment, but in general, we love all of our international visitors, and it's about anywhere from 10 to 15% of our overall visitor mix,

Damian Fowler (23:46):

So Cool.

Ilyse Liffreing (23:47):

Well, so along with just how many changes Las Vegas has seen, how would you, I guess, describe the expectations around hospitality and how that has changed over the years?

Kate Wik (23:59):

Gosh, hospitality, not unlike marketing, it's really fueled by tech innovation. Everything from keyless check-in, you can check in on your phone, you can use your phone as your key. All of these things have been unbelievable accelerants to a great experience, but that's across the board in every city, across the world. Technology has fueled that. I think what's unique for Las Vegas is actually doubling down on the core of who we are. And that's about service, and that's about kind of going back to the brand promise of the campaign where the welcome to fabulous Las Vegas isn't just a sign. It is the brand promise of the experience you're going to have here. And before we launched the campaign, we actually went around to all the CEOs and all the presidents of all our resort property partners to say and to remind them, we're going to launch this campaign, we're going to go back to the roots of Las Vegas. And the roots of that is hospitality, and it's about making every individual feel like somebody special that is so uniquely Las Vegas. You can walk into a circus, circus, an Excalibur, and have this mind blowing unbelievable experience. You could also walk into a Bellagio, an aria, a fountain blue, and have a mind blowing unbelievable experience. It's not based on your economic value or your financial worth. It's based on who you are as a visitor coming. We're going to deliver that unbelievable experience, and that is service related, hospitality related for us.

Ilyse Liffreing (25:39):

Very cool. So what's next then? How are you planning to build on the success?

Kate Wik (25:44):

I think for us, welcome to Fabulous is not just like an A Flash in the Pan ad campaign. What we intended to do was create a marketing platform that will just stand the test of time that will continue to iterate off of it. We have three big announcements, not yet announced, but still coming out later this year that just continue to build on this platform. So it's a platform for us as the DMO, but it's also a platform for our property partners to continue to iterate because it is so unique to us.

Damian Fowler (26:20):

Now we've got some kind of quickfire questions now we've looked at that big

Kate Wik (26:24):

Picture.

Damian Fowler (26:25):

What are you obsessed with figuring out right now?

Kate Wik (26:29):

I am obsessed with figuring out how you hack the social algorithms. And I think what's super interesting is something that can go viral that isn't necessarily representative of the brand or the experience that you have. And so really making sure that for us, it's fueling a ton of content out there to make sure that we're dominating what that narrative is. And that's not just from brand voice, it's influencers or whatever, but that social algorithms I think is really important for

Damian Fowler (27:05):

Brands. Yeah, absolutely. I would love to figure that out too. It seems like a kind of a magic unlock.

Ilyse Liffreing (27:11):

Yes. Right.

Damian Fowler (27:14):

Okay.

Ilyse Liffreing (27:15):

This year you are included on the Forbes list of 50 Fierce Global leaders.

Kate Wik (27:20):

Yes.

Ilyse Liffreing (27:20):

Congratulations. Thank you. What is one piece of wisdom you'd pass on to other marketers?

Kate Wik (27:27):

Oh gosh. Constant learning, constant iteration. Nothing is ever done, right? You put something out in the world, there's always a chance to continue to iterate and learn and get feedback and continue to push it further. Yeah.

Damian Fowler (27:44):

Another is ai, a marketer's friend.

Kate Wik (27:46):

Yeah, absolutely. But actually, let's be careful with that. It's a friend, but it's like a starting point, right? I think using it as information, as research, as sort of an input but not a final output is really important.

Damian Fowler (28:01):

I like that. That distinction is important.

Ilyse Liffreing (28:03):

One last fun one for you, maybe outside of the Brad Pitt movie from the summer. What's your favorite movie set in Las

Kate Wik (28:12):

Vegas? Oh, gosh. I love Oceans 11. I mean, how can you not? I mean, it's still Brad Pitt, but

Damian Fowler (28:20):

Oh, yeah.

Kate Wik (28:20):

But it's an icon. He can be at anything, everything.

Ilyse Liffreing (28:27):

And that's

Damian Fowler (28:27):

It for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (28:29):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (28:36):

And remember,

Kate Wik (28:37):

If you're not actively talking about your brand day in and day out, you create room for others to create their own narrative.

Damian Fowler (28:45):

I'm Damian, and I'm Ilyse, and we'll see you next time.

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