In immediately’s fast-paced and digital-first media period, specializing in group and cultural relevancy is essential to manufacturers incomes their place within the media panorama.
In a dialog introduced by The Weber Shandwick Collective, Karen Pugliese, its international president, sat down with Amanda Smith, chief govt officer of Fairchild Media Group, to debate how manufacturers can discover their place amongst a crowded media ecosystem.
Pugliese shared on the 2025 WWD x FN x Magnificence Inc Ladies in Energy summit that her profession journey began as a journalist, then transitioned into public relations. Her roles on the firm since 2009 have included working in P&L, new enterprise acquisition, chief of workers and chief development officer. She was appointed international president final December.
Over the course of her profession, Pugliese mentioned she was lucky to be mentored by girls leaders in modifying, publishing, CEOs and extra. She mentioned girls are the drivers and doers of the world and so they should be the designers and the dreamers. Her recommendation for her fellow girls leaders is: “Don’t simply make the corporate run, run the corporate.”
The Weber Shandwick Collective has utilized what it dubs “cultural choreography,” which is the intersection of earned, paid and owned media, to assist manufacturers earn their place within the cultural panorama.
“We’re now not simply speaking about demographics and audiences,” Pulgiese mentioned. “We’re speaking about communities. What are their passions? What are their values? What do they care about? And the minute we will faucet into that — we will have far more fascinating conversations.”
Pulgiese mentioned AI remains to be in its early phases. By utilizing each human creativity and AI, Pulgiese sees that its impression will see the 2 come collectively to scale, provoke and spark dialog.
However she famous that unique ideas and understanding nuance reminiscent of humor and emotion is not going to change anytime quickly — “creativity is what we do as people.” She’s betting on human creativity to proceed to be a driving drive.
By means of predictive analytics, The Weber Shandwick Collective makes use of AI-driven fashions to speed up paid media and create lasting impression.
“What we’re capable of convey by all of our knowledge by the insights, by the analytics is an understanding of how completely different stakeholders are going to react to a marketing campaign,” Pulgiese continued. “If you happen to’re going to roll out a brand new marketing campaign, you may really feel like you may have an amazing understanding about how the goal client goes to react.”
Furthermore, the info fashions the company makes use of give its purchasers perception into how their staff, buyers, activist buyers, boards and extra will react. She mentioned this permits them to foretell these reactions and campaigns going into the market with accuracy.
One instance of that is Kellanova’s Pop-Tarts. Pulgiese shared that the model wished to transition from being seen as a breakfast meals to a day snack and have interaction with Gen Z. With Pop-Tarts’ faculty soccer sponsorship, they went on to the group to seek out out what mattered to them most: nostalgia and the macabre. Thus they created a Pop-Tarts mascot, which was eaten afterward.
“I knew it was a success, not as a result of the shopper mentioned so however as a result of all my youngsters and their mates had been participating with it. They had been going wild and it was one of many greatest viral sensations of 2024.”
The corporate gained the Cannes Golden Lion within the experiential class, which a PR agency had by no means performed earlier than. Steve Cahillane, the CEO of Kellanova, later informed Pulgiese that it was probably the greatest advertising and marketing strikes he’d ever seen. Past its widespread cultural impression, the model bought 21 million extra Pop-Tarts.
When cultural behavioral shifts within the panorama Pulgiese is most enthusiastic about, she believes that Gen Z would be the ones to save lots of the world.
“What I’ve noticed is that they’re adaptable, they’re entrepreneurial and so they’re earnest in a approach that’s endearing. Additionally they like to create and be part of issues. And whenever you have a look at Gen Z, you say to your self they’ve the smarts and the savvy to really change the long run and the way companies and types work together. They are going to do good,” Pulgiese concluded.
