Traci Alford, President and CEO of Effie Worldwide, shares exclusive insights with Communicate on the strategic vision and future direction behind the groundbreaking acquisition.
Ascential - the specialist events, intelligence, and advisory company has entered into an agreement to acquire the commercial assets of Effie, the global benchmark in marketing effectiveness.
Effie will (subject to regulatory approval) join Ascential’s LIONS Division, which champions creative marketing that matters, driving growth through creative, effective marketing.
Ascential will also (subject to regulatory approval) embark on a long-term partnership with the not-for-profit organization, Effie Worldwide, Inc., which will be preserved and transformed into a new global foundation, The Effie LIONS Foundation, Inc. The foundation will be dedicated to educating the next generation of talent, offering training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community. Additionally, it will provide a home for LIONS' existing not-for-profit initiatives and provide access to some of the LIONS Division digital products, maximizing reinvestment in the industry.
In an exclusive interview with Traci Alford, Global CEO at Effie Worldwide, we delve further into the partnership and its motive.
What led to the decision to merge Effie with Ascential? Can you shed light on the strategic objectives that led to this move?
Our partnership with Ascential’s LIONS Division is coming at a time when the market is demanding businesses grow quicker and more nimbly than ever, putting increased pressure on marketers. Our new alliance has the potential to bring extraordinary value to our industry, and we are excited to explore how we can make an even greater case that effective and creative marketing plays a vital role in helping all organizations succeed.
Effie is a powerful, global brand that launched over 55 years ago. With this partnership, we are ideally positioned to accelerate our evolution and extend our offer to the benefit of marketers globally. We are extremely passionate about the Effie Academy and Effie Insights program designed to equip generations of marketers with the skill, tools and confidence needed for success.
At the highest level, Cannes Lions and Effie exist to make marketers and marketing better, and we can achieve more together than alone.
How does this merger align with Effie's long-term vision and mission? What’s in store for all stakeholders connected with the organization globally?
Creativity and Effectiveness are inextricably linked, and the marketing industry’s demand to understand how to deliver both with excellence is only growing. No two organizations in the world are more committed to the power of creativity to drive marketing effectiveness. By joining forces, we’ll bring the interconnected worlds of creativity and marketing effectiveness closer together.
There are synergies to be found, not just in awards, but across our advisory and training programs, digital products and data-fueled insight programs. Through this partnership, we will provide marketing leaders worldwide with the data and evidence they need to elevate their marketing programs and argue for investment in effective and creative marketing that matters.
Moreover, the establishment of The Effie LIONS Foundation has the potential to play a critical role in shaping the future health of the industry. The Foundation will offer tools and training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community. It will also offer progressive programs to support a diverse range of individuals to develop essential skills for entering and thriving in the industry.
With Effie and Cannes Lions now under the same umbrella, how do you envision the relationship between these two most crucial events evolving?
We are both globally respected organizations, but with complementary structures. Effie has 59 partner teams on the ground, and are built from the ground up, with deep local expertise and data from across 125+ markets. We will honor our independent national and regional awards at the local level, but there will also be potential to contribute to the central global stage that is the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Can we expect any changes or synergies in the way Effie and Cannes Lions are organized or executed? How will this impact the industry’s approach to recognizing marketing effectiveness and creativity?
Cannes Lions and Effie will continue to operate as independent Awards. The Cannes Lions Awards benchmark creative excellence, whilst Effie’s Awards benchmark marketing effectiveness. While there is naturally some crossover in customers, the partnership is about strengthening both brands.
There’s a degree of confusion in the industry regarding the merger. What would you say to industry professionals who are concerned about potential overlaps or conflicts between Effie and Cannes Lions?
Joining Ascential doesn’t change Effie’s purpose, what we do, or how we do it. Our ability to deliver at scale becomes stronger with the backing and investment of Ascential. We will continue to nurture and grow the Effie Awards program globally, expand the reach of the Effie Academy and deliver more insights from our Case Library than ever before.
The integrity of all of our national Effie programs will remain the same. Our process and standards will remain unchanged and independent. Effie partners will continue to run their local programs as they are now, committed to championing the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness.
How will the individual identities and purposes of the Effie and Cannes Lions be preserved under Ascential? What measures are being taken to ensure they complement rather than compete with each other?
Like Cannes Lions, Effie is a heritage brand that launched in 1968. Both Ascential and the brands within the LIONS Division share a common understanding of the industry, and audiences, and have relationships and networks in common. We are both respected globally, and Effie has 59 teams on the ground, running local and regional programs with a judging network of 25,000.
The Effie brand will remain. In terms of integration, we will be looking to build connections across our teams to ensure our customers benefit from all of our collective expertise across events, insights, and advisory.
What do you believe this merger means for the global marketing and advertising industry? How do you see it influencing trends in marketing effectiveness and creative recognition?
We have a real opportunity, as the #1 effectiveness and #1 creativity organizations, to share our expertise and meaningfully explore the interconnectivity between the two while maximizing our capabilities in support of marketers everywhere.
Effie Academy has enormous potential, for example. We have a fully-fledged Effie Academy dedicated to fostering an industry-wide culture of effectiveness. Its programs equip marketers with the tools, knowledge, and skills they need to succeed at every career stage. The US is our most mature market, and with this partnership, we’ll be able to press fast forward on our plans to scale it globally. This is an enormous opportunity for us and will benefit marketers globally.
We’ll also find synergies in our data with the LIONS Division which will allow us to dissect the role creativity plays in driving effectiveness overall. With these brands in one home, we will better understand key drivers of growth and ultimately help businesses succeed.
How do you see the merger impacting the future of marketing awards and the evolution of industry standards on a global scale?
Our new alliance has the potential to bring extraordinary value and elevate our industry, by bringing a greater understanding of how effective and creative marketing plays a vital role in helping organizations succeed. It will allow us to leverage our unique global reach- Effie's extensive network in over 125 countries and LIONS's established influence in the creative community- to enable a richer exchange of insights and data to help marketers better understand what drives growth and success on a global scale.
