American Association of Advertising Agencies

But one of the things I was reflecting on is entirely that, which is we need to stop talking about all of these issues, as we've done for certainly my experience the past 25 years, to the round circle that is ourselves.

it is about time that the trade associations like the ICA and the 4As and the IPA and all of the other that represent our industry around the world start taking their research and understanding above our industry and actually go to the ratings organisations, people like Moody's and Standard & Poor's and say do you know what that evaluation of that corporation is a bit off centre in our perspective because you're not evaluating how it is setting itself up for future growth and success around its brand and everything to do with its marketing positioning.

And so therefore here is data from all these associations that will tell you how the client agency relationship if it's not aligned properly to outcome generation, you're actually looking at devaluing brand over time.

So your AAA rating, yeah, it's not going to cut the mustard and actually you need more information.

But I think thinking about today, what makes this conference different? There's a signage behind me right now.

I want you to talk about this and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but you helped bring together the ANAs, the 4As, and IAB together for the first time in nearly a decade.

Is that true?

Um, we used to come together about 10 years ago as boards, but what is, uh, what is more true is that this is really, um, the constituents of full delegations from the ANA CMOs, uh, the four A's and the IAB came together.

How are we going to deal with the different ecosystems that are out there in terms of social and entertainment and sports and retail? All those things are going to require knowledge and capability, and the new CEO is going to need to make A&A the go-to place for everyone from CMO to entry level across all the different industries and all the different verticals of work to be able to have this as the go-to place.

Yeah, and what's interesting is on the 4A side, Justin Thomas Copeland has come in and started a new era of the 4As.

We're going to get a new era of the ANAs.

What is the type of collaboration, or what do you hope to see how these two organizations change how they interact and work together? I know there was already steps this week by having the 4As, the IAB, the ANAs come together.

So what do you hope that collaboration evolves into?

I think what's interesting about the future world is that it cannot work in silos anymore.

The event brought together the who's who across advertising, media, tech and culture, with a sampling of topics including agentic AI in advertising and retail media evolution.

This year, Sway Effect convened three panels for a mix of our client partners, including Stanley 1913, 4As, Madison Logic and Understood.org. And today I'm chatting with Jared Linston, a Fast Company contributor and moderator for our session with Understood that was entitled Neurodivergence Rise Up: How Differently Wired Brains Are Shaping the Future of the Creative Industry.

This topic is an important one for Jared, and I'm thrilled that he joined us last week and on today's podcast.

Welcome, Jared.