Technology isn’t the only evolution Kinser hopes is coming. With a background in advertising agencies, Kinser believes that the ad agency industry needs to evolve from the traditional Mad Men structure.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, advertising in the 2021 Super Bowl looks very different this year. But Kinser’s team is ahead of the game.
One recent example of disruptive ad technology? OTT advertising. Super Bowl advertising has done wonders for Avocados from Mexico’s brand. Over the past six years, brand recognition is up from 23% to 55%, and they’ve been the only brand in the history of the Super Bowl to be in the top one and top two places as a top digital performer among all of the brands that participated in the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl ads for an untraditional Super Bowl
Now, Kinser is the Head of Digital Marketing and eCommerce for Avocados from Mexico. Under her leadership, Avocados from Mexico’s digital work has won multiple accolades, including a 2020 REGGIE Award for Innovative Use of Marketing Technology.
As so many platforms evolve to meet new needs and challenges in today’s market, there will be a need for those platforms to integrate with one another more than ever.
“If it doesn’t solve a business problem, and if it doesn’t address an opportunity, then it doesn’t matter how cool that may be; we’re not using our resources on that,” Kinser says.
In 2018, Kinser was honored with the Changing the Game Awards “Brainwave” award, which recognizes women within the marketing industry who are true catalysts of innovation by fearlessly making bold moves and reinventing the roles of marketing to transform brands and their organizations.
Over her 20+ year marketing career, Ivonne Kinser has played leadership roles in multiple corporations representing multi-billion dollar brands, as well as top advertising agencies such as McCann and Ericsson Worldwide.
“We think that the worst thing that we can do as an organization is to just continue to do things just because we have done it in the past. So we say, let’s try other things, let’s try other avenues. Let’s reinvent ourselves and discover other territories,” Kinser says.
Why OTT is the future of effective advertising
Though technology plays a big role in creating disruptive, effective ad campaigns, Kinser warns against technology for technology’s sake. When her team begins a new campaign or activation, they ask themselves: “Is there a need? Is there a problem that we need to address? A business challenge?” In the two months leading up to the Super Bowl last year, Avocados from Mexico put 240 million pounds of avocado out into the market — the equivalent of a football stadium covered with 30 feet of guacamole or the amount of guacamole consumed during the Super Bowl.
“I think that that the industry will realize that wow, we’re a little bit out of date, and we really have to evolve like everybody is evolving.”
In this article, we’ll recap Kinser’s appearance on Tinuiti’s OffMute podcast, where she discussed the evolution of traditional television ads to OTT and streaming, the importance of creative freedom, and how to disrupt Super Bowl ads in a year with a very untraditional Super Bowl.
“Based on our experience, our most disruptive campaigns have been those that overlap two or more different technologies. And I think the reason why technology, innovation, disruption is moving today at a much faster pace than it did in the past is because of that. Because there are more technologies and because marketers are discovering different ways to bring those together,” Kinser says.
“We can now target households based on the consumption habits of that specific household,” Kinser says, noting that personalization is more important than ever before — and first-party data lets advertisers use OTT to create more personalized ad experiences.
“In a time where information is democratized, where we already know that smart people — which the advertising industry is full of, smart, creative people — smart people think with the whole brain, in 360. Why does the advertising industry still keep putting people in boxes? Why is it that the person that monitors my account day-by-day can’t come up with an idea because you have to go to creative to ask for permission? And how is it that creative has to, when someone asks a question about this strategy, go the planner to ask? Can we have someone with a 360-degree brain that can see the overlap for business?” Kinser says.
Discover more insights from Kinser and other marketing leaders. Listen to the OffMute podcast, featuring predominant thought leaders across a variety of verticals and industries who are disrupting the status quo and coming off mute to share their experiences. Going into 2021, Kinser predicts that we’ll see a radical transformation of the marketing technology ecosystem, with “companies and technology companies working really, really fast to catch up with the new changes that are happening.” “The marketing technology ecosystem is going to be shaken up, but for a much, much better organization,” predicts Kinser. “In all, I think that we’re going to come to the other side, a lot better, cleaner, more focused, more integrated. You know, one thing that is going to come out of all of these is more radical transparency in the industry, which is something that we’re also desperately, desperately need.”
“Even before COVID, we had already made the decision to take a break from their Super Bowl TV this year,” she explains. Instead, Avocados from Mexico is running a robust shopper activation throughout October, November, and December. The activation will lead up to a Super Bowl digital campaign and shopper activation launched in early January.
Avocados from Mexico knows a thing or two about Super Bowl snacks. When Kinser’s team chose to advertise during the Super Bowl, they thought about how few products are in front of the consumer during a TV spot — but guacamole might just be one of them.
Kinser explains that she sees over-the-top (OTT) advertising technology as an evolution of traditional advertising and a great opportunity to personalize the ad experience for consumers.
