Finalists for Clio Health’s “Of the Year” awards were revealed today. Winners will be named at the Clio Health Awards on June 12 in New York City. Tickets to the event can be purchased here.

Independent Agency of the Year Finalists:

Bensimon Byrne
Klick Health
Serviceplan Germany

Agency of the Year Finalists:

Ogilvy PR
VML Madrid
VML New York

Network of the Year Finalists:

IPG Health
Ogilvy
VML

Advertiser of the Year Finalists:

Café Joyeux
CeraVe
SFBO (Sociedade Franco Brasileira de Oncologia)

These awards will be presented on stage to the respective independent agency, agency, network, and advertiser that has received the most overall Clio Health Statue points for winning entries submitted across all medium types. Congratulations to all the finalists!

The second-annual State of Play: Clio Sports Marketing Summit held this week at WPP’s offices in lower Manhattan included two thought-provoking panels: Michelob Ultra’s “Formula for Creative Storytelling” and “A Fireside Chat With Ashlyn Harris,” hosted by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment.

Below, we share highlights from both sessions.

Michelob Ultra’s Formula for Creative Storytelling

15 laps. 7 racers—1 real, 6 virtual.

We’ve never seen a Formula One race quite like this.

Danilo Boer, global chief creative partner at FCB Global, and Rachel Helfman, head of B2B marketing and solutions at Roku, discussed the making of Ultra’s groundbreaking Lap of Legends TV special, which debuted May 14 on the streaming service.

“It’s the first ever real versus virtual race,” said Boer of the event that pitted F1 driver Logan Sargeant, who races for Williams Racing, against six Williams legends of the past—Mario Andretti, Jenson Button, Damon Hill, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Jacque Villeneuve.

FCB spent over a year developing the sophisticated augmented reality helmet through which Sargeant was fed real-time info on as he sped along the track at Silverstone Circuit in England at 200 mph.

For Sargeant’s safety, it was crucial that the data he received was 100-percent accurate. “At the same time, we had to make sure that the AI drivers could respond to him,” Boer said.

When FCB and Ultra first pitched Lap of Legends to Roku, Helfman was skeptical. But once she learned about the innovative technology at the core of proposal, her mind was blown. “It was a first of its kind,” she marveled.

Helfman was also sold on Laps because it wasn’t a brazen advertisement. “If Roku is going to put their name behind something, it has to be entertainment,” she stressed. “It can’t be a long-form ad because that is not something that streamers or consumers want to see.”

A Fireside Chat With Ashlyn Harris, Hosted by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment

Laura Correnti, founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, hosted a conversation with U.S. Women’s soccer star Ashlyn Harris—a two-time World Cup Champion—on the state of brand investment in women’s sports.

Spoiler alert: Despite a surge in public interest, the backing lags behind.

“One of the things that has become pretty apparent is that the current state of our media ecosystem was not designed to grow the women’s game,” Correnti said. “When we look at things like CPI models, when we look at the metrics for how we are both buying and evaluating the success of women’s sports, the current model doesn’t work.”

It doesn’t reflect data from studies revealing how women’s sports fans are a “very leaned in, dialed in, loyal audience,” Correnti said.

As for the gender gap in salaries, on the plus side, “We don’t have to talk about the pay gap in the U.S. Soccer Federation,” Harris said.

And that’s because Harris and her teammates fought for—and famously achieved—pay equity.

That said, there’s much more work to be done to bridge the divide between men and women in other sports, Harris said, citing WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark’s disappointing payday.

“Caitlin Clark single handedly saved basketball. No one was watching the NBA. The ratings were down. Numbers don’t lie. She came onto the scene and blew it up,” Harris said. But Clark is only making $76,535 a season.

“Babe Ruth made 80-something thousand dollars in 1930. Let that sink in,” Harris said.

Now, Harris noted that there are those who would argue that Clark is doing just fine because she has signed a multi-million dollar Nike contract and other endorsement deals.

But that doesn’t fly with this athlete.

“So now we’re going to make her work more to get paid fairly? Come on,” Harris said.

For the second annual State of Play: Clio Sports Marketing Summit, a series of panels tackled front-of-mind topics like the power of music in sports marketing, reaching viewers via college athletics and the rise of alternative broadcasts.

Below, we look at the highlights from Monday’s event in NYC.

Harnessing the power of music for sports

The event kicked off with execs from Universal Production Music, ESPN and the NBA describing how music amplifies emotions across audio, video and static imagery.

For Claude Mitchell, coordinating director of music at ESPN, soundtracks are “the inspiration, the motivation and the direction that takes you through things.” Growing up a Yankees fan, Mitchell recalled that Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” was played at the end of a game they won, while Liza Minelli’s take closed out contests lost. In both cases, music heightens the experience.

Every song has a purpose. Lucas Spry, music director and producer at UPM, noted that “we’re not just throwing upbeat hip-hop tracks on an album just because we can. There’s purpose in that and the BPM tempo arrangement” can help define a collection of tracks.

The NBA recognizes how vital music and tempo are, too. Watching a LeBron James video on mute wouldn’t evoke as much energy and drive as watching with the sound turned up high.

“Music is a critical part of how we translate moments to our fans that are not only in attendance, but who are also engaging with us across our platforms,” said Jasmin Marquez, who helms music programming and business operations at the league.

“Tracks must resonate with all of our fans, no matter where you sit—whether it’s in the arena, or watching the broadcast, or catching it on our social media platforms.”

The music must amplify what’s happening on court, and enhance “how our fans, our teams, our players are all interacting with those moments,” he said.

Sometimes, picking local faves and melding them with global hits can prove a sound strategy.

“Everyone can source authentic regional music,” Spry said. “My job is to listen to that and find … how we can meld genres which work for every medium—social media or broadcast. There’s different tempos, there’s different moods, there’s different lyrical terms that really can make or break” a telecast or livestream.

College sports marketing success for Nissan

Nissan’s Director of U.S. brand & retail media, Rob Martin, spoke to Muse executive director Charell Star about going all in on college sports. That strategy’s driven impressive results, without the steep cost of, say, an NFL partnership.

The carmaker is the official partner of the Heisman Trust, an official NCAA corporate partner, and has multimedia rights agreements with universities across the country.

“You couldn’t just have the Heisman Trust. You couldn’t just have NCAA, although people do take that approach,” Martin said. “We needed a three-legged stool: the Heisman Trust, the NCAA, and the colleges and universities that we participate with. “By using all of those pieces of the puzzle, we can build a really cohesive, creative execution. You’re using colleges and IP, so it feels very authentic. It’s contextually relevant, and that’s why we built our strategy the way that we have.”

The Heisman House campaign, around since 2006, continues to evolve and elevate both creative and the Nissan brand.

“More than a into decade of a campaign, you better continue to think of new ideas. So what did we do? We launched the Heisman House on Zillow,” says Martin.

“Everybody’s looked at Zillow, looked at apartments, looked at houses,” he said. “Never did we think that we would put the Heisman House on Zillow. As you can imagine, everybody asks, ‘Is the house real?’ So we continue to fuel the idea. Yes, this is a real thing. An example of just how we continue to expand the platform and how we continue to refresh it with new ideas.”

Heisman House is the brand’s top performing promotional vehicle each year.

“When we talk about building brand awareness and building brand consideration, it’s our single most important property. So for us, that tells us not only is it about the media, but also just how we’re speaking to the audience. And we find year after year that we continue to see that brand awareness continue to happen, which is staggering when you think of how long this campaign has gone on. And frankly, that’s why we keep doing it.”

The rise of alternative broadcasts

Competing with second-screen viewers has become a challenge that alternative broadcasts aim to win. Execs from Bleacher Report, ESPN and the NFL explained exactly what alternative broadcasts are—and how they’re leaning into the practice.

“When we think about ESPN alternative broadcasts, we really think about creating complementary programs that are going to help to magnify or amplify the main broadcast, like our Toy Story animated football game,” said Tim Reed, the network’s VP of programming and acquisition. “The target there was younger audiences, and to drive co-viewing and distribute that across Disney+. It was a success because parents and kids really enjoyed it. I think the expectation is if we did more of that, they’d watch more.”

Tyler Price, VP of content, Bleacher Report, said: “We’re a digital-first entity that has made its mark by concentrating on the audience. That’s how we look at alternative broadcasts: What value can we provide, specifically in in terms of options and interactivity? How do we make our users feel they have power over what their options looks like?”

When done right, such alternatives are something the players themselves can get behind—with enviable numbers pointing to success.

“The Toy Story execution, the players and coaches, they were actually all, generally welcoming about this,” said Reed. “It showed an authentic side. We actually had some of the players bring their kids and their families into the actual vignettes or personality pieces and just integrate things they liked about Toy Story, their favorite characters.”

“Parents were likely to share that type of experience. And 90+ percent of kids were willing to watch another execution like that.”

The Shanghai office of production company Final Frontier has reached an inflection point. “We feel that we’re at a decisive moment to bring everything we’ve been building and experimenting with around the world to the United States,” says Gustavo Karam, co-founder and chief strategy officer.

The company debuted film “Forever Bold,” created for the Clios, at the organization’s annual awards gala last night in NYC.

Final Frontier ‘s Latin American founders saw potential for creativity in Shanghai and set up shop there in 2018. It also operates in Buenos Aires (HQ), Madrid and California.

“We began internationalizing 13 years ago when Skype was the only tool, and remote work was still daunting for many clients,” says Karam. “At Le Cube (his previous venture), we learned how to collaborate with talents from all over the globe on projects anywhere. We learned that curation and systematic production were the ways of scaling creativity worldwide.”

Recently, the company has ventured into entertainment, producing Disney’s first 2D animation film in more than a decade. Final Frontier is also producing a new series, Common Side Effects for Mike Judge and Greenstreet Pictures for HBO and Adult Swim. 

Muse chatted with Gus Karam, co-founder/director Ralph Karam and ECD Claus Cibils about working across the world and targeting the U.S. for expansion.

MUSE: Can you talk about your journey to creating “Forever Bold?”

RALPH KARAM: In this film, we reflect on the creative process and how it works for us, from the genesis of a raw stone with multiple possibilities and potentials to the final bold idea. The polished diamond that emerges from the raw rock—that was the concept behind our film for the Clio Awards, and it’s also a very good visual and sensory metaphor for how our creative process unfolds. For us, designs are always the starting point, and that’s what we bring to this year’s Clio campaign—meaningful designs. In a world where beautiful images are easily attainable, we sometimes forget that it’s not just about the image itself. It’s about the process behind it, the process of making it, which is also part of the result.

What was the spark for the creative?

CLAUS CIBILS: Clios’ “Forever Bold” permeates everything: it is about pushing for an idea to become a concept, a campaign, and transmuting it into something else, something greater. A multidisciplinary notion that calls for creatives to fight for their ideas, transform and develop them until they become “Forever Bold.” This concept was born from the core fact that the Clio Awards are known for, once a year, becoming the place, the moment–a spotlight for creativity, its celebration, and inspiring collaboration towards a more significant, common goal. This drive resonated with Final Frontier — so we embraced the Clios’ boldness by delivering a loud message, rich designs, and fearless animation for the campaign to speak volumes. 

How did you land the Clios gig for 2024? 

CLAUS CIBILS: 2023 was the year we officially opened Final Frontier in the U.S., so it was natural to find partners that have the same high standards in creativity as us. After so many years in the global creative industry, teaming up with the Clios to bring our craft to their powerful name and award was a natural progression.

What is it like working across the world—and specifically in New York for this event? 

GUS KARAM: Working across the world has been part of what we have done since our first year, but NYC is always an exciting stage to be on. It’s a city that we love and that has been part of our story since we started working in creativity. At the end of last year, we had the pleasure of being at Seventh Avenue and Third Street with a Naked Eye billboard featuring Little Simz for the Knu Stack campaign for Vans. Now we’re back again at Gotham Hall with Clio.

“It’s a great satisfaction to see that our creativity has been valued and recognized by such an important international festival,” says Palma. “We are filled with pride to have competed with young creatives from different countries and to be highlighted among all talents.”

Based in Santiago, Chile, Palma as an art director and Fierro as copywriter.

They uncovered an important insight when responding to Pepsi’s brief: “The most important moment in any meal is when we take a photo of the dish,” says Palma. “When we thought about that, we said: ‘If we help people make their photos look much better, we can tell them that they also taste better with Pepsi.'”

Palma says the goal was to create a big idea, while at the same time making it simple, digital, and communicated with directness. The creatives say they have a preference for the “hackvertising style” and so designed the entire execution to feel that way.

Pepsi will provide roundtrip coach travel and accommodations for Palma and Fierro to the 2024 Clio Awards this Wednesday, May 1, where they’ll accept their award on stage and will also receive a check for $5,000.

The emerging creative award was open to new and emerging creatives without significant experience in advertising. The application included students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program or any other emerging creative with less than five years of experience in the advertising industry who hadn’t previously worked on the Pepsi account.

Three shortlisted videos, “Ho Ho Hack,” “Refre-shhh” and “At Pepsi Point,” connect the power of creativity to tech.

Check out all the shortlisted entries here.

The evening’s first panel, “Breaking Through the Clutter: The Power Of Purpose-Driven Marketing,” focused on purpose-driven measures vs. transactional strategies.

“The healthcare market is hyper-competitive. Consumers have great choices,” said Ramon Soto, chief marketing and comms officer at Northwell. The brand leads with purpose-driven marketing to cut through clutter, but not all healthcare is purpose led. Rather, many are focused on transactional aspects. But, Soto notes, consumers don’t consume healthcare that way.

Few people think “what am I going to do when I have my next heart attack?” he says.

Of late, the brand has focused on gun violence in New York market, which drives purchase preference for the brand, helping consumers to know the brand before they need the brand, Soto says.

And there was a doctor in the house—Dr. Jose Prince, chief of pediatric surgery, at Northwell, and one of the docs featured in Netflix’s Emergency: NYC.

He walked attendees through a clip from the show and asked, “How do we make a difference [to curtail gun violence]? That’s the struggle on our end.”

“After 25 years of pulling bullets out of children in our country … We’re told to stay in our lane. If we just stay in our lane, in my sterile operating room, how much can I really accomplish?”

Firearms are now a leading cause of death for U.S. children. “How is that acceptable?” Price asked. “It’s a uniquely disastrous problem we have created in our country. But I’m very optimistic because we can tackle complicated things and make a difference.”

Michelle Hillman, chief campaign development officer at The Ad Council, explained how the organization works to shine a light on stories in a human and authentic way, rising above politics.

“Gun violence is a public health crisis and that’s the way we treat the work,” she said. 

Ad Council campaigns in this regard “are designed to be inclusive, respectful, talking to gun owners in their own voice … but helping them understand that safely storing guns is a gateway to preventing tragedy.”

Defining health equity and how ‘well-tainment’ can help

The next panel, “Changing The Script: Creativity at the Intersection of Health Equity & Entertainment”— moderated by Muse by Clio executive director Charell Star—began by defining terminology.

“Sometimes treating people equally can be inadvertently unfair,” said Dr. Olajide Williams, professor of Neurology, vice dean, Columbia University Medical School, and president/co-founder of Hip Hop Public Health. He noted that distributing vouchers in regions with health options won’t have the same impact as in zones of deprivation, because folks in the latter still needs access and accessibility.

“It’s the access to quality healthcare for everyone” that’s paramount, agreed Damien Escobar, global chief music officer at Havas.

“The biggest driver of life expectancy in the U.S. is zip code,” Williams said. “Whether it’s dental health, stroke, asthma literacy, by using a Hip Hop model that targets kids in a fun way, you can get them to do pretty much anything.”

“Money is not the solution to this. Millions have been spent to close the health equity gap and it continues to grow,” said Eric Weisberg, global chief creative officer at Havas, Health & You. With “Well-tainment,” delivering messages via episodic television, gaming sports and the like.

Such an approach helps translate complex concepts “to clients, consumers and everyday people,” Escobar said. “When a brand is doing something correct, it shows up in culture and it becomes a thing in culture.”

Ideas shaping consumer healthcare

The evening concluded with “Challenging Convention: Building a Fast-Moving Consumer Health Brand,” featuring Andrew Loucks, head of N.A. consumer healthcare chief at Sanofi, and Claudine Patel, who leads brand and innovation.

“The role of self-care and consumer health at large has a very tangible and sizable impact on society,” said Loucks. “How can we be the solution around alleviating universal healthcare tensions that we all know and feel? By making healthcare as simple as it should be.”

He noted an Icy Hot campaign with Shaq as one example.

Patel explained how traditional health and pharma advertising is not relatable. “How often does one run through a field of flowers only to stop and take an allergy pill?”

Some innovative efforts include a team-up with Live Nation on behalf of allergy medication Xyzal, and a Dulcolax partnership with Jeannie Mai.

Davide Barco loves being an illustrator, but he was working toward a different career goal while growing up in a village in the Veneto region of Italy.

“I always dreamed to be one of the Italians to play in the NBA,” he says. “I really pictured myself as a basketball player—as a professional basketball player.”

Barco was serious about the sport until he was about 18 years old, when he realized, “Okay, so maybe I’m not that good. I started to figure out I have to find another route, another plan.”

Ultimately, he made art his vocation. After studying the craft in school, Barco worked as a graphic designer and art director in advertising before venturing out on his own to become a freelance illustrator.

Ten years later, the Milan-based artist is busy with a variety of clients ranging from publications like Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to sports leagues, including the NBA, and brands such as Red Bull, Adidas and Foot Locker.

Not surprisingly, Barco specializes in sports.

Among the artist’s standout work is an illustration he did last year for the L.A. Times celebrating LeBron James becoming the NBA’s all-time top scorer after besting Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s long-held record.

“I could see from my feed in Instagram that a lot of people were prepared to celebrate LeBron for this amazing career moment, and everybody was just picturing LeBron with a crown,” the artist says.

Barco put thought into coming up with a more original idea. “I love to be frustrated in finding the right idea. Sometimes, the first idea is the best one,” he acknowledges, “but I’m always suspicious.”

After consulting with L.A. Times art director Hamlet Nalbandyan to to learn more about what the publication wanted the image to say, Barco riffed on a Greek myth, depicting James as Hercules stealing the world—in the form of a basketball—from Abdul-Jabbar’s Atlas.

Barco wanted to do something special, something that the L.A. Lakers superstar would appreciate. “If I were a basketball player, I would want to be portrayed that way,” he says, adding, “Every time I’m working on a piece, I’m really meticulous. It’s really a work of love.”

More recently, Barco lent his talents to the Clio Awards, creating a series of illustrations promoting the upcoming 2024 Clio Sports Awards. In the colorful, vibrant work, Barco uses the Clio statue to represent advertising excellence as the iconic award participates in a variety of sports, making a slam dunk in one image and scoring a touchdown in another.

Barco spent time finessing the lighting in each image. While these are not photographs, the illustrations look as if they are sports highlights, captured on the court or field. “I’m so jealous of the great photographers in sports who capture the moment with their lights,” he says. “The lighting is something that I really care about.”

The artist notes that he scored the Clio gig after reaching out to introduce himself and inquire about opportunities. Part of being a free agent is putting yourself out there in search of work, he says.

Many of Barco’s clients are in the United States, and a large portion are based in New York.

“So, once every year, every two years at max, I’m in New York for 20 days reaching out to clients and having beers with friends. And when I come back [to Milan], I always get new work,” Barco says. “We live in amazing situation where you can reach everyone with just an email, but nothing can defeat the human presence.”

Click here to learn more about the Clio Sports Awards program. The prize ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 4 in NYC. 

After touching down on the picturesque island of Mallorca, we headed straight to the Hotel Castillo Son Vida, a medieval castle that dates back to the 13th century and sits on a hill overlooking the lovely town of Palma. Surrounded by palm trees, lush greenery and crisp air, the space radiates an intimate and serene vibe—almost storybook like, the perfect locale for 100+ creative and marketing experts to absorb inspiration as they deliberated.

The first wave of jurors was already in session, judging global submissions across the categories of Brand, Branded Entertainment & Content, Digital/Mobile & Experiential/Activation, Direct, Film and Social Media. Following thoughtful and spirited conversations, the groups broke for lunch and retreated to the patio to dine and network with their peers. Then they headed back to their respective conference rooms to continue deliberating which work would be shortlisted or awarded a Bronze, Silver or Gold Clio. 

To close out the day we headed to the Sheraton Mallorca Arabella Golf Hotel for a Spanish-style barbecue dinner at Es Carbo. The night took a magical turn as we were swept away by the rhythmic beats of a Ball de Bot performance, a mesmerizing Mallorcan folk dance that dates back to the 1300s.

Memorable Moment of the Day: Observing a juror passionately provide cultural context for a campaign that swayed their peers to elevate the entry from Silver to Gold. 

Day 2: Grand Judging  

After grabbing breakfast at the hotel buffet—including some of the most unforgettable fresh fruit I’ve ever tasted—I hopped between jury rooms to catch the final round-one deliberations. Immediately following, the rooms moved onto discussions to determine which, if any, Gold-awarded work would be elevated to a Grand Clio. 

During breaks, I was able to connect with jurors for a lively test of their marketing tagline knowledge and a download of their sources of inspiration for Clio’s social media channels. 

Wave one judging ended with champagne toasts in each of the jury rooms and a flurry of jurors exchanging contact information and planning future meetups. The celebration and networking continued during dinner at the hotel and the mood remained high during post-meal drinks at the bar. 

Memorable Moment of the Day: Overhearing a juror say, “This is a campaign I wish my team had done.”

Day 3: Creativity Connects

The second wave of jurors arrived at the Retreat to join their wave one peers for Clio’s Creativity Connect Day. The morning was filled with sessions designed to challenge participants to think differently about pop culture and how advertisers should work to reach key audiences. I emceed—deftly, if I might add—and marketing leaders from Twitch, Tubi and Michelob Ultra offered the room a glimpse into the future of creative innovation. 

After a lunch break, we ventured to Bodegas Jose L. Ferrer for a tour and tasting in the scenic Mallorcan wine region of Binissalem. The winery’s timeless charm offered a peaceful retreat, steeped in three generations of history. As we soaked in the beauty and bonded with fellow enthusiasts, our experience was heightened by an enchanting performance from Alana Springstein, a rising star in country music. There’s an undeniable magic in connecting firsthand with the creators, whether it’s through music, art or the meticulous craft of winemaking. 

Back at the hotel, we were treated to a mesmerizing flamenco dance troupe, their movements a symphony of passion and grace. The night culminated in a whirlwind of laughter, karaoke and inspiring conversation. 

Memorable Moment of the Day: Witnessing Twitch streamer SUJAGG, whose primary language is Spanish, command the stage with confidence despite initial concerns about presenting in English, was truly captivating. He not only educated the room but also shed light on the profound impact of Spanish creators in the digital realm.

Day 4: Wave 2 Kick Off

With the wave one jurors departed, wave two judging began with the group evaluating global submission across the categories of Audio & Audio Craft, Creative Business Transformation, Commerce & Effectiveness, Design, Media, Public Relations and Print & Out of Home. Before hopping into the juror rooms, I had to rescue a coat left behind by a departed guest and ensure it arrived safely to the airport before their plane departed. Shout out to the hotel bellman Thomas who helped me retrieve the coat and secured a taxi to ferry it to its very grateful owner. 

After that, I updated my story notes and captured some additional content for our social channels. Then I headed into the town of Palma for lunch at Aromata and got to experience a bit of the community before heading back to the hotel for dinner with the wave two jurors. The meal was lively with effortless conversation and laughter throughout the room. I left the festivities to head to my room to pack for my next day’s departure—glad to be headed home—but a little sad to miss the great insights and connection over the remaining retreat days. 

Memorable Moment of the Day: Having several jurors come up to me to tell me how much they were appreciating the smooth flow of the jury session and the prior’s day Creative Connect Day activities. 

Conclusion: 

From the intense deliberations to the new connections that were formed to the unforgettable cultural experiences, every day of the trip brought new discoveries and memorable moments that will stay with me long after the retreat and I think that’s true for the jurors who attended as well. Each moment was a testament to the boundless creativity and camaraderie that defines the Clio experience and makes it unique from every other awards program.

I can’t help but feel grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such a remarkable event. 

—Until next time, Clio Awards!