Six Takeaways From Elevate 2024, A Brand Storytelling Summer Retreat

I spent much of the past week at the stunning Sundance Mountain Resort here in Utah, a place that has epitomized the connection of art, nature and community since the land was purchased by Robert Redford in 1969. That context makes it an idyllic venue for the annual Brand Storytelling Summer Retreat, aka “Elevate.”?

This invite-only gathering of more than 100 of the best creative minds from brands, agencies, production companies and more from as far away as Ireland and Germany is one of my favorite events of the year, and the 2024 version was no different, filled with plenty of networking, idea-sharing, screenings, hikes through the mountains (yes, disconnecting is as critical as connecting) and more. Here, six takeaways from last week’s event that in my mind are relevant for any brand, any agency and anyone interested in the past, present and future of this worlk:

1. The Battle for Budget Is More Evident Than Ever - There is always an undertone to these events focused on budgets, but perhaps never more than this year. A recent Gartner survey of nearly 400 Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s) revealed that average marketing budgets have fallen by 15% in 2024. WIth this group, everything came up: from what percentage of that budget should go to brand stories to how much this work should cost to talent fees to pay for play and of course how much to spend on distribution. My takeaway is that in this world of shrinking budgets, there still aren’t many clear answers. Moreover, there remains a challenge for many brands in shifting dollars from traditional spending patterns like linear TV to more modern methods such as brand stories without some organizational pushback (change is hard). Jeff Rosenblum , Founder and CEO of Questus, an agency that “creates ads for the modern consumer journey,” opened the first official day of the event with this information and a request that codified it well: “Each day, consumers are subjected to an average of 5,000 branded messages (one every 2.7 seconds). How can we take some of the dollars away from things that are annoying and put it towards things that actually matter?”
2. Differentiation is Critical - And Too Often Missing - Some of the production companies in the room, and there were a lot of them, talked about how almost any product inclusion in brand stories can ruin the intent, and turn great creative into just another ad (the example that was mentioned was this recent creative from Brooks Running featuring the recovery of actor Jeremy Renner ). For the brand folks, many spoke about the need to balance the emotion and great storytelling with a clear business driver, even if that means a small brand mention or “natural” product inclusion. And when you consider the first takeaway here on budget, you understand that even more. My takeaway, and I’ve shared this often as a longtime brand person, is that if you read a script or view content and say to yourself, “Can I tell this story without my brand?”, and the answer is yes, then it’s not your brand story to tell. If you’re creating work that could be created by any other brand, then why you? Your story needs to feel unique to your brand, and make viewers remember who told the story as much as they remember the story itself.
3. Distribution Remains a Massive, Messy Issue - This was probably the biggest conversation of the week, both during the on-stage sessions and in smaller discussions around the event. As streaming services get more selective about accepting work that has been paid for by a brand as “pure creative,” those brands, many of whom have those reduced budgets mentioned above, are being asked to pay again to put that work on any of these services. Earned media came up quite a bit as a great driver, and it can be, but often not without a supplementary (and expansive) paid media buy. My takeaway: I’ve often talked about the need to put equal dollars into production and distribution. If you don’t have some significant paid media dollars set aside before you start this work (and moreover, establish a media plan before creative is completed), I really question if it should even be done. While it’s still inherently valuable to create content for organic social and internal purposes, if we look back a year or two or three down the road, those alone are not going to keep getting this work funded.
4. The Ever-Evolving C-Suite Conversations - There was a great on-stage discussion focused on “convincing the C-suite,” but this came up around the resort in smaller conversations all week as well. There was notably only one C-suite member that spoke on stage ( Ramon Soto , CCO and CMO of Northwell Health, who announced this week that it would be launching a studios division to develop scripted and unscripted content). Ramon’s perspective felt very refreshing and also unique, particularly when you consider the amount of time it can take to create longform branded content (films, episodics, etc.) compared to the average tenure of CMO’s, which at the nation’s top 100 advertisers was around 37 months in 2023, according to search and advisory firm Spencer Stuart . The takeaway: we need more than just the creators in this room; we need C-suite leaders to join events like this to truly show that brand storytelling is a critical part of the marketing and communications mix. Moreover, with the statistics on tenure above, we need to ensure that it’s not just the marketing or communications leaders who are bought into and understand the value of this work, but the entirety of the business leadership.
5. The Work We Recognize Must Be Tied to Impact - This is a natural follow to the bullet above, and since brand storytelling is no longer new, we need to ensure that the work we recognize in this space is not just tied to beautiful storytelling and creative execution (the craft, if you will) but to actual business results and impact (which can be defined in a variety of ways, as came up in a session from Julie Davitz , Founder/CEO at Plus Media Solutions). We saw some truly terrific work on display this week, from a variety of brands including Backcountry , The North Face , 万豪酒店 , MilkPEP , Southwest Airlines , 罗技 , Northwell Health and more. It would be great to have a conversation next year about what those pieces of creative we showcased from these brands did to drive impact over the 12 or 18 months since they premiered. With brand storytelling, the ROI is often much more strung out than some short-term performance marketing work. It’s not fair to measure the impact of brand stories in a single business quarter or against many other activities created for shot-term ROI, but we should be looking at both short-term and long-term results when recognizing excellence.?
6. Measuring What Matters - Another yearly topic, the ongoing measurement debate raged on this week. Paul Zak gave a fascinating keynote on Immersion and utilizing neuroscience (and the Apple Watch many of us wear on our wrists) to track viewer reactions, which is great as a real-time measurement of what resonates but doesn’t measure long-term impact. Megan Wells , Andy C. and Kevin Keane ?? continue to develop the Evoke score, a unique marriage combining neuroscience with human intelligence that they’ve been working on in earnest for a good chunk of 2023 and 2024 (more info here ). Both of these are exciting and much-needed developments, but the key takeaway here is similar to in years past: many in this room are looking for better ways to measure this work, but there is not a one-size-fits-all measurement metric when it comes to brand storytelling. As Meg, Andy and Kevin are doing, and as Paul discussed, these are significant steps forward in standardizing the measurement of branded content, but unless brands, agencies and more come together to agree upon the metrics that matter, it will never be a simple question to answer.