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Jasmine Presson is chief strategy officer at Mediaplus North America. She has also worked at MediaCom, UM Worldwide, and Albert: Artificial Intelligence Marketing.
Favorite project you’ve worked on? Revlon’s “Love Test” film was a very special project. During our research that led to the film, I had the privilege of joining friend groups of women in their kitchens and living rooms across the country to talk about love, beauty, and self-expression. To understand the power in a product as seemingly frivolous as mascara or lipstick. We worked with an incredible director, Tatia Pilieva, to bring their stories to life in a short film. It was human and moving, and it also drove results. As part of a larger integrated campaign that included activations like a kiss cam in Times Square, we drove sales growth for Revlon and earned industry recognition like Adweek’s Media Plan of the Year.
What’s your favorite ad campaign? Snickers’s “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” is brilliant. Laugh-out-loud funny. Memorable. Clever use of celebrities. But my favorite part is how effective it was at communicating the product benefit and giving people product use cases through storytelling. They were able to position a candy bar as a snack without having to come out and directly say, “Our candy bar has peanuts, so it’s filling enough to be a snack,” while still staying true to the spirit of the “Snickers Satisfies” tagline they’d been using. Simple, entertaining storytelling that everyone can relate to and that doesn’t make the viewer work hard to understand the message.
One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: I’ve visited 48 of 50 states in the US, including living in 14 of them. I love the geographic and cultural diversity of our country, as well as the commonalities that unite us. I’ve been thinking about that a lot this election cycle. I’ll let you guess which two states I still need to visit!
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What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? Creator culture is incredibly transformational for consumers. Editors and producers are no longer the gatekeepers on content, knowledge, and inspiration. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok have put everyday people at the center of influence at scale. For example, I follow several fashion creators who are similar to me in height and body shape, and by doing so, I’ve essentially created a personalized portfolio of virtual try-on models. It is empowering to know how something is going to fit and which size to order before purchasing. It reduces a lot of the friction, risk, and effort from the path to purchase.
I’m less optimistic about the current state of attribution. It’s easy for advertisers and agencies to get tunnel vision on what’s easily “measurable” and miss the bigger picture of advertising’s impact. We can fall into the trap of what’s working for easy attribution instead of what’s working for incrementality and growth. I worry that this will get worse with AI unless we get creative about the data sources we’re feeding to the AI to give it visibility to the bigger picture.
What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? I’m a big fan of Marcus Collins and am inspired by his perspective on brands in culture. I follow his content on LinkedIn. In every category, we’re increasingly seeing trends originate from influencers and creators instead of editors and brands. It’s important for brands to embrace how real people use their products, to understand how they think and feel about the brand, and to participate in consumer-led culture.