New 4As CEO Justin Thomas-Copeland talks about the evolving role of the trade group and agencies, the need to commercialize AI and creating an environment so talent can do their best work.
Justin Thomas-Copeland hit the ground running at the end of May in his new role as CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, taking over after Marla Kaplowitz’s active eight years at the helm of the trade organization. Justin recently paused from his active schedule to talk with SmartBrief for a Q&A. Below is the bulk of our talk, with part two – taking a look at where the industry and the 4As are trending — on Thursday.
Notes: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To listen and watch the full interview, scroll to the bottom for the video.
How have the first few months gone? Has anything changed or changed your plans or submitted your vision for the 4As?
4As Justin Thomas-Copeland:
My feet are touching the ground and it’s been great. Our vision is really to help and to reimagine the value of marketing and advertising to brands and business, and that’s through partnering with our members.
Everything is in such a flux. There’s so much change to what is marketing, how do you market, where do you market, who do you market to, what tools do you use? The reimagination is almost like a given. And so our vision is to help our members to do that, and then by doing so driving new value to their clients,
I think that vision is unaffected, but there’s a lot of nuance to that. There’s a lot of speed that comes with that and a lot of expectations. I’m a big believer in being a practitioner of marketing; whether you are an agency, a client or an association, if you’re in the ecosystem, you should be a practitioner. And so there’s definitely going to be a focus on us at the 4As to really walk the walk, really bring in new ways of marketing to what we do as an organization ourselves so our members and potential new members can see that we’re walking the walk.
