 Hello and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining me this morning for the next 10 to 15 minutes, why we're going to explore experiential, a fad, or something that's here to stay. So I think we've been bombarded in the last year by the word experience. Hopefully there's some Game of Thrones fans that appreciate the joke. But just from a quick Google search, you can find that in the last year alone, there's been over 40 announcements from brands and agencies that are launching experiential or event divisions or new companies. In fact, we're standing here and tonight we'll celebrate awards to honor experiential for the first time. The museum of basically everything came to town right here in New York. Ice cream, pizza, ice cream's retail, illusions. And then there were similar experience that popped up all over the country that still ushered you through these Instagram factories, as we call it, had you pay $40 but chose not to be called Museum of and instead went by the color factory, Candytopia. There's Snark Park here in Hudson Yarns, if you haven't seen it, and more. So all of this leads to our question. Is this just the next marketing fad? Well, to answer this question, I want us to go back to where we're magnetic always starts to answer our questions. That's with the consumer. What consumer should we be talking about? I think the time of talking about the millennial has ended. Millennials are actually almost 40 years old and have children of their own that are in their late teens. I myself am actually a cusp millennial, believe it or not. So I think it's time to look for the next generation, a much larger generation that sits just behind the millennials and is about to come into their own. Generation Z. So who is this generation? Well, they're the children of the Gen Xers, and lucky for people like me, they're actually displaying more of the discerning values that come from their parents. So Gen Z is approaching 24 years old, and as of two years ago, research was predicting that they would command 44 billion in buying power and influence another 600 billion over household spending. And that was two years ago. And the reason I chose that stat is because currently, there are different varying stats that show a very large spending power. But there's a lot of variance because everyone's waiting to see what this generation will do. But everyone agrees it's going to be the largest spending influence we've seen to date. So like I said, they are just coming into their prime spending time. Where are they? What are they doing right now? Well, they still love their Snapchat and Instagram stories. They love to be on TikTok and make small little music and looping videos. And let's not forget Fortnite, and the dozens of YouTube and other content created just to talk about Fortnite and what is going on there. So why this is a generation that might not make a ton of sense in these platforms might seem like something I wouldn't use. I think today we want to know how do they feel about experiences, because that's really what's going to influence us. And luckily, research shows that six in ten Zs still prefer spending money on experiences over things. This generation has grown up in the trend of experiences, and they've watched as they're offered to them everywhere. So I think for us, we know experiences, they're going to be here to stay. And as marketers, we really want to ask ourselves this. Where does this generation differ from its predecessors so that we know how we're actually making quality experiences that speak to them? So let's talk about four key differences that I really love to focus on when designing for the Zs. We've talked about authenticity a lot in brands. It's something that's come up in a lot of years. This idea that if a brand isn't authentic, and if it doesn't show up in an authentic way, it might not resonate with its audience. Well, lucky for us, research is showing that 76% of Zs want brands to respond to their voices and feedback. And they're finding this responsiveness as a real measure of authenticity. So we actually know now what they're looking for when they say, I want a brand to be authentic. They want to see themselves, they want to hear themselves. They want to be able to really have this dialogue with a brand and say, you get me, and if I talk to you, you will talk back. Well, that's good for brands and marketers to know, because Gen Z is actually going to be the most diverse generation to exist yet. So when you think about marketing to them and thinking, do they hear and see themselves in my marketing, you can't forget their diversity. In fact, this is a generation where recent research out of Europe by Ipsis Mori is showing that only two thirds identify as exclusively heterosexual. They have over 50 choices of pronouns when they set up their Facebook profile. So it's important when we celebrate the diversity to think about things like love songs. This is a great campaign for MGM Grands that was done by Universal McCann. And if you listen to the song, you might think it's familiar. You might recognize it. But actually, what they did is they took a simple truth. Gen Z and younger consumers don't see the love as always between a man and a woman. So what did they do? They took classic love songs and remixed them if you take a listen. So they got famous artists from Bob Dylan to she and him to come in and take these classic love songs. And then they marketed this album as a way to come celebrate your love at the wedding chapel at MGM Grands. But they wanted to talk to this generation and show them that they understand that this generation doesn't always see that love is between a man and woman. And so this is a really beautiful, powerful and sinful way to show them we are listening. Well, it's also a generation that grew up in the time of mobile. Mobile optimized content, everyone on their phones. So I think it should be no surprise to any of us that research shows that 78% of Zs admit to sleeping with their phone in their bed by their side at night. They're also showing that 46% admit to checking their phone every single waking hour. So they're on their devices. Now they're on their devices talking to their small close-knit group of friends, that is a difference. But they're on there, they're looking for content and they're still sharing content. So however you feel about it, it looks like the idea of feeding the gram is also here to stay for this generation. But there is a difference. This generation has very strong values where they need to feel uniqueness and creativity really shining through. They themselves put a high value on being creators. So they want to align with brands that are also creators and are showing that unique creativity. Unlike the millennials before them where brands sometimes had to feel like they were sort of hiding in the background when they had a marketing conversation. They're okay with being advertised to and with. They just want to know that the brands align with their creative values. So one piece of work that debuted last summer at Cannes, and we were lucky enough to work with our friends at Instagram, was as Devlin and Instagram's partnership on Storiescape. So what you're looking at, you can see the vibrant colors is, was an immersive experience where you spend about two minutes learning about the story of storytelling. And it was done through projection over content. There was audio and other sensory stimuli that all told this story that said that just by using Instagram stories and cataloging your everyday life and details, you were actually doing a human truth that went back to the time of even cavemen telling our stories on cave walls and paintings. So this was a really, really beautiful way that's actually being honored with some awards later tonight. To have people understand that something that seems like participation in a social media platform is actually forwarding creative communication for who we are as individuals. And it resonated really well and was actually a must see piece of work at the Cannes Lion Festival last summer. One of my other really favorite, favorite, unique and creative marketing ventures that kind of shows off what this generation gravitates towards was the first ever live concert that took place, excuse me, inside Fortnite. So this was a marshmallow concert that happened live. And according to Epic Games, Fortnite's creator, 10.7 million people attended, 10.7 million people. Just to put that in perspective for you, in order for a performer to reach that many people, you would have to almost sell out Madison Square Garden every single night, not taking a break for a year and a half of concerts. That's how you get to 10.7 million people and they were able to achieve it right here and globally. So when you think about this really interesting, unique and creative way to reach out to this generation, I know in my household alone, it had a 44 year old Gen Xer sitting next to our 15 year old Gen Z. And they were equally as excited just to figure out what this was gonna look like. And afterwards the consensus was, yeah, that was cool. So the possibilities are sort of endless with this generation. So one of my favorite things as someone who grew up loving going to malls is that unlike millennials who are known as the generation that really killed the retail store. The Zs are preferring brands to have a physical presence and an online presence. They actually expect to do their shopping at both, which is great, great news for brands that are able to kind of think about having a physical presence to connect with their consumer. They wanna return to feeling and touching their products and meeting brands in person. And they're okay doing their shopping in either place. Again, they show values more like their Gen X parents. So a brand that actually is really succeeding in this audience and understanding what this audience likes and knows is Glossier. So Glossier, if you don't know, was actually born from the website into the gloss. So they started living in this world between digital and physical, where once the website had success and followers, they decided to launch products. And then they used their website as a way to do market research. Very similar to what we do with Experiential, where we get real-time feedback and we can tailor to what people are looking for. Well, this brand that's really come into the hearts of millennials and Zs decided that in order to continue the loyalty in the relationship, just being online wasn't enough. And at the end of last year, they opened their first flagship store here in New York City. And as you can see from the content playing, it's not your average retail store. It's definitely not the store that I grew up going to. In fact, they created an experience so that when people come to shop and see this brand in person, it's holding true to the values it started when it first launched. So many of the tactics that you saw in these Instagram factories, they still apply here for content creation. There's large oversized tubes that you can walk through and capture content with. Your purchases come out on conveyor belts. Even the employees are wearing monochromatic jumpsuits, which is similar to what we see if you go visit Snark Park at Hudson Yards. So they like going to physical places. They like connecting in person, but it's still important that you give them an experience. This is also great news, this marriage of physical and digital for brands that kind of don't have a physical product. When you think of YouTube, when you think of Twitter, when you think of Google and Facebook. These brands know that they need to show up and provide a way to sort of handshake with their customers in person. That's why they often have festivals and live experiences. And you see them creating these physical environments so that they can continue that relationship in person with their consumer. But one industry in the last year seems to do it better than the rest. And for me, that is the entertainment industry. Some of my favorite experiences that have come out in the last year are really bringing beloved shows and programs to life in a physical form that allows consumers to immerse themselves in the environment. So think of HBO's Westworld, which is also being honored later tonight. A&E's Bates Motel and even the Max from Save by the Bell was brought back to life so that fans could continue to feel a part of the culture and environment of Save by the Bell. Well, when you think of the entertainment industry, there's always one that does it bigger, Netflix. And so our friends at Netflix decided last summer that they were going to open up their FYC space, which is a period of four year consideration for Emmy voting to fans and really say thank you for watching. And so because you watched was a program where fans were able to come into an 11,000 square foot space where over 40 original content series were represented on the floor, all under the Netflix brand. You actually don't usually see Netflix show up that way, where they put everything in one place, but I'm sure you're kind of catching some of your favorite binge worthy shows on the screen. And that's because this was a thank you to let fans come through and really immerse themselves in the world of Netflix. Even the shows on the floor were decided by the watching trends of fans. So as the event gets closer and closer, the shows are added and changed around on the floor based on the patterns and the data that they're seeing as people watch. So it really is a conversation with them and say thank you for watching. And then they sort of let them have fun inside their favorite shows. So hopefully, I think we all agree, experiences are here to stay. As long as it's marketers, we plan to focus on them really being quality experiences that speak to the audience. For me, I'm really looking forward to designing these emotionally resident exciting experiences and helping solidify the idea that experiential truly is the way to market to this future generation. Thank you guys so much.