Episodes
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For the final episode of 2024, Max and Elke go through a myriad of personal and professional insights in to their individual worlds. Find out about their earliest and strongest memories, what brand has won their heart forever, and so much more. It's our gift to you as we wrap up year one of The Voice of Experience!
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The end of the year means best of lists, and all the controversy and conversation that comes with them. In the latest episode of the Voice of Experience, Elke and Max talk about GMR’s own best of list – the annual GMR Brand Experience Index. How did the Top 25 brands for this past year make memories better than the rest, and why are Jersey Mike’s and Humana particularly unique cases in the Top 5? Our comments are open, and Max and Elke want to hear from anyone curious about these rankings, no matter how strong your feelings are. So check out the episode and let us know what you think!
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Missing episodes?
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We’ve all experienced an unhinged brand before and can immediately recall what we loved about them – maybe it’s Slim Jim immortalizing Macho Man Randy Savage’s demand for us to snap into one of their meat sticks; or maybe it’s social media 1.0 era Wendy’s giving a follower free chicken nuggets for life because they got 1,000,000 likes on a tweet. In this episode of the Voice of Experience, Max and Elke step into the world of Nutter Butter TikTok and other 2020s-era unhinged brands and ask themselves “who does this marketing appeal to?” and how can you take a brand’s bold and disruptive stance from social media and execute that strategy in the live events and experiences space? Oh, and stick around til the end when they talk about their own top career moment working with an unhinged brand – here’s a teaser: it involves a Slim Jim and an eye socket.
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As festival season wraps up around North America, data scientist Mary Willcock joins the show about her experience attending Austin City Limits. And, since ACL is a two-weekend festival, Elke jumps in with her own experience in Austin, which she attended the weekend prior to Mary. Alongside Max, the group compares and contrasts things like how sustainability and waste management showed up across the festival, fashion trends for attendees, and, of course, their favorite brand activations.
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Other than selling out global football and soccer stadiums on the regular, it would appear that Taylor Swift and Lionel Messi have very little in common. But for marketers, there's more than meets the eye to the global superstardom these two cultural icons share. In this episode of the Voice of Experience, Elke and Max talk about the correlation between Swiftie crowd moments at a Taylor concert and the synchronized singing and chanting you'll hear at one of Messi's games, and they talk through the signs brands need to look for to spot the next Lio or Taylor before the rest of their competitors jump on board.
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One episode about the deep connections between politics, memorability and brands wasn't enough, so Elke and Max brought back our old friend Dr. Joseph Cera to discuss the scientific angle behind it all. With deep roots in political science, Dr. Cera breaks down why political campaigns are the ultimate form of marketing, why the political arena was a trendsetter in data science access, and who actually holds the advantage in creating memories when political campaigns pit incumbents against challengers. All that and more on this "Ask The Doctor" episode of The Voice of Experience!
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For many of us, there's a certain memory connected to when we became "politically aware" of how elections impacted the world around us. Maybe it's the first time you voted, or the first time you saw a certain candidate for office speak. But there's no denying that memory making is a core tenet of political action - parties spend billions of dollars on accomplishing it every election cycle. In this episode, Elke and Max share their own historical perspective on this aspect of their lives, and how the intersection of politics, brands, and memorability is so prevalent in election cycles like the one the United States is approaching this Fall.
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You don't have to be a marketer to know that most humans go to bars for emotional reasons, as opposed to rationale ones. But what makes a bar experience memorable, and how can brand be part of the fun for people versus being a buzzkill? In this episode of The Voice of Experience, Max and Elke share their best stories from working with brands on bar activations, and outline why they believe that work can be both a blessing and a curse.
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The joy of the Olympics lies in the unmatched historical memories it has created for athletes and spectators to share over generations. On this week's episode, Elke talks to Max about what memories he made during his time in Paris at this year's Games, including which brands stood out with their live storytelling throughout the venues and the city, as well as what innovations he noticed that may carry over to Milan in 2026 and Los Angeles in 2028. And what was that pin Snoop was wearing? Why are pins a thing at the Olympics anyway? All that and more on this week's VoX.
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Max and Elke are back, breaking down the coolest and most memorable content and campaigns spotlighted at Cannes Lions 2024. Why does Max have Cannes FOMO for the first time in a while? What new jury considerations did Elke find commendable? All that and more on the latest episode of The Voice of Experience.
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What makes a marketing campaign award worthy? Any marketer knows that industry recognition is valuable, but the factors and decision making that go in to how that recognition is given varies from year to year. In the latest VoX episode, Max and Elke look through that lens to examine Ad Age's Experiential Campaign of the Year for 2023, Chick-fil-A's "The Break Room" in New York City.
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The Voice of Experience is back with our first live event breakdown, as Elke details her trip to Los Angeles for RuPaul's DragCon! In a drag world that is full of authenticity and self-expression, what brands and what experiences connected in the most memorable way? And how can brands that are currently missing out properly integrate themselves into what has become one of the most unique conventions in the world? Elke and Max break it all down on this episode of the VoX.
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We all want to be memorable. Brands are no different, and the numbers prove it, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually by Fortune 500 companies collectively on marketing, advertising, communications, and more tactics to reach their desired audiences. In the debut episode of The Voice of Experience, marketing industry veterans Elke Jones and Max Lenderman break down why the science of human memory making stands out as the key factor in helping brands stand out with audiences in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
