• by Tanya Gazdik , January 6, 2014

A panel of advertising/marketing business executives, media influencers and analysts weigh in with rankings of the six most influential stories of 2013.

North 6^th Agency, with offices in New York City and San Francisco, announced the results from the brand advertising/marketing category in its first annual “6 on 6” program.

As part of the program, the agency assembled a panel of business executives, media influencers, well-respected analysts and pundits with expertise across the advertising and marketing industry. The agency then solicited feedback and insights from the panel and asked them to rank the top six most influential stories of the year within the category.

They were Kmart’s Ship My Pants commercial, Cheerios and its interracial family commercial, Jay-Z/Samsung with the Magna Carta ad campaign, Coca-Cola and the “Share a Coke” campaign, AT&T’s little kids commercials and Justin Timberlake’s “20/20 Experience” marketing campaign. 

When it came to advertising and marketing in 2013, the overarching theme was that brands leveraged social media and interactive elements in a more sophisticated and measurable way than ever before, said Matt Rizzetta, president and CEO of North 6^th Agency.

"While some brands such as Coca-Cola took a more traditional approach by relying on celebrity involvement, and others including Kmart took a more risque approach, the common theme for all was that social media was leveraged to add another dimension to their campaigns and to create a deeper connection between the brand and the consumer,” Rizzetta said in a release. 

The Cheerios commercial, which features a mixed-race family, inspired a fervent reaction. It generated such a strong racist backlash on YouTube that the comments section had to be closed. It has been watched more than 4.6 million times as of Monday.

The brand advertising/marketing category is the final of six categories that the agency announced for its “6 on 6” program. Other categories include energy industry, media/publishing, brand crises and business deals.