Brand Activation Committee Meeting

This event is virtual only and no in-person option is available.

Repicturing Rural: How Brands Can Build Trust and Cultural Relevance Through Authentic Storytelling (11:00 -11:30 a.m.)
Rural America touches nearly every brand, but remains widely misrepresented in modern media and marketing. New research from Getty Images and Land O’Lakes uncovered a significant gap between perception and reality, revealing how outdated visuals and narratives can erode trust and limit connection with a large and influential audience. In this session, Getty Images and Land O’Lakes will share insights from their joint Repicturing Rural initiative, including a visual library and insights designed to help brands modernize how rural communities are portrayed. Together, they’ll explore how marketers across industries can use authentic storytelling, diverse imagery, and community-centered partnerships to better reflect the innovation, diversity, and vibrancy of rural America.

Speakers:
Tristen Norman
Head of Creative, Americas
Getty Images

Lynn Franz
Senior Director, Marketing Excellence
Land O'Lakes, Inc.

A Case Study in Brand Storytelling (11:30 a.m. - 12:05 p.m.) 
Storytelling is not just a creative output but a business lever to shape brand equity, build trust, sustain loyalty, and differentiate brands in an overcrowded market. But even though the desire to be a storytelling brand is widespread, the ability to do it consistently and strategically is rare.

This session will share a case study of how one brand was able to move beyond traditional advertising and campaign thinking into longer-form storytelling that embodied cultural relevance and business intent.

By translating strategic objectives into clear creative direction, the organization ensured its stories resonated culturally while still serving measurable business outcomes. But the shift extended beyond the creative itself. The brand redesigned how storytelling was activated across channels, partnerships, retail environments, experiential activation and internal teams, aligning the enterprise around a unified narrative.

The result was a repeatable model for activating long-form storytelling across the enterprise embedding storytelling not as a campaign initiative, but as an organizational capability.

Speakers:
Alex Blum
Founding Partner
Blum Consulting Partners

Andrea B. Ruskin
Co-Founder & Partner
Blum Consulting Partners

Break (12:05 - 12:10 p.m.)

Member Discussion: The Role of Culture in Brand Building, or: Control Less, Co-Create More.  (12:10 - 12:45 p.m.)
Drafting off the ANA Brand Practice's latest whitepaper about the importance of culture in brand building, and partially inspired by the mainstage presentations at the 2026 BRAND MASTERS | ICONS conference, this discussion will talk about what culture is, what it isn't, the hurdles to understanding it, and how brands can win when they relinquish a little control and let their customers do the driving.

Speaker:
Tara Caiazza
Vice President, Brand
Association of National Advertisers

Closing Remarks (12:45 - 1:00 p.m.)