‘The creative is coming out of the internet’: What this year’s Webby winners say about advertising

Find us a marketer who doesn’t like seeing their work receive an award, and we’ll give you a trophy.

Actually, we don’t have any to spare (we only got one for our recent Webby win for our Marketing Brew Weekly podcast!), but Jesse Feister, executive director of Webby Media Group, might. We caught up with Feister, who is now in his second year leading the organization that sets out to honor the best of the internet across more than 100 categories, to dig deeper into some takeaways from this year’s winners, particularly in the advertising, media, and PR categories.

“Each generation of the internet has people who are really individually making their mark, and we’ve recognized that for various points throughout history. It's now pretty different,” Feister told Marketing Brew. “There’s just an explosion of creative people making things across the internet.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Talk to me a little bit about the brand side of things, and brand creative in particular, online. How have you and the Webbbys seen this particular category evolve?

One of the big trends that I’m observing is that it’s almost like the creative is coming out of the internet. And it’s not just insights about the audience, but actually intersecting with what creators are already doing and figuring out how to not just tap into that but engage in it in a way that builds on it.

So the Dr Pepper jingle is a really good example of that, where it’s coming literally from the internet. And I think you’re seeing there’s still space for really, really, I would say, more traditional digital creative, but more and more what you’re seeing is it’s a dialogue with the internet—back and forth, and a lot of the award-winning work this year came from the internet, not the other way around.

An area that every industry is grappling with is AI. Talk to me a little bit about the impact of AI on the Webby’s submissions, nominees, and winners this year.

We have AI categories in advertising, [like] Best Use of AI in an Advertising Campaign, but also, I believe that most of the work that was submitted in some form [uses AI]. AI is just becoming a part of the creative process, and there’s a lot of different layers to what that can mean.

We did not require disclosure of AI use. We felt like it was on the judges to decide if the work was delivering and gaining trust with its audience. And I think that was a pretty important distinction, but it allowed us to sort of evolve with the internet, because where we were a year ago and where we are today, with how AI is being used, has changed so much, and it’s going to continue to change. The expectation is that this technology will [be] used and that our community will figure out how to do it in a way that builds trust with their audience.

What other highlights from the ad campaigns and branded content winners stick out to you? Particularly, are there any winners that signal something to you about where the industry is headed?

I thought the death of Duo was genius and just absurd and fit their brand really well. Earned media—that is the definition of it.

Also…maybe it’s because we live in New York, but the Severance cube was such a big moment on the internet, even though it was this physical experiential activation, it really was the biggest thing on the internet for a couple of days…That one still stood out to me too, because I just thought it was a really creative way to engage with the internet, but also IRL, and in a way that I think you’re starting to see teams try to figure that out more and more. How do you use IRL to move the internet?

That’s one that I had also noted. I noticed across a couple of different categories, there’s still a pretty healthy representation of TV, entertainment brands, and IP. Why do you think that IP presence continues to resonate so much on the internet?

People love great storytelling, and they get attached to characters. So the performances are really compelling. You start to recognize the people. You feel attached to them through this medium in a way that’s a little bit different than what you’re interacting with when you watch a creator, and that translates really well to the internet, because it’s a familiar face. And the teams are really, really creative in how they’re bringing this content and these stories to the internet, because your streaming show is technically what fits within our definition of the internet, but how they’re marketing and how they’re influencing culture goes far beyond just streaming the show.

If you had to describe an overall takeaway about what the advertising winners signal looking ahead here, what do you think we’re looking at going forward?

Instead of putting work onto the internet, it’s sort of bringing work off the internet. So the work seems to be driven from what’s happening in culture on the internet, and not the other way around. That’s the trend I really am most excited by, and it requires a different pace of creativity, but the brands that have done it have been really, really successful and actually influenced and participated in culture in a way that I think everyone is aspiring to. But it just requires a pretty rapid, savvy understanding of how to use these platforms and how to engage with the creators who are driving our internet.