Telly Wong, chief content officer and SVP at IW Group, joins Cheddar News to discuss winning Ad Age's Multicultural Agency Award. 

Between Bells

IW Group Wins Ad Age's 2022 Multicultural Agency Award

Welcome back to between Bells one, Asian. American owned marketing firm is amplifying its heritage while celebrating diversity for its team and its clients. The IW group is known for engaging audiences authentically and has created award winning campaigns for clients like McDonald's and Jack Daniels. This year, the company won the 2022 Multicultural Agency Award for all of its innovative work by at age joining us. Now to discuss is Telly Wong senior vice president and chief content officer at I w welcome to the show, congratulations on this honor. What does this mean for you and your team to receive this telly? Well, you know, this award is sort of the Oscars of the advertising industry. So it's a it's a huge honor. It's the first time we've won it and hopefully there'll be more in the future. You mentioned. It's like the Oscars just for some context for our viewers. More than 300 agencies submitted for this. Tell us about the work you submitted and the campaign that eventually ended up winning. Yeah, we submitted a bunch of our campaigns are collectively uh, most notably the work that we did with Mcdonald's last year with BTS meal, as well as some work that we did with Jack Daniels for, to celebrate Pride last year. And then some of the work that we've been doing in the metaverse. I want to talk about Mcdonald's and of course stepping into the metaverse. Thanks to your company's help as well as celebrating the lunar new year. What was the inspiration behind this campaign? Of course, we're looking at the commercial. Now uh for for lunar new year this year. Obviously there were some restrictions because of Covid, so we couldn't typically gather together and celebrate as we normally do with going to parades and family gatherings. So we thought you know what if we leverage the metaverse and really create a celebration in in a virtual space and that's what you're seeing on the screen right now. So we invited people to come into this what we call the Hall of zodiacs where folks could find out what their chinese zodiac sign was and get their reading for the year as well as just socialize with people from around the world. Why do you think it's so important for brands to start embracing metaverse even if they might be a bit skeptical. Well I think all the research points towards that direction, a study that I saw said that 66% of global consumers think that the metaverse is going to be part of their daily lives. So and I and I this is still pretty early in the game. So I think it's inevitable that it's just going to be an extension of what we do in our real life, but only digitally and virtually can I ask you about that because you opened a firm in the metaverse, What is that office going to do? Yeah, we opened up a metaverse headquarters which again is an extension of our actual office and headquarters in Los Angeles and new york and what we've been doing with that space and using that to showcase our agency. Our work also holding meetings in there with clients and also just you know, fun get togethers with our colleagues and our staff. I. W group. I think what makes you so interesting is you're all about inclusivity but you really keep that core asian base. Why is it so important to maintain that telly? Well, that's how the agency was founded. Was founded as an asian american pr firm with its roots firmly planted in the community and that's something that is part of our heritage and part of our identity and that's something that we continue to embrace. And just because I think as an advertising agency we have the power and the influence to impact representation. You know, millions of people see advertisements commercials and this is our way to contribute to that conversation. What do you think brands get wrong when it comes to the asian american consumer? Well, I think multicultural marketing sometimes is um and that's changed a lot in the last couple of years but it's always sort of been siloed and it's been sort of the big general market campaign and then that gets translated into different languages but it literally lacks cultural nuance. But I think what you've seen in the last few years is really brands that are open minded and progressive or letting their multicultural agencies like ours take a lead and and have a seat at the table in terms of guiding what their general market campaign looks like. Because that's a reflection. Diversity is the reflection of where this this american population is heading. Tell you it is a api heritage month. What does a api month mean to you? For me, it's an opportunity to just recognize the contributions and celebrate the contributions of Asian Americans that have been here in significant numbers for 170 years. Um and think about all the things that asian americans have done to contribute to this wonderful country. Telly Wong, senior vice president and chief content officer at IW Group. Again, there were a lot of agencies you went up against. Congratulations on your win.