Digiday Awards Winner’s Circle: R/GA & Goldman Sachs’ ‘Millennials: Coming of Age’

In this edition of Winner’s Circle, Kaydee Bridges, vp, digital and social media strategy, Goldman Sachs and Michael Ziegenhagen, creative director, R/GA, chatted with us via email about how the winning campaign came about.

What was the “ah-ha!” moment that led to the creation of this campaign?
Millennials are a cohort that are top of mind in economic and societal terms. Goldman Sachs’ Global Investment Research division wrote several reports amounting to hundreds of pages of research on millennials, but it was served up in a very traditional, written format. We saw a clear opportunity to bring this research to life in a visually engaging and fun way. Our goal was to use solid data and trends to tell a story about how different millennials’ priorities really are and how that will affect the U.S. economy.

What was the most fun part of working on this campaign?
It was interesting to really dig into an immense amount of data to pull key data points to build a story and bring it to life. Making the incredible thinking and research of Goldman’s GIR division more accessible to a wider audience. Then of course, creating all of the fun animations and illustrations.

What about this project kept you up at night?
The biggest concerns were just making sure all of the data was correctly represented in narrative form that would be easily digestible and sharable. Also, making sure the GS.com site ran smoothly and quickly with all of the various animations and charting.

What did you learn during this campaign that you will apply to future work?
We’ve created many other infographics together so we’ve already applied lessons. These are big projects involving coordination with many teams so we have to work closely and efficiently. But also, you can never underestimate the amount of time it takes to write and implement code. These infographics exist on GS.com but Goldman Sachs has also done lots of native advertising and the code needs to function on publishers’ sites too. Knowing in advance how and where else the infographic will be used really helps streamline that process.

Which advertising campaign do you wish you had thought of?
Well, it’s more R/GA work, but I [Kaydee Bridges, Goldman Sachs] thought the Ad Council’s Love Has No Labels campaign was brilliant. The straightforward execution, creating that curiosity gap at the beginning, the human element of having “real people” in the ad, and just how touching and emotional it was.

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