Juan Woodbury leads Branded Entertainment Jury at LIA 2024

LAS VEGAS, USA — London International Awards (LIA) has announced the Branded Content and Branded Entertainment jury. Juan Woodbury, North America Creative & Entertainment Lead at Ogilvy, New York, will preside over this jury. The jurors were chosen for their expertise, experience, and skill because they have been the force behind award-winning work.

This jury will travel to Las Vegas to view every piece of work entered in the Branded Content and Branded Entertainment competitions. All rounds of judging take place in person at Encore @ Wynn Hotel, Las Vegas. These panels decide on the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Statue Winners, as well as the Finalists. At their discretion, each panel also decides whether a Grand LIA will be awarded. As there is no off-site pre-judging, all judges are fully involved from the beginning to the end, so everyone is privy to the final results before publication.

Juan, an Entertainment industry veteran and Grammy Award Winner, serves as North America Creative and Entertainment Lead for The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) at Ogilvy and WPP Open X. Woodbury is responsible for driving creative work that influences culture and continuously delivers on TCCC’s market-leading position. Working with the entire WPP Open X team, he helps shape and drive the creative vision for Ogilvy’s work on TCCC’s portfolio of brands in North America. For more than 20 years, Woodbury has held trailblazing roles in the industry and helped shape bold, innovative creative work for brands including Samsung, Nintendo, The U.S. Army, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, and Intel.

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Juan commented, “In today’s landscape, brands aren’t just vying against each other; they are in a constant battle for people’s attention, affection, and excitement, leveraging various narratives and experiences. The key is crafting something irresistible, something people eagerly engage with and can’t afford to overlook. This is why overseeing LIA’s Branded Entertainment and Branded Content category is such an exhilarating responsibility, and I’m privileged to lead as its Chair.”

Branded Content versus Branded Entertainment: It’s simple. Branded Content is not obligated to entertain or sell a product or service, whereas Branded Entertainment is advertising. It’s simply disguised as entertainment.

With the advent of social media and mobile entertainment, it has been posited that Branded Entertainment is more “effective and necessary” today. A seamless and well-executed piece of branded entertainment or branded content engages its audience while amplifying the brand attributes and desirability. The lines between entertainment and advertising become almost indistinguishable.

Barbara Levy, President of LIA, said, “Whenever I think of effective branded content, the highly successful ‘LEGO Movie’ comes to mind. The entire movie is about one brand. It was highly entertaining, yet the brand was effortlessly in every part of the movie. What a wonderful way to introduce LEGO to a new generation of users. We are very excited to have Juan Woodbury guide the Branded Content and Branded Entertainment room. With the kind of talent in the judging room, it will be interesting to see the top work that emerges.”