Senior Director of Creative Strategy for The New York Times Liz McDonnell will visit the West Virginia University Reed College of Media to discuss trends in advertising and her role at The Times’ native ad unit, T Brand Studio on Thursday, April 14.

Advertising has fundamentally changed in recent years, and it continues to evolve at a breakneck pace. The once-critical captive audience is a thing of the past, as unlimited on-demand content options across multiple screens constantly splinter our attention.

McDonnell’s presentation, “What’s Trending? Advertising and Marketing in 2016,” will begin at 7 p.m. in room G21 Ming Hsieh Hall on WVU’s downtown campus and is free and open to the public.

The event is co-sponsored by the College of Media and the WVU Libraries, in partnership with The New York Times.

As head of creative strategy, McDonnell and her team are behind a string of attention-grabbing, sponsored posts like Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” and a General Electric message delivered through virtual reality.

Over the years, McDonnell’s career has included a wide range of roles and responsibilities. She has marketed, promoted, produced and edited branded content at such pioneering digital publishers as Federated Media and The Huffington Post. �

At The New York Times, McDonnell oversees a number of cross-organizational efforts from marketing new content-driven ad products and branded content partnerships to leading more consumer-facing social initiatives like @MyNYTimes on Instagram.

“T Brand Studio made ADweek’s ‘Hot List’ for native advertising, so this is a great opportunity for our students to hear from an award-winning creative strategist,” said Diana Martinelli, acting dean of the WVU Reed College of Media. “With the changing digital environment, having someone like McDonnell share her insights and best practices in the industry is extremely relevant to what our students are learning in the classroom.”

Launched in 2014, T Brand Studio takes a journalistic approach to crafting brand stories. Clients include General Electric, Ford, Dell, Google and Netflix to name a few. In addition to winning Adweek’s “Hottest in Native Advertising” award, T Brand received Digiday’s Best Publishing Platform award for, “Plan Your Next Adventure,” and an Online Media, Marketing and Advertising (OMMA) award for it’s Netflix paid post, “Women Inmates.”

-WVU-

cc 03/29/2016

CONTACT: Christa Currey, Communications Manager, Reed College of Media 304.293.5726,�Christa.Currey@mail.wvu.edu

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