The 2019 Alexa Cup was a global competition in which more than 70 teams of marketing professionals created and pitched new “Alexa Skills” for the voice-activated Amazon virtual assistant. John Elliott, an adjunct faculty member in the Advertising and Marketing Communications Department, led his team from Publicis, the global advertising and PR firm, to a second-place victory worldwide on July 24.
Elliott, North American Commerce Practice Lead at Zenith, and his team pitched a content platform for Mattel’s Barbie, a Publicis Media client. The platform would include entertainment, education, and seasonally relevant material; users would also have the option to receive a subscription box of Barbie products in the mail.
“We dream of an experience where Barbie can jump off the TV screen and engage with viewers through Alexa,” Elliott said in an interview. “This takes imaginative play to a whole new world of possibilities.”