You won’t catch Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, Instagramming his lunch or stress-baking sourdough bread during the day. He’s at his computer by 6 a.m. and working until 6 or 7 at night from his home office on Long Island (aka, his grown daughter’s former bedroom).
These long days were somewhat unexpected. “I thought my work would actually decline,” Bob says, “but, in fact, it’s increased substantially as we are all collaborating and attempting to figure out how to navigate out of this crisis.”
Brands are dealing with a lot of “big unknowns right now,” Bob says, particularly how to react budget-wise when the coronavirus is finally behind us, whenever that is.
But he’s heartened by the level of ingenuity, creativity and agility coming out of brands right now, whether that’s an alcohol company pivoting its factory to make hand sanitizer or frozen meat brand Steak-umm sharing advice on Twitter about how to avoid COVID misinformation.
At night, after a home-cooked meal with his wife and son, who’s also working at home full time right now, the trio can be found rediscovering the joy of board games: Scrabble, Risk, Monopoly … and The Game of Life, which Bob acknowledges has some extra resonance at the moment.
