text: Meet the 2020 ANA Genius Awards Finalists | Neustar Blog
  , Allyson Dietz
  In a year as challenging as this one, good news goes far: Having something to look forward to. Reasons to celebrate. Small wins and big ones.
  And that's why despite--or perhaps because of--today's challenges, there's never been a better time to take a step back, acknowledge the great achievements in our field, and honor the most creative and progressive marketing organizations for excellence in analytics as we do each year for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Genius Awards, presented by Neustar. Now in its eighth year, the 2020 ANA Genius Awards saw a record number of submissions, including from major B2B and B2C brands, nonprofits, publishers, startups, and more.
  So without further ado, I'm thrilled to share the 2020 ANA Genius Awards finalists, following today's announcement at the 2020 ANA Media & Measurement Conference by Neustar SVP, Analytics Solutions, Ted Prince. These exceptional, data-driven marketers were nominated in four awards categories: marketing analytics adoption, growth, innovation, and storytelling.
  Recognized by our expert panel of judges—who include industry CMOs, marketing scientists, and other notable marketers and academics from IBM, Google, Sirius XM & Pandora, Facebook and more—these companies have managed to translate analytical thinking into bottom-line revenue growth, harness powerful insights to improve their creative storytelling, and address some of the greatest challenges keeping advertisers up at night.
  Marketing Analytics Adoption Finalists: Sam's Club, Twitter, and Microsoft have been selected for their outstanding achievement in the organizational adoption of data and analytics to boost business outcomes.
  Marketing Analytics Growth Finalists: Zillow, Checkers & Rally's, and Smithfield Foods have been selected for their outstanding achievement in business growth driven by the specific and demonstrable impact of marketing data and analytics.
  Marketing Analytics Innovation Finalists: Universal Parks and Resorts, McDonald's USA, and Fossil Group have been selected for their use of a progressive, analytics-based approach to solve a business challenge or seize an opportunity.
  Marketing Analytics Storytelling Finalists: USAA, Twitter, Longwood Gardens, and Univision have been selected for their outstanding achievement in the use of data to tell enlightening, visual stories that support business goals or open up new opportunities.
  Join Neustar on October 23 at the ANA Masters of Marketing Week when we will announce the 2020 Genius Awards winners. Winners will each share a $100,000 prize pool to be donated to the charities of their choice. Past charitable recipients have included Feeding America, UNICEF, American Heart Association, Girls Who Code, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
  To learn more about the ANA Genius Awards, presented by Neustar, find out more about the finalists, and sign up to receive updates, please visit GeniusAwards.com.
  Check back in the coming days to read more about each of this year's finalist entries in a series that will run between now and the 2020 Genius Awards winners announcement.