SVP, Director Creative Technology
Craig Elimeliah admits that he is “fiercely obsessed” with how things work and how people engage and interact with things. As Senior Vice President, Director Creative Technology at RAPP, Omnicom’s global Customer Experience agency, he’s a true creative technologist who bridges the intersection of digital strategy, user experience design, creativity, innovation and technology.
He says, “I am always pushing the limits of where creativity and technology meet to create experiences and solutions that solve complex business challenges. My curiosity lets me explore different ways of resolving problems while I always try to have a well formulated POV around emerging innovations. I’ve built a reputation as an innovator through years of experimenting and pushing the bar higher and higher.”
With deep expertise in digital marketing, social media, mobile, product development and CRM, Craig believes “Innovation is where technology and creativity play.” He explains: “Technology has become easier and more available to the general public and less tech savvy crowds. Innovation is how we set ourselves apart and create truly meaningful and impactful work for our clients and ourselves. Innovation is weaved into everything we do and is the often the difference maker in what defines great work.”
A confirmed experimenter, he’s extremely proud of the Poptag platform, which came about through testing a way to contextualize social photo-sharing. Poptag allows anybody to intuitively manipulate images using hashtags and other symbols without leaving their social network or having to download another app.
Craig has watched the hashtag transform from a functional organization tool to a ubiquitous symbol of social activism, personal expression and commercial mantras. “Today,” he says, “we know how to give meaning to this symbol in a wide range of creative scenarios without losing sight of its functional nature. Poptag takes advantage of this cultural understanding by harnessing the power of symbols like hashtags and our very human need to create and be creative-- all in real time.”
Poptag’s technology stack is fully controlled by RAPP, and, simply put, the platform offers powerful building blocks to tell and amplify personal and collective stories and experiences. It works by intercepting photos shared via twitter using preset hashtags. The system then adds a filter, a logo, text, artwork, or anything visual. Then, the new images are aggregated in either poptag.me or in any destination selected by the brand, person, institution or organizer. User data is captured allowing the organizer to see real-time data on participants. This can include influence metrics, such as followers, and any publicly available-information such as geographic location on each individual if shared.
Craig Elimeliah is also involved with the Omnicom Digital Counsel, as well as agency-level initiatives like Collide and Hackathon events that help infuse a culture of innovation and creativity, while enabling the Rapp teams to stay abreast of new and emerging technologies and trends.
Brooklyn, New York-born, he also lived in Israel with the intention of becoming a Rabbi and Talmud Scholar. He comments: “That obviously wasn’t the road I chose to take.”