Design plays a vital role in crafting meaningful experiences and driving innovation across industries. Whether it’s product, graphic or user experience, design is about more than aesthetics. Designers must grasp user needs, solve complex issues and ultimately create value. To explore design’s impact on consumer and business growth, we sat down with Mauro Porcini, svp…
On a Thursday morning in April of 1991, New Yorkers trooping through midtown beheld a wistful sight. The Horn & Hardart automat on the corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue–the lone holdout of a restaurant empire that once counted 40 locations in the city–had closed its doors. With their self-serve, coin-op, cafeteria-style layout, H&H…
George Costanza in Seinfeld treats his date to a Big Mac, while The Office boss Michael Scott loves a Filet-O-Fish. Troy Dyer in Reality Bites enjoys a Quarter Pounder with cheese, and the characters in I’m Not Rappaport are “exceedingly fond of McNuggets.” Even fictional characters in TV and movies eat McDonald’s sometimes. The brand…
McDonald’s “Raise Your Arches” campaign, which launched in January, was so successful that the brand extended it into 35 additional markets. The uplifting ad demonstrated the power of the brand, with people playfully raising their eyebrows at each other to reference its iconic golden arches–without ever mentioning McDonald’s name. Now the fast-food chain has continued…
Pepsi and agency Alma received industry accolades for the 2021 “Better With Pepsi” campaign, which uncovered the brand’s logo in the crumpled folds of burger wrappers from fast-food chains that don’t even serve the soft drink. The latest iteration shows Pepsi’s logo hiding in plain sight in Captain Morgan and Bacardi branding, encouraging drinkers to…
This year marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. To celebrate, Pepsi Max has launched an international campaign honoring late rapper The Notorious B.I.G. and his legacy in the genre. Working with the estate and family of The Notorious B.I.G. [Christopher Wallace], who was murdered in March 1997, Pepsi Max’s campaign aims to bring the artist’s…
Heat waves are raging across the globe this summer, demonstrating precisely how climate change is poised to upend many ways of living–including how we eat. Specifically, as vegan cheese brand Nobell Foods points out, it’s going to change pizza. The company’s first campaign comes ahead of its product launch. To build buzz, Nobell recruited a…
Diners at the Jos? Andr?s hotspot called China Chilcano–a funky, neon-lit Peruvian restaurant in Washington D.C.–will be among the first in the U.S. to try cultivated meat beginning today. On the menu for foodies who were quick enough to snag the limited reservations, which sold out in four minutes: “Anticuchos de Pollo,” grilled cell-cultivated chicken…
They’ve been called “gerbils with birth defects,” “Mr. Potato Rats,” “hell lemurs” and “the weirdest corporate mascot of all time.” Since appearing in ads for Quiznos in 2004, Spongmonkeys have divided customers. While the characters were meme-worthy, there were also reports that they made some children cry. Quiznos’ former agency partner The Martin Agency was…
Food and beverage brands have enticed hungry consumers for decades with juicy chicken sandwiches and oven-fresh pizza in TV commercials at dinnertime. It’s classic contextual advertising–matching a product to the context in which the ad will be seen, without much user data in mind. Over the past year, an unlikely new mealtime behemoth has emerged,…
The instant commerce industry–made up of companies promising groceries and other essentials delivered in 30 minutes or less–has taken convenience to the next level, fulfilling consumers’ wants and needs in mere minutes with just a few clicks. During Adweek’s Commerceweek, Daniel Folkman, svp of business at the instant commerce company Gopuff, talked delivering convenience with…
Craft soda maker Jones Soda is expanding its use of augmented reality technology with the help of creative agency August Allen, which has created a proprietary augmented reality platform for the company that will allow Jones to build and manage its own AR projects and campaigns in-house. Jones has a history of utilizing AR to…
Earlier this year, Uber Eats and Visa teamed up on a new program designed to support small and medium-sized restaurants in their transition to more sustainable packaging solutions. Together, the two companies have committed $1 million that will be accessible to 100 businesses in the form of credits to purchase eco-friendly packaging for businesses in…
For nature lovers, there’s nothing more liberating than venturing into the great outdoors. But some people like to get even closer to nature–with not even clothes between them and the open air. Naked hiking is a pastime enjoyed by an underground community, though the rules surrounding it can be confusing. On National Nude Day (July…
With the flames of the latest chicken sandwich war being stoked in France, McDonald’s has aimed to ensure that its McCrispy sandwich explodes onto the scene with a new ad campaign that concentrates on just how crispy the sandwiches actually are. To promote the release across its 1,541 restaurants in France, McDonald’s has released the…
Jessica Kogan, chief growth and experience officer at Vintage Wine Estates, has embarked on a remarkable journey that transcends traditional boundaries. Starting her career in the fashion industry, Kogan discovered her passion for revitalizing brands, breathing new life into forgotten icons such as Dr. Scholl’s exercise sandals and Elizabeth Arden. However, it was her serendipitous…
After 16 years of making his way up the ranks at Denny’s, John Dillon is now president of the iconic diner that’s redefining the restaurant space. In our latest episode of Marketing Vanguard, Dillon discusses the mishaps that led him to transform the brand. “The key is to learn from it and learn from them…
Pringles has made an untold number of ravenous snackers feel seen with its Super Bowl ads that depict people getting their hands stuck in its cylindrical cans. Since 2022, the brand has poked fun at the predicament caused by its biggest design flaw. As seen in its latest Super Bowl commercial, even singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor…
According to the vitriol on the internet, some people would like to tar and feather anyone connected with Liquid Death and its growing line of canned beverages. The brand, on the other hand, decided an old school burning-at-the-stake would be a more fitting punishment for its perceived crimes against humanity. To hype its new album…
This Fourth of July weekend, Pepsi is encouraging consumers to celebrate classic holiday traditions while also embracing innovative new ways to enjoy them in its latest effort to prove everything is “better with Pepsi.” The brand–which typically sees a sales spike on the patriotic-themed holiday for its red, white and blue-packaged products–rolled out “Hot Dogs…
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