Church’s Chicken Hires TGI Fridays and Burger King Veteran as Its New CMO

Church’s Chicken has hired Brian Gies as executive vice president and global chief marketing officer, the restaurant chain announced today. Gies has experience in the fast casual sector, including a three-year stint as the CMO of TGI Fridays from 2013 to 2016. There, he led marketing initiatives like the “endless appetizers” promotion and investments in…

L.K. Bennett’s Bankruptcy News Shows the Danger of a Powerful Celebrity Endorsement

Less than two months after Kate Middleton and Prince William tied the knot in Westminster Abbey with 2 billion people watching, the couple stepped out for a day at the Epsom Derby. Wearing a white dress, jacket and fascinator, the new Duchess of Cambridge’s outfit drew attention–but mainly because of the pair of nude patent…

Paramount Pictures’ Logo Started as a Desktop Doodle, and Has Endured for 105 Years

Hollywood isn’t just an incubator of celebrity culture. It’s also home to some of the most durable brand logos in American capitalism. The celluloid trade calls them title screens, and odds are that most every adult consumer can name them by sight: Warner Brothers’ “WB” shield, Cinderella’s Castle of Disney Pictures fame and, of course,…

The MTA Is Saying Goodbye to Some Subway Newsstands, Hello to Vending Machines

In what it says is a response to a “changing market,” the New York City Subway is repurposing vacant retail spaces, including newsstands, within its 472 stations as demand for print publications and unhealthy items like cigarettes and candy declines. One possibility for these empty spaces, which reports say amount to about 130 locations, is…

Behind the Smash R&B Hit That Sold a Lot of Low-Carb Beer in New Zealand

The reason New Zealand beer brand DB Export and Kiwi ad agency Colenso BBDO get along so well may be their sense of rebellion. The beer was created by eccentric genius Morton Coutts, who invented a revolutionary process called “continuous fermentation,” in which ingredients were added to one end of the system with beer continually…

Lawmaker Floats New Rules to Rein in Big Tech

Big tech is feeling the heat from legislators, whether it’s in the form of federal data privacy considerations, intense criticism about addressing unsavory content on their platforms or blowback from tax incentives. Now, another Democratic lawmaker is turning up the heat by proposing rules that would break up tech companies depending on the type of…

Chobani Is Dropping a Colorful Clothing Line for Its Kids Yogurt Brand

Chobani is rolling out a line of children’s clothing next week to promote Chobani Gimmies, a line of Greek yogurt snacks, including milkshake drinks and yogurt tubes. Chobani launched the line late last year and is now hoping to gain some momentum for the brand in 2019. The line includes a bean bag chair, onesies,…

Sam’s Club Wants to Make It Easier to Scan, Pay and Go

Good news for consumers who have been frustrated by existing self-checkout options: Sam’s Club, Walmart’s members-only warehouse, will test an app update that uses a camera to identify products in a shopper’s cart by hovering over them instead of having to locate and scan barcodes. The test will take place at its tech-lab-meets-retail-club, Sam’s Club…

Alibaba Is Partnering With Office Depot to Reach U.S. Customers

In a real-life example of I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine, Alibaba and retailer Office Depot are teaming up to help small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. capitalize on the $23.9 trillion global business-to-business ecommerce market. In a video, John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group, said the deal lets Office Depot bring its products to…

As the Hemp-CBD Industry Booms, Here’s What Brands Need to Know About the Trend

Cannabidiol–CBD for short–products aren’t just the latest fad. There’s baked goods (at By Chloe), a trendy sparkling water brand (Recess) and a beauty brand (Milk Makeup), but it’s not just small marketers stepping into the space. Late last year, rumors surfaced that The Coca-Cola Company was getting into the hemp-CBD industry, which analysts at the…

WPP Revealed a U.K. Median Pay-Gap Increase in 2018

WPP’s gender pay gap in the U.K. increased slightly in 2018, according to a report from the holding company released today. WPP’s U.K. Gender Pay Gap Report 2018 showed a median pay-gap increase from 14.6 percent last year to 14.9 percent. Last year was the first year that WPP filed the report, following new regulations…

Post-Sundance Win, Director Alma Har’el Shares Plans to Expand Her Nonprofit

At the Sundance Film Festival in January, director Alma Har’el scooped up a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft for her new film Honey Boy. Har’el, founder of Free The Bid, the nonprofit initiative advocating equal rights for women to bid on commercial film production jobs in global advertising, received the accolade…

WPP CEO Mark Read Says ‘Work Remains to Be Done’ Despite Shares Soaring on Improving Revenue

WPP shares rose more than 7 percent at the open of the U.S. stock market on Friday morning after the world’s largest agency holding company posted revenues for the fourth quarter and full year that appear to be improving, if slowly. For 2018, WPP reported like-for-like revenue, excluding pass-through costs, declined only 0.4 percent to…

NYC Business Leaders Bought a Full-Page New York Times Ad to Beg Jeff Bezos to Change His Mind

While Amazon’s decision to back out of a planned second headquarters in New York’s Long Island City left locals cheering, not at all New Yorkers were happy with Jeff Bezos’ decision. Some of the city’s top business and government leaders made that abundantly clear in today’s New York Times thanks to a full-page ad signed…

Q&A: Anheuser-Busch CMO Marcel Marcondes on Growth, Becoming an Agile Marketer and 3G Capital

Anheuser-Busch reported its fourth-quarter results earlier this week. The company saw 4.8 percent revenue growth during the fiscal year of 2018 and 5.3 percent growth during the quarter. Following the release of the results, Adweek caught up with Anheuser-Busch InBev’s U.S. CMO, Marcel Marcondes, to learn more about the company’s evolving strategy, how it has…

Gap Is Spinning Off Old Navy Into a Separate Company

Old Navy is coming out from under the Gap umbrella. Gap Inc. today announced it is spinning off Old Navy into its own company. The Gap brand, Banana Republic, Intermix and athletic brands Athleta and Hill City will remain part of the same company under a new, yet-to-be-determined name. Robert Fisher, Gap Inc.’s chairman of…

Huawei Inks 5G Deals Across Europe Despite U.S. Government Warnings

Huawei landed a host of new 5G deals at the global wireless industry’s top trade show this week despite the U.S. government’s appeals for allies to ban the Chinese tech giant’s hardware. The telecom equipment and device maker announced at Mobile World Congress that it would sell the gear needed to build the next generation…

How Walmart’s In-House Incubator Is Imagining Virtual Reality for Retail

The largest tech companies like Facebook, Google and Samsung have been pushing virtual reality for years, but could a legacy retailer like Walmart be the one to help the technology go mainstream? While many brands are experimenting with emerging technologies with the help of agencies and vendors, Walmart has been quietly building the future of…

What Weight Watchers’ Bleak Outlook for 2019 Signals About the Old-School Diet Brand’s Future

WW–the brand formerly known as Weight Watchers–is off to a rough start in 2019. The company’s shares tumbled as much as 36 percent after WW reported poor fourth quarter results and shared on its recent earnings call that, due to a “soft start to the key winter season,” the brand expects low recruitment levels and…

Bucking an Industry Trend, J.C. Penney Shutters Its Clothing Subscription Service

Going against a growing trend in retail, J.C. Penney announced today that it will shutter its less-than-two-years-old clothing subscription service, the company confirmed to Adweek. According to Reuters, the move comes in order for the storied mall brand to focus on apparel and appliance sales, the latter of which it is phasing out as well….