When George Washington was president, he may well have enjoyed a scone baked with King Arthur Flour. A couple hundred years later, and after a decade of discussions, the company finally decided to move forward with a rebrand–dropping “flour” from its name. Most rebranding efforts hope to inspire renewed interest and relevance. That wasn’t King…
Zambezi, the Los Angeles-based full-service agency that has worked with clients including Beats by Dre, TaylorMade and Venmo, hired Norm Brown as design director. In the role, he will be tasked with working across the agency’s client roster while collaborating closely with Gavin Lester, who joined Zambezi as CCO and equity partner in 2017, and…
Key Insights: Big Tech has helped forge industry standards, but not without a struggle. Former outliers such as Google are beginning to yield to industry standards. Politicians around the world are under pressure to lean on digital media, forcing the biggest players in the sector to strive for consensus around data-sharing practices. Some believe U.S….
Ironically, the ads for products we buy to clean up or prevent messes often have a noticeably sanitized quality about them. Some, like Charmin, rely on humor and euphemisms to relay its messaging without getting into the dirty details. Bounty’s ads have long taken place in glaringly white kitchens in the suburbs. Pad and tampon…
Some of the world’s largest brands are spending more on programmatic advertising, just as the practice is set to become much harder. Members of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) are directing 41% of their digital media budgets to programmatic channels, up from 16% in 2016. Exact figures for how much of their budgets those…
Key Insights: Budgets are shifting to electronics and furniture to fortify remote learning environments. Panic buying could return if consumers get spooked about product availability. In simpler times, back-to-school shopping for many American students meant a trip to local stores to pick out supplies like binders, backpacks and clothes. Of course, 2020 is again the…
IPG-owned Kinesso is launching a developer community by making its owned and operated APIs available to third parties, a tactic large tech providers such as Apple and Google have used to bolster the array of services they can offer customers. Launch partners include fellow IPG outfit Acxiom, leading demand-side platform The Trade Desk, and mobile…
When Katie Kern’s boss pulled her aside after a meeting, she told her to stop nodding her head. To her boss, a head nod is always a sign of agreement, but Kern was just acknowledging that she was following along. She grew up in a Black church, and “the nod” is a cultural nuance she…
The famously chill Snoop Dogg doesn’t walk. He saunters. And he doesn’t check his watch. His only appointment is with a beach chair. “Have you ever seen a man in a hurry, while also drinking a Corona?” asks the hip-hop icon as he settles into an ocean-front seat in a tropical paradise. “No, you have…
Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here. The New York Times Tells Over 100 Stories in 2…
After emerging from a nearly yearlong bankruptcy process in January, discount footwear retailer Payless is back. This week, the company announced the relaunch of its brand in the North American market, unveiling its new (and open for business) ecommerce platform and brick-and-mortar concept stores. The footwear purveyor aims to unveil its first location in Miami…
A new AI-powered listening experience from Spotify offers listeners some personalized one-on-one time with The Weeknd. The streaming service rolled out a microsite this week that features a slightly distorted digital avatar of the R&B star, who addresses listeners by name and comments on their listening habits. The appearance and voice of the digital clone…
Despite its home in the freezer aisle–and its ice cream center– Russell Barnett, the managing director and CMO of My/Mo Mochi Ice Cream, sees the product not as a dessert, but a snack. “A snack that happens to be frozen,” joked Barnett. Barnett dove deep into all the ways My/Mo Mochi is taking the niche,…
Advertisers have not engaged in as much keyword blocking so far in 2020 as in previous years, according to a 2020 Global Insights Report released by measurement software company DoubleVerify. Earlier this year, publishers griped that advertisers had stopped placing ads on content that included terms like “coronavirus” and “protest,” which news organizations said interfered…
Apparel is among the hardest hit retail sectors during the pandemic, but that hasn’t hindered direct-to-consumer athleisure brand Vuori. CEO Joe Kudla wouldn’t provide specific numbers, but said the brand is on track to grow 180% year-over-year. The business was already growing prior to the pandemic, attracting a $45 million investment from Norwest Venture Partners,…
Each year on the awards circuit, a few brands, agencies and campaigns rise to the top. These are the campaigns that advertising people love to talk about, deconstruct and admire. Last year, Droga5’s “The Truth Is Worth It” was among the most awarded and talked about. It also broke the mold of what news advertising…
It took a little less than two months into the pandemic for top hospitality brands including Hilton and Marriott to try and reassure travelers that their rooms were squeaky clean, even amid the health crisis. In April, Marriott announced a council featuring prominent doctors to elevate its own cleanliness standards. A week later, Hilton announced…
Pizza Hut announced Wednesday morning that it has appointed a chief equity officer for the first time in the brand’s 62-year history. Chequan Lewis, who formerly ran the brand’s Express chain of restaurants in airports, stadiums and other venues, will utilize his new executive role to create new diversity and inclusion structures and programs. In…
Key insight: Increasingly, fast delivery speeds may not be sustainable given existing fulfillment networks. As the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to struggle with what postmaster general Louis DeJoy described as “a financially unsustainable position absent significant fundamental change,” President Donald Trump is again singling out ecommerce giant Amazon as the root cause. According to…
Austrian manufacturer Tyrolit may have confused some people on the streets of Vienna when it first posted a blank sheet of metal bearing only a small brand name as a billboard. But over the course of the next few weeks, the display would gradually rust to reveal the silver silhouette of a knife at the…
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