When Allison Wolf entered the workforce, promoting altruism in advertising felt more like an oxymoron than a feasible career arc. But after shadowing colleagues who used marketing spend on inclusive media, she realized brands can covertly contribute to social change when they promote their products in the right places. Not long after joining WPP’s Mindshare…
In March, Gap closed its retail media network (RMN), GPS Media, after just one year. For some, the closure of such a short-lived project signaled that the bubble had burst on the frothy growth of retail media networks, a channel forecast to be worth more than $106 billion by 2027 in the U.S., according to…
In 2012, at the start of the DTC boom, Katya Constantine founded DigiShopGirl Media. The digital agency used two relatively new technologies at the time–digital media and programmatic advertising–to turn startups into household names. Some of her star clients have now included luggage brand Away, Rent the Runway, skin care firm Starface and weight-loss program…
Despite its reputation as a haven for live music, the city of Austin, Texas, had arguably not produced a proper pop musician until Jes?s Acosta launched Sobbrs in late 2016. At the time, the city had cultivated a thriving atmosphere for psych-rock foursomes and singer-songwriter soloists. But Acosta, now the senior art director at creative…
It’s officially summer, according to the calendar, but is summer officially back? Data from GroundTruth, a data analytics and media company, shows visits to American tourist attractions were up 187% in May compared to the same month last year. Likewise, trips to national landmarks and concert venues have also increased. “The growth in these categories,…
Twenty-five years ago this month, a revolutionary new machine for the home appeared, capable of generating an impressive 1,100 revolutions per minute. Absent any other details, one might venture it’s an exercise bike. Or perhaps a washing machine or a DVD player. It’s none of those things, actually, though the washing machine comes closest. In…
Brand experiences go through hype cycles like any other marketing strategy. There was the era of the flagship store, when the likes of Nike, Apple and Topshop blazed a trail of destinations that heightened the shopping experience. Then the pop-up merged brand and retail to provide entertaining, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it occasions to wow customers. Now, we have…
Big business-to-business firms often get their hands on artificial intelligence first, but their smaller counterparts need the technology just as much. A report from data and analytics firm Integrate found that 38% of b-to-b marketers are facing budget cuts in 2023, while 40% are eliminating staff. While those budget cuts are decreasing field and event…
Ample research has documented the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for business. We know that marketing organizations and creative agencies with diverse workforces enjoy better business performance, innovation, creativity, and decreased attrition and related hiring costs. Yet three years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a period marked by ambitious DEI pledges…
As linear television viewership continues to decline, advertisers’ appetite for reaching live audiences has only grown in proportion. To capitalize on this opportunity and tap into lucrative video budgets, publishers including Cond? Nast, Penske Media Corp. (PMC) and Overtime have all recently launched or expanded their livestream video capabilities. The uptick of interest in the…
After seven years leading marketing for rival Target and a prior tenure at Coca-Cola, William White joined Walmart in May 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. It would be a baptism of fire for any professional, but the veteran marketer mined his CPG and retail experience to help his new company navigate unknown…
When Kevin Warren took on the role of UPS CMO in 2018, he faced a head-scratcher of a problem. The company was losing market share with small- and medium-sized businesses despite their dependence on a shipper like UPS. Warren’s team surveyed customers, including a persona test, and discovered that customers pegged UPS as an older,…
Imagine walking into the first day of your new role as a CMO to find your biggest rival has used a Super Bowl ad to declare war over … corn syrup. That was Michelle St. Jacques’ introduction to Molson Coors in 2019. Navigating the great corn syrup marketing kerfuffle of 2019 didn’t deter St. Jacques…
If you’d been lucky enough to catch Bill Gates on the talk circuit in the 1990s, you might also have noticed a fresh-faced assistant at his side, often carrying a canvas bag stuffed with books about everything from China to the U.S. military to how to improve your bridge game. That tenderfoot was Chris Capossela,…
The first-ever Lego toy might be unrecognizable to current players: It was a wooden duck, fashioned in a workshop opened by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932. The plastic brick–now the cornerstone of the brand–wasn’t introduced until 1949. Today, Lego is known for the colorful bricks that generations of children have spilled onto their…
As an undeniable authority in the tech and printing space, HP doesn’t have to worry about raising consumer awareness. Since stepping into his global CMO role in 2018, Vikrant Batra has instead focused on uniting a diverse catalog and consumer base under a central message. Whether HP is selling 3D printers to global companies or…
If you’ve seen a marketing campaign from Disney in the last few years, chances are Shannon Ryan has had her hand in it. Since she joined the company in 2019, Ryan’s marketing purview has expanded to include ABC Entertainment, ABC News, Freeform, Onyx Collective, Disney Television Studios, Disney Branded Television, National Geographic and Hulu’s overall…
Understanding customer use cases is a core part of a marketing strategy, but JPMorgan Chase CMO Carla Hassan is the rare Fortune 500 executive who can recall these kinds of customer success stories offhand. This is because Hassan’s imperative is customer centricity. Much of the work she’s done on behalf of the brand centers on…
In 2002, Tamara Littleton founded her agency, Emoderation, to help brands create communities online. That was before the era of MySpace, when the most popular social media platform was Friendster. “It was the dot-com boom days,” Littleton recalled. “I was working in content and communities, and I had a vision about that. I felt very…
In recent weeks, Target and Bud Light have faced significant backlash for marketing or merchandise that supports LGBTQ+ individuals. After backpedaling on their positions–Bud Light put two marketing executives on leave; Target stopped selling certain LGBTQ+ items–the brands upset a whole other segment of the population, who called them out for shallow advocacy. Considering these…
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