A (Long, Rewarding) Day In The Life Of An Ad Agency Mom

Nothing can really prepare you for motherhood or a career in corporate. But what if being a mother helped you thrive as a manager? And what if your career instilled the soft skills to motivate your children? For the president of entertainment and brand ad agency Mocean, Erica Coates, the demanding nature of both roles…

3 Signs Your Brand Needs a New Narrative

“Narrative” is one of those words in the water right now. Politicians talk about “resetting the narrative” after campaign missteps. Coaches go hoarse trying to change the narrative after a string of losses. Savvy business leaders are recognizing the need, too, with the understanding that narrative can supercharge alignment across a growing organization and shift…

El Mainstream Chat: The Latinx Influence On American Culture

Saturday Night Live. The VMAs. The Super Bowl. These staples in American culture have been around for decades, but we are seeing a shift taking place. We are seeing the Hispanic and Latinx audience active in the mainstream chat. Making up more than 19% of the country, the Hispanic population continues to expand at a…

A Spotlight On Aesthetic and Identity in Latine Beauty Brands

Editor’s note: In this article, ADWEEK deviated from its style of using “Latinx” due to the writer’s preference. “Latine” is a gender-neutral form of the word Latino. New York City in 2013. That’s when I first realized the profound influence that Latine beauty could have on the industry. After relocating to spearhead Hispanic media strategy…

Made You Look: The 4 Types of Attention That Influence Purchase Intent

A few months ago, while I fought for mere seconds of attention in social feeds at work, I also ended each day by rewatching all 6 seasons of The Sopranos. If we can be immersed by characters like Tony Soprano for over 78 hours, is our capacity to pay attention actually dwindling? Or have we…

The Silent Agreement Between Black-Owned Businesses and the Communities That Built Them

There is an unspoken, yet ever-present cultural contract between Black-owned businesses and the Black communities that built them. It’s an invisible agreement that is rarely talked about but always understood; a relationship rooted in shared struggle, history, and identity. For Black businesses, especially in industries like beauty, this contract is both a gift and a…

Why Your Creative Org Can’t Afford To Get Talent Wrong

The beating heart of the creative services industry is people. Human capital is the greatest asset of any creative service company. However, as an industry, we are seeing average agency turnover rates that hover around 30%. Staff costs represent the single largest expense area on an agency P&L, so staffing and team-building represent a significant…

What Agencies (and Clients) Can Learn From a Fractional Approach

By now, you’ve probably heard about the fractional CMO–a marketing leader contracted to work a limited number of hours a week instead of as a full-time executive. The fractional CMO is a solution to a problem, and it can be a good one. Companies get CMO-level expertise at a reduced rate, and CMOs get better…

4 Ways Creators Have Influenced The 2024 Presidential Election

American politicians are desperate to be fluent in the language of the internet, a desire that reflects a larger trend in politics: that politicians can’t just be leaders anymore. They have to be influencers. And they’re tapping into the creator economy to engineer virality in a way that translates to the polls. Online creators are…

The ‘Election as Entertainment’ Approach Is Engaging But Risky

The U.S. election charges full steam ahead now that both conventions are over, as “We the People” anxiously count down to Nov. 5 to determine the fate of our Union. Simultaneously, it is becoming a masterclass in marketing. While political campaigns have long utilized data-driven targeting and sophisticated marketing techniques (as seen with Cambridge Analytica’s…

4 Ways CMOs Can Manage Imposter Syndrome

I’ve never met a CMO or any high-level executive who doesn’t wrestle with a nagging fear of being “found out” or wonder if they are truly up to the task. A fear that is probably not helped by the fact that CMOs have the shortest average tenure in all C-suite at 3.5 years. The truth…

Search Is Fragmenting Quickly. Brands Need to Develop Knowledge Graphs

Search is undergoing a profound transformation. With the recent announcement of OpenAI’s SearchGPT moving into beta, Google looking to insert ads into AI Overviews, and Bing revamping its own AI search results to include citations, marketers are scrambling to prepare for a completely new customer journey where classic keyword speak and reporting are likely to…

Social Media Managers Don’t Need Your Algorithm Hacks

Social media managers have no shortage of advice on how to do their jobs better. Everyone with an Instagram account and a pulse think they know how to run a brand social media account best. There are countless blogs, newsletters, and experts offering “tips and tricks,” questionable algorithm hacks, thoughts on trends, and other advice…

Get Immersive With Gaming to Engage the Next Generation

The generation we call the “Next Gen” is approaching content in a fundamentally different way from past demographics; it’s seen as a notoriously difficult group to capture for any meaningful period. But the one thing that keeps them where they are, that grabs their attention for longer than most sports broadcasts or primetime TV shows…

How Brands Can Show Up to the Political Circus—If at All

The global political landscape has never been noisier. As ideology often makes way for personality, general elections worldwide have ended in surprise, polarized the electorate like never before, and seen politicians use language that would previously have been unacceptable. The fire and brimstone of social media discourse has spilled into the real world, creating a…

Forget Habits, Preferences, and Demographics—Tap Into Consumer ‘Modes’

Many marketing strategists believe increasing ad spend is the best way to raise awareness and conversion. This blanket approach to messaging attempts to find the venues with the most eyeballs and tell the most compelling stories. But if there is one lesson to be learned from the last decade, people respond far better to messaging…

5 Marketing Lessons From the ‘It Ends With Us’ PR Saga

As in many break rooms around the world, the film It Ends With Us has taken my team of multi-generational, diverse, and wickedly smart staffers down a rabbit hole of questions, comments and strong responses. My 16-year-old daughter’s rave review of the film eventually brought me to the TikTok storytimes and Instagram detectives sleuthing out…

Not Impossible: The Alternative Protein Category Needs a Rebrand

Beyond Meat, once the darling of the alternative protein category, reported an 18% decline in revenue for 2023, despite heavily discounting prices in the U.S. This sobering downward revenue spiral for Beyond has continued in 2024, a stark contrast to the heyday of astronomical valuations in the plant-based meat industry just a few short years…

A Call to Action for the Next Olympics and Beyond: Improve AAPI Representation

When I sat down to watch the prime-time broadcast of the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony with my three young children, we were excited. 9% of Team USA, like them, are of Asian Pacific heritage: 22 men and 29 women across 18 sports. And yet, not once were any of the Asian Pacific athletes featured…

Awareness Media Is Your Brand’s Not-So-Secret Weapon

Brands are feeling some whiplash these days when it comes to consumer behavior. Where just a handful of years ago consumers were throwing around cash without a care, today they’re much more nuanced and less predictable in their post-Covid, inflation-cautious, anxiety-ridden spending. Of course, brand performance, alongside consumer behavior, is constantly evolving. But one thing…