Innholdsfortegnelse for May 4, 2020 i Adweek

In a normal year, media companies, buyers and advertisers would be getting ready for May upfronts—but, of course, this year is anything but business as usual. Most of next week’s presentations have been postponed or scrapped entirely due to Covid-19; NBCUniversal and Univision will be livestreaming “state of the marketplace” events during their original upfront time slots on May 11 and 12, but both companies stress that neither presentation is a replacement for their respective upfront events. Meanwhile, buyers and sellers are preparing for a staggered upfront marketplace this year. Those clients on surer economic footing during the pandemic, including consumer packaged goods, will begin talks in the next month or so, while those hit hardest by Covid-19, including travel, retail and dine-in restaurants, will likely negotiate later in the…

When the coronavirus shut the country down in March, it also halted professional sports. The NBA, NHL, MLB and others suspended their seasons. Top tennis tournaments, including the Miami Open and Wimbledon, were canceled, and the Olympic Games in Tokyo were paused until 2021. The implications were enormous for athletes, coaches, employees, fans and the bottom line. Everyone began to speculate about how games would be played post-pandemic. But the sports world was far from paralyzed. Teams connected to their communities with messages of hope, encouragement and charitable efforts. Sports marketers sought to do even more, and with Adweek’s mission to serve the marketing community, we were there to assist. The result, “The Real Heroes Project,” is nothing short of historic. It began on March 27 with major leagues and…

As Americans began sheltering in place in mid-March and were eager for new entertainment options following the cancellation of live sports, Sir Patrick Stewart came to their rescue. On March 24, the day before the Season 1 finale of his new CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard, Stewart announced on Instagram that the streaming service was offering a 30-day free trial, up from its normal seven-day window. The surprise offer drove a double-digit increase in new subscriptions and resulted in CBS All Access’ highest single-day March sign-ups in its five-and-a-half year history. That monthlong freebie is a tactic that streamers large and small are dangling as people around the country remain indoors and out of public areas due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Streamers and premium channels—including AMC Networks’…

In 2019, Victoria’s Secret closed over 50 stores across North America due to lagging sales performance. Victoria’s Secret marketing campaigns featuring supermodel Angels no longer resonated with women who see themselves and their bodies in a different light. Consumers react to market offerings according to their needs, values and preferences, as informed by their culture. Consumer countercultures develop in response to market offerings that go against a consumer group’s values. For example, the body positivity movement and the #MeToo campaign reflect the impact objectification has on many women. These broad cultural experiences and expressions shape consumer reactions, which can vary from brand advocacy to abandonment. Consumer countercultures emerge as consumers abandon brands that no longer resonate with their individual and group values. Often, a consumer who is a part of…

One of the WWE’s highest-profile superstars, John Cena, has made a career of being self-referential, in the cheekiest way, often showing up for matches in T-shirts with his own face plastered across his impressively ripped chest. But today he’s pumping up someone else instead: Dr. Evan Shannon, an internist and young father who’s working nearly around the clock caring for Covid-19 victims at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The switch is part of an unprecedented joint public service announcement that breaks this week. “The Real Heroes Project” campaign unites for the first time 12 powerhouse professional sports leagues and brands, from the NFL and Nascar to the Women’s Tennis Association and Electronic Arts, and features their marquee talent celebrating the country’s front-line medical workers by turning over their most…

It’s safe to assume homemade dessert has become a commodity. In recent weeks, sales of nearly all baking products are through the roof. Flour (up 203% year over year); baking chocolate and cocoa (156%); baking powder and baking soda (136%); and mixes like brownies, cookies and bars (164%) are up more than refrigerated cookie and brownie dough (84%). That’s according to Catalina, a data and insights firm that looks at shopping behavior. For the week ending April 25, total grocery sales were up 25% over the same period a year ago, and baking and cooking seem to be providing greater comfort than ever. Eight of the top 10 categories are baking related. (The others are cleaning supplies and meat substitutes.) “People are craving both comfort food and moments of connection…

Front-line health workers have risked their own lives to help people during the Covid-19 crisis—much like the superheroes that have dominated the box office, but without the same fanfare. So McCann Belgrade gave them the recognition they deserve by subtly turning doctors and nurses into the familiar superheroes we love. The agency’s head of art, Lidija Milovanovic, created portraits of health workers, augmenting the pressure marks and scars on their faces from wearing masks all day into the familiar lines of the masks worn by heroes including Spider-Man and Batman.…

High-octane sports typically go hand in hand with caffeinated dudes downing energy drinks to enhance their performance. Case in point: Category leaders Red Bull and Monster Energy posted videos on their respective social channels of quarantined athletes riding minibikes around their homes. It might not be this way for long, though. As the energy drink market continues to grow—U.S. sales increased to $14.2 billion in 2019 from $10.1 billion in 2014, per Euromonitor—beverage giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are making moves into the category. In addition to their marketing muscle, these moves could transform the energy drinks sector from one that targets young men doing intense sports into something more broadly marketed to all. In January, Coca-Cola, which owns a stake in Monster Energy, debuted its first energy drink called Coca-Cola…

Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Robert Charles “Bob” Bryan and Michael Carl “Mike” Bryan, professional doubles tennis players and most successful duo of all time Major League Soccer (MLS) Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, forward, Los Angeles Galaxy, Jozy Altidore, forward, Toronto FC and U.S. Men’s National Team, Nani, forward and captain, Orlando City SC National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Carli Lloyd, forward, United States women’s national soccer team and Sky Blue FC Alex Morgan, striker, United States women’s national soccer team and Orlando Pride Megan Rapinoe, midfielder, United States women’s national soccer team and Reign FC World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Superstars John Cena and Charlotte Flair, current NXT Women’s Champion National Basketball Association (NBA) Donovan Mitchell, point guard, Utah Jazz EA Sports esports athletes MSDossary, Drini, Moauba, Snip3down, Monsoon (not pictured);…

Prior to the economic chaos caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent havoc it has wrought on the media industry, ad tech’s biggest priority was cookies—or its identity crisis, to be precise. In January, Google announced the 2022 elimination of third-party cookies in its market-leading Chrome browser, prompting talk of Project Rearc, aka “the great collab” between ad tech and publishers at this year’s IAB flagship event. Third-party cookies have been embedded in various tiers of the ad-tech ecosystem since its inception, and with Project Rearc, the IAB hoped to establish a consensus on what effectively amounts to a new operating system. Independent ad-tech players have been searching for such a solution, including PSA announcements, since Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari began blocking third-party cookies ahead of Google Chrome’s…

PUT WORDS INTO ACTION Understand that people are in a state of anxiety, fearfulness, loneliness—there are a lot of negative emotions they are going through right now. And you should not come out of sync with that and start talking about fancy things that are not relevant. At the same time, consumers are saying that brands don’t have to (and should not) run and hide. But it’s simply not sufficient for brands to talk at us. We want brands to do something. And I think brands have to do something at this point in time because they can. Therefore, they should. UPHOLD TRUST WITH CONSUMERS The most sacred asset for every marketer is the brand. And the most important property or characteristic of the brand should be trust. If you…

‘You can throw up your hands, or you can roll up your sleeves and make what little difference you can.’ Reporter-turned-TV-writer Lisa Takeuchi Cullen has been writing professionally since she was an undergrad at Rutgers University, where she “took a wrong turn” and found herself in the offices of the campus newspaper, The Daily Targum. Journalism opened her eyes to the wider world—and it helped that the profession “feels more accessible to more minorities, because it’s something we can see and experience in our everyday lives.” TV writing and screenwriting, however, “feel far more inaccessible and lofty,” Takeuchi Cullen said. But the need to shift career gears arrived in 2010, when the sale of Newsweek for $1 shook her confidence in the journalism industry. After 12 years with Time magazine,…