Innholdsfortegnelse for March 23, 2020 i Adweek

FOOD With kids out of school, they could be missing out on two meals a day. Burger King is providing two free kids’ meals with the purchase of every regular combo meal. EDUCATION In an acknowledgement of the difficulties facing photographers and videographers, especially freelancers, Adobe is giving subscribers two months free of its Adobe Creative Cloud package. The company’s entire suite of tools also is free to students enrolled at institutions with Adobe subscriptions through May 31. EXERCISE Consumers don’t need a Peloton bike or treadmill to take advantage of its fitness app, where instructors livestream sessions and offer strength training classes. The app is now free to try for 90 days. NEWS Comcast is giving away two free months of internet services to low-income families. Fox Corp. has…

We can thank the Reefer Madness era for stigmatizing the cannabis plant. This powerful bit of propaganda paired with the efforts of big players in cotton, tobacco and pharmaceuticals aimed to keep cannabis from thriving and becoming a competitive force. But the film was also made during a time when the known applications for cannabis were dramatically limited. We could never have imagined the amazing medical uses that now exist for the plant, and it’s these discoveries that have helped change the overall perception. Here in 2020, cannabis is legal for medical use in almost every state, and quite a few states have also legalized adult recreational use. The challenge lies in how to market it. The industry players and other cultural forces that stood in opposition to cannabis in…

As the global health crisis continues to wreak havoc on businesses of all kinds, large and small, industry leaders are battling to adjust to a vastly changed marketplace. There’s no question that the challenges they’re facing are unprecedented, and there’s also no question that they are facing them head on. We know because we reached out to members of Adweek’s Advisory Board, Brandweek’s Steering Committee and other leading figures across marketing and media for their insights. From rethinking how their employees work to finding smart, creative ways to deliver for their clients—and their employees—despite a climate of fear and uncertainty, they are showing a way forward. We are grateful to them for making time to share their thoughts, and we trust you will find their commentary as illuminating as we…

What led you to your role leading digital innovation for Nestlé? When I started at Nestlé, I was the digital strategist for our ice cream portfolio, as part of our Digital Center of Excellence. I made the move to digital innovation when our head of digital and our CMO both saw the opportunity to have someone specialize in emerging technologies and find technology solutions to our challenges. … And so, when that role was officially created, they tapped me for it. I feel exceptionally lucky to have advocates like them and have them recognize the quality of my efforts. Which innovation are you currently exploring? We’re working with Pandora on an alpha product that explores conversational AI more deeply. We know that voice search and smart speaker sales are on…

In 1930, residents of Havana gazed upwards and for the first time saw something other than the withering tropical sun. They saw a sculpture of a fruit bat. It was massive, cast in bronze and sitting atop the city’s first skyscraper built by the Bacardi Corp. The structure was a 12-story colossus of red granite and terra cotta. If there was ever a symbol of corporate pride and might in the Caribbean, this building was it. And as Cuba’s first multinational corporation, Bacardi enjoyed worldwide renown for its rums—whose logo was the beady-eyed mammal (see sidebar). As it happened, the edifice would serve the company fewer than three decades. In 1959, Fidel Castro’s rebel armed forces rolled into Cuba’s capital city and ousted the Batista government. While Castro nationalized Cuban…

It’s hard to imagine a tougher business to be in than making pianos. A century ago, there were 295 companies building the instruments in the U.S. Today, only two remain: Mason & Hamlin and Steinway & Sons. Henry Ziegler Steinway, shown here in retirement, was the last company president who’d remember the good old days. In 1967, he’d increased Steinway’s manufacturing capacity at its Long Island City, N.Y., factory by 20% to keep up with demand. But waves of cheaper imports were already coming in from Japan, Korea and China. These, along with the rise of digital keyboards, would flatten the industry. Even so, Steinway (which hedge fund mogul John Paulson bought seven years ago for $512M) has soldiered on. It opened a new 19,000-square-foot Manhattan showroom in 2016 and…

‘You need to listen and be open minded because you can grow your work but also as a person going through those different experiences.’ Dutch-born Marga Balvert’s career has taken her across the world, from her own country’s capital city of Amsterdam, where she started her career at Nike’s European headquarters in the events business. From there, she’s worked in Berlin, Antwerp, Buenos Aires and now, London, where she’s set to start a new role as the head of wellness at the Walgreens Boots Alliance in April. Working abroad—and in the majority of her positions, for the same company, as Balvert was at Nike from 2008 to 2015, with a yearlong stint at VF Corporation in Belgium—has been a master class in learning how to connect with people. “The most…

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