Innholdsfortegnelse for September 14, 2020 i Adweek

Adweek: This year has brought unprecedented challenges for marketers. What’s been the hardest lift for you? Hiranaga: Covid-19 has accelerated the need for marketers to have deeper empathy for the consumer, understand the problems that they’re facing and lean in to create solutions to help. What lessons do you think the marketing and advertising industry will come away with from this time? What changes has the pandemic accelerated? The biggest lesson is that people have higher expectations of how brands need to show up in their lives—solving real, human problems and offering joy-filled solutions. Brands need to show up for people in a very authentic way. There’s a lot of talk about authenticity, but what the pandemic brought into focus for people was a desire to bring brands into their…

Uber founder Travis Kalanick purchased a controlling stake in CloudKitchens’ parent City Storage Systems for $150 million in 2018. Other players in the space include Kitopi, Virtual Kitchen Co., Reef Technology’s Reef Kitchens and Zuul Kitchens, which operates in the building formerly occupied by Maple. Meanwhile, private equity-backed Inspire Brands, the parent of Arby’s and Sonic Drive-In, is said to be weighing a ghost kitchen format of its own, and delivery aggregator DoorDash launched DoorDash Kitchens last year. Even Amazon has jumped in, leading a $575 million investment more than a year ago in Deliveroo, a European delivery service that operates ghost kitchens.…

Ultimately, history shows that registration messaging can lead to tangible results. For instance, a campaign that HBO ran in partnership with Rock the Vote ahead of the 2018 midterm elections directly registered more than 3,000 new voters via Twitter. David Horowitz, executive creative director at Mekanism—the agency behind the campaign—said that 37,000 people opted in to be reminded to vote. That year, midterm voter turnout was the highest since 1914, according to the United States Elections Project. MINDA SMILEY IS A STAFF WRITER FOR ADWEEK. SHE COVERS THE AGENCY LANDSCAPE, WRITING ABOUT THE WORK ITSELF AS WELL AS HOW AGENCIES ARE ADAPTING TO EVER-CHANGING CLIENT NEEDS. @MINDA_SMILEY…

BRING A FRESH PERSPECTIVE When I walked in for the first time, I thought, “This is amazing, but who is Ulta Beauty?” The company and retailer Ulta Beauty has existed now for 30 years. I felt like it was very new and almost a blank slate in consumers’ minds from a true brand-building standpoint. So that really gave me the opportunity to come in and tap into what was special about it and what guests really loved about it, and then be able to build a true brand positioning, brand story and brand identity. CHASE CHALLENGES I’m a creator. I’ve kind of always seen myself that way throughout my career. And to me, this was like creating a brand from scratch, which is kind of unheard of. I’ve worked on…

‘She’s very business-oriented, and yet she’s very creative.’Carl Johnson, founding partner, executive chairman, Anomaly Broadly speaking, people aren’t fond of banks. In the years following the 2008 market crash, fewer than a quarter of U.S. adults said they had confidence in financial institutions, according to Gallup. It was in this milieu that Ally Financial was born. Brimmer joined the Detroit-based company in 2006 when it was still GMAC, the longtime financing arm of General Motors. That year, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management bought a majority stake in the business, unaware that it was about to suffer heavy losses related to the subprime-mortgage crisis and require government aid. Brimmer’s job: Create a new brand identity and help turn things around. As the global economy buckled, Brimmer says she sensed an…

When Marchisotto was named CMO of e.l.f. in early 2019, it quickly became clear she had a difficult job ahead of her. Weeks after her appointment, the beauty brand reported fourth-quarter results that showed both its sales and profits in decline. The news rattled investors, immediately resulting in the company’s share price falling some 10%. To effect a turnaround, Marchisotto was given oversight of all the ways the consumer interacted with the brand and was charged with integrating those touch points to create a seamless end-to-end experience. “It was a moment to take stock and inventory of what were the greatest points of the brand,” she says, calling 2019 “the year of recharge” at e.l.f. Her plan? “To ignite Gen Z,” she says, while operating under the maxim, “Everything is…

‘We’re focused on being there for our customers in any way we can.’ When lockdowns began in March, the retailer saw customer behavior go through five years’ worth of evolution in just five weeks, says Whiteside. Consumer needs changed on almost a daily basis early on. First, toilet paper and cleaning supplies were the focus. Then there was a shift to at-home activities and personal grooming and finally to home improvement and décor. “We saw that the pandemic was changing the way that customers shop,” says Whiteside. “And we knew that we had to deliver something that allowed them to get access to goods quickly.” The brand responded with innovations like two-hour Express Delivery and the Walmart+ membership program. Meanwhile, existing innovations like digital payment service Walmart Pay and curbside…

Last month, the Harris Poll surveyed 34,000 American consumers and asked which companies enjoyed the best reputation with them. Skulking at the bottom of the list were Facebook, e-cigarette maker Juul and the Trump Organization. And at the very top, even above Hershey’s chocolate and much-loved grocery chain Wegmans, was Clorox. Granted, were Americans not still in the teeth of a pandemic, flustered by fears of microscopic Covid-19 particles clinging to every surface in their homes, they might not have pushed bleach to the top of the most-admired list. Even so, there’s no denying that this household name brand is a cultural mainstay—and, in fact, it has been for most of its 107-year history. Clorox is one of those curious brands that everyone knows by name yet knows little about.…

As Covid-19 ravages the globe, Hootsuite has been tracking how consumers are discussing the virus on social media. And what it’s discovered is that users are not thrilled by the latest developments with Covid-19 tracing apps. Hootsuite used its new social listening tool, Insights powered by Brandwatch, which mines data from over 100 million social platforms and websites. Through August, it specifically looked at Covid tracing apps since that was when the U.S. rolled out some apps and England was beta testing them. The keywords mined for the study were Covid-tracking app, Healthy Together app and Covid Safe app, and the hashtags were #CovidPrivacy, #CovidApp and #CovidTracing. “According to our findings, posts that were associated with the emotion of ‘anger’ were focused on either the poor performance of the apps…

At Brandweek, the playing field is being leveled like never before. Through the inaugural Brandweek Lift initiative, over 125 ad agencies, production houses, tech firms and solution providers owned by people of color, LGBTQ+ founders and people with disabilities will attend this week’s virtual event free of charge and connect with marketers at leading global brands such as P&G, Verizon and Walmart. For small businesses, paying event registration fees can be daunting. Darlyn-Feythe Valentine, founder of the Los Angeles firm L. Woods PR, said getting the Brandweek Lift welcome email with her free registration code was “so exciting.” It also presents a great opportunity for those brand marketers eager to broaden their partner networks and diversify who they work with. “I can’t put into words what it means,” said Valentine.…

Minutes into a hockey match between the Las Vegas Knights and the Colorado Avalanche, fans were treated to a special reminder from the stadium’s speakers: Concessions would be all you can eat—as long as fans remembered to stock their fridges. The stunt was a reminder of the bizarre reality facing professional sports leagues during the pandemic. Innovating on the fly and working with brand partners to bring fans into a digital experience is the new normal. With professional football the latest league to kick off its season, the NFL has had plenty of time to pick up a thing or two from its peers in other leagues. Not everything is seamless, though. Shifting the NHL and its marketing partners into the late summer was a “major jigsaw puzzle,” said Keith…

It’s always a thrill to splash some limelight on outstanding members of our community, but this year it feels especially gratifying to honor marketers who have skillfully led their brands’ messaging to new heights both before and during the thicket of uncertainty, fear and dissent that has characterized 2020. As you read our profiles of our Brand Genius winners, you’ll notice recurring themes like diversity, relatability and flexibility. There’s an earnestness there, and a restlessness. It becomes clear that in marketing, there are many who do good work but only some who rise to the genius level. Here are 12 of them.…

In the immediate onset of the pandemic, Verizon became the first major brand to run a TV spot addressing the new state of fear. The ad—a straightforward reassurance from the company’s retail employees that they would keep customers connected—came together over the course of several harried days. But the brand sensibility that informed it and made it credible to customers had been in the works for years now under the marketing leadership of Scotti. In a wireless industry where advertising is dominated by inter-carrier feuds and technical sales pitches, Scotti has shifted Verizon’s focus to telling emotionally affecting stories about the human impact its wireless service can have—from doctors using 5G to power medical devices to teachers connecting with remote classes. ‘A couple years ago, we set out a new purpose…

Chris Bellinger remembers the first time he took the measure of his new boss, Sadira Furlow. It was the spring of last year and Bellinger, Frito-Lay’s vp, creative and digital, had flown out to Los Angeles to help with a spot for Lay’s. The shoot at Universal Studios was hectic, full of last-minute script changes. Still, Furlow told Bellinger to fetch a baseball mitt. Then she led him to an empty set, produced a ball and began throwing. At one point, the director trooped out to ask the executives what they thought they were doing. “We’re playing catch,” Furlow shrugged. “It was a really cool moment,” Bellinger recalls. “We were just throwing the ball and brainstorming. That was my aha moment. [I thought:] Wow, that’s not someone I’m used to…

Headed into 2020, van Hameren thought the playbook was written for Nike and its sibling brands Jordan and Converse, with much of his attention and the company’s marketing heft focused on one of the biggest spectacles in sports, the Summer Olympic Games. But a triple dose of tragedy intervened, starting with the death of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash in January and the spring outbreak of the coronavirus, followed by protests, nationally and globally, in light of police killings in the U.S. of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans. The Olympics, planned for Tokyo, were officially postponed, which meant scrapping the strategies van Hameren had in place. “Our entire plan had to be reimagined,” says the CMO, a former two-time Olympian himself. The pivot he subsequently led…

All throughout the United States, prisoners on death row are afforded the right to state-funded legal assistance—everywhere but in Alabama, that is. Enter Bryan Stevenson, who in 1989 established the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit whose stated mission is to provide “legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced or abused in state jails and prisons.” Based in Montgomery, Ala., the EJI explores and addresses the effects of poverty and unequal treatment on marginalized communities via a multifaceted approach. In addition to working toward criminal justice reform and helping formerly incarcerated people reenter society, EJI also maintains a robust educational initiative that includes online learning experiences, short films and the creation of spaces and memorials that illuminate the legacy of slavery, segregation and lynching. Stevenson, a Harvard-educated…

These days, the men and women who run big brands are often public figures. Who isn’t aware that Elon Musk happens to pilot Tesla and SpaceX? Is there an Amazon customer left who doesn’t know that Jeff Bezos sits in the corner office? We can thank social media for much of this phenomenon, of course, but that doesn’t mean that CEOs of the analog era never occupied the spotlight. Case in point: Frank Perdue. In a time when corporate execs had no visibility outside of the boardroom, Perdue became the literal face of Perdue chicken to the general public. Between 1971 and 1995, the plucky CEO starred in his brand’s TV spots, pecking at his competitors, hawking his money-back guarantee and—despite his scrawny build—embodying the tagline: “It takes a tough…

Brands and agencies are turning their focus to increasing voter turnout for this election cycle by reminding people to register and providing them with information on how to do so. In many ways, it’s a marked shift from the 2016 election where marketers were more content to stay on the sidelines or fall back on humor. Now, many are focused on getting messages out about the importance of voting and are leaning into taking a stance on cultural issues. “Public demand for companies to be active leaders in celebrating democracy is higher than ever before, especially among the young generation,” said Carolyn DeWitt, president of Rock the Vote, a nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing younger voters. Research shows that voter turnout messaging can be effective. According to a study conducted by…

From the best slice of pizza in Manhattan to Eritrean tibs, Kofi Amoo-Gottfried sees American diversity in every meal, every bite—and he brings that perspective to the masses in his role as CMO of DoorDash. When he joined the platform a little over a year ago, he shifted the brand’s messaging away from delivery’s greatest hits of high functionality, convenience and expeditious service and instead plunged DoorDash into an ethos of inclusion. “Every Flavor Welcome”—his first campaign, released in September 2019—was a surreal rhapsody of celebration featuring 52 dishes whose intricacies highlight the inherent diversity of American cuisine. To celebrate Thanksgiving, DoorDash collaborated with celebrity restaurateur Eddie Huang on the “All-American Thanksgiving,” a social media campaign in which Huang and his parents hosted dinner for 15 strangers in Augusta, Ga.…