Table of contents for October 10, 2023 in Adweek

When Gaby Maestre (they/them) decided to leave the TV industry, their colleagues weren’t thrilled. “The feedback was not encouraging, I’ll be honest,” said Maestre, now the vice president of global creative solutions at ad-tech firm Nexxen. Earlier in Maestre’s career, at Viacom and Turner, they worked on household brands including Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. But after seven years, Maestre became worried their career was on the verge of stagnation. Big networks offered relatively few entrepreneurial opportunities for employees like Maestre, a self-described problem-solver. In ad tech, Maestre was looking for a license to innovate. Navigating microaggressions By the time Maestre announced their career pivot—which was met with a load of unsolicited advice—they’d already heard worse. At times throughout their career, peers sometimes misgendered them or unwittingly made homophobic remarks. Once,…

Last month, tens of thousands of activists swarmed New York, demanding that corporations and governments swiftly transition away from fossil fuels. Two days later, activist group Clean Creatives released a report showing that nearly 300 advertising and PR agencies work for fossil fuel brands. Climate issues are also getting attention within the ad industry. Leaders in programmatic are inching toward a standardized process for measuring the carbon emissions associated with digital media; agencies are building out sustainability teams and partnerships to meet climate-related requests of their clients; and more than 700 agencies are pledging not to work with fossil fuel companies until they’ve demonstrated a successful clean energy transition plan. But while progress is happening, it’s far from guaranteed. These three areas—the decarbonization of programmatic, agencies’ in-house climate literacy and…

Gut’s Buenos Aires office is following in the footsteps of Argentina’s World Cup-winning football team, jumping onto the global stage. In fact, that World Cup win inspired Gut BA to produce one of its best pieces of work this year. Gut cleverly tracked the trophy’s trip to Argentina for delivery app PedidosYa, which sent a fake delivery notification to half the country that said, “Your order is on the way.” The work captured the attention of not just the Argentinian public, but also clients across the country and agencies around the world. It propelled Gut to an impressive showing at Cannes, signaling the independent network is now a force to be reckoned with. Gut BA was one of two original offices, alongside Miami. Its 110 employees live the global Gut…

Workday, “Rock Star” The ad from Ogilvy, which ran nationally during Super Bowl 57, featured Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Stanley, Gary Clark Jr., Joan Jett and Billy Idol telling businesspeople that they shouldn’t be calling their co-workers rock stars. That should be reserved for actual musicians. It proved to be one of the most popular ads of the game. Dove, “The Cost of Beauty” The Emmy-nominated and Cannes Lion gold-winning campaign was part of the brand’s effort to advance the policy of the Kids Online Safety Act, which addresses the youth mental health crisis. Dove and Ogilvy created a film that explored the real-life consequences of harmful beauty content through firsthand stories. The Coca-Cola Company, “3D Billboard” Coca-Cola and David Miami created an innovative out-of-home ad that impressed travelers at Guarulhos…

At the Wyman Building, there’s no ambiguity about what you’re in for. Every Tuesday and Thursday, on the uppermost floors of this tawny-stoned warehouse in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District, the din of conversation never really ceases. Everywhere, people are meeting, pitching, “speed dating” and participating in “collision sessions”—a type of hackathon designed to tap into the energy of community and all its humanness—in seemingly one frenetic thrum. To a prospective client, the in-person, startup-like world of Colle McVoy might serve to illustrate the resiliency of an 88-year-old, midsize, Midwestern creative agency in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It might give color and context to why “relationships” is the firm’s new competitive positioning. It might even explain why the agency has appeared perennially on one or more of the “Best Companies…

Upwork, “This is How We Work Now” Upwork resurrects a long-dead CEO to remind the modern workforce that it’s time to retire the American workweek and standard 9-to-5 working hours, and to convince companies to hire more freelancers. The ad helped Upwork capture enterprise business decision-makers’ attention, and the audience’s unaided awareness of the Upwork brand doubled. As a result, Upwork hit its yearly goal of unaided awareness seven months early. Montefiore, “I Want to Live” More than 1,000 Montefiore patients are looking for a life-saving living organ donor. To help patients on the list connect with potential donors, Alto hired Oscar-nominated director Derek Cianfrance and composers Ludovico Einaudi and Dustin O’Halloran to tell stories of what patients want to live for. Within six months of launching, more than 1,700…

Monopoly has a brutal reminder for board game players that it’s all fun and games—until your 8-year-old hands you an eviction notice and you discover grandma is secretly embezzling cash. “All Is Fair” by The Martin Agency pays homage to the notoriously competitive spirit that has made the 87-year-old Hasbro game the most popular in the world. “Monopoly is a cultural icon,” said Alberto Orte of The Martin Agency. “We landed on an emotion that is both universal and unarticulated: the transformation people undergo when playing this iconic game.”…

“‘If you don’t have to call your lawyers, maybe the idea is not good enough.’ This is one of Gut’s principles. When we have to talk to David and Liz, it’s usually a great sign. Maybe the idea hasn’t been done before. Or maybe it’s controversial. We love lawyers. They make our gutsy ideas possible. We believe the modern creative team is a writer, an art director and a lawyer.”—Anselmo Ramos, co-founder and creative chairman, Gut It has been a trying year to work for an ad agency. An economic slowdown has led to sweeping job cuts across the industry. Marketers—with tighter budgets—are under pressure to grow their brands, and that pressure is being magnified and funneled toward their agency partners. Agency execs, especially ones at holding company-owned shops, still…

When Gut broke out of Ogilvy’s David agency in 2018, co-founders Anselmo Ramos and Gaston Bigio were not modest about setting global ambitions. “From the very beginning, we just wanted to be the best. We wanted to become the most diverse, creative and influential indie network in the world,” Ramos told Adweek. Ramos and Bigio, who served as CCOs of David Miami and Buenos Aires, respectively, said they founded Gut with a desire to do things their own way, creating a model that would enable quick, efficient decision-making and empower brands to react to culture at speed. While lofty and ambitious, the name of the agency came easy: The gut, Ramos and Bigio argue, is the second brain. “If we have good clients that trust us, and they trust our…

Stella Artois, “The Artois Probability” This campaign focused on the probability that Stella Artois, founded in Belgium in 1366, was the beverage of choice for many subjects portrayed in famous art from masters such as Vincent van Gogh and Édouard Manet. The campaign drew 7.28 million impressions by 6.7 million unique users, exceeding the initial objective by 140%. In all, 24,000 people were interested in using the app that accompanied a special exhibition held in April at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, increasing the museum’s own visibility by 306 times during the life of the campaign. It went on to win a Grand Prix in Creative Data, and a gold in the Print & Publishing and Outdoor categories at Cannes Lions. Paramount+ x Noblex, “The CEO”…

It’s fitting that the prank that became the 2023 Super Bowl’s most memorable marketing moment came from an agency known for mischief. After dragging viewers down rabbit holes in streaming service Tubi’s first Super Bowl ad, Mischief @ No Fixed Address had another trick up its sleeve to hijack advertising’s biggest night. When it appeared that the broadcast had returned from commercial break, the screen was seemingly taken over by someone scrolling through Tubi’s TV app to find something else to watch. Tubi’s viral stunt left many viewers dumbfounded—and stole the show in front of more than 100 million people. That subversive campaign is typical of an agency that has built its reputation on creative disruption. “We showed the world what Mischief is and did the Super Bowl our way,”…

La-Z-Boy, “The Decliner” Colle McVoy worked on a prototype for La-Z-Boy called “The Decliner,” an AI-powered recliner that generates an excuse for canceling plans by lifting its handle. Christy Hoskins, La-Z-Boy vp and CMO, said it has garnered more than 1 billion earned impressions so far. Stanley Black & Decker Inc., “Power Tool Ballad” The 30-second spot for Craftsman features a rock band hyping up a homeowner mowing the lawn and fixing a toilet. Tabata Gomez, CMO of tools and outdoor for Stanley Black & Decker Inc., said it has already seen a lift in sales since the campaign launch. Cub Cadet, “Ultimate Lawn Mowing Shoes” Cub Cadet’s limited-edition lawn mowing shoe typifies the agency’s knack for injecting new life into established brands. Whether the shoes sell is sort of…

Before opening The Community (La Comunidad) with his brother, Jose, Joaquín Mollá almost quit advertising. He came from big shops, saw through successful award-winning work, and yet Mollá yearned to do advertising differently. Now, in the agency’s 23rd year, the Mollás brothers can celebrate their successes at the next family dinner. This year alone, The Community had multiple Super Bowl spots, maintained 100% client retention and expanded client relationships across both the multicultural and general markets. The Community’s success can be boiled down to several key ingredients: its clear perception and understanding of the “new mainstream” that is the Hispanic population, the intentional focus on creating culturally honest work and, most importantly, building an inclusive, community-like workplace reflective of today’s world. Stir the ingredients together, and the result is Adweek’s…

Gut São Paulo Mercado Libre, “Best-Seller Constitution” With just one social media post and one print ad for 99% off of the Brazilian Constitution, ecommerce platform Mercado Libre’s entire inventory for the book sold out in four hours, following Brazil’s equivalent of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The campaign saw 15,000 scans of the print ad’s QR code in a single day, driving more than 110,000 visits to the ad on the platform. This resulted in the largest book sale in the brand’s 25-year history, making the constitution the bestselling book in the country that week. It drove $5.5 million in earned media, with 1.5 billion impressions. Gut Miami Philadelphia Cream Cheese, “The Tax-Free Bagel” Recognizing the already high cost of living in New York and its “bagel tax,” which is…

Thanks to an era where brands are running more pitches, but for smaller scopes, many agencies have been left fighting for scraps of new business. But storied agency Ogilvy is feasting on a buffet of wins including Verizon, SC Johnson, Jameson and H&R Block. The hot streak is fueling agency growth and attracting new talent that’s integral to the next generation of creativity at the heart of the WPP agency. As it celebrates its 75th anniversary, the agency looks to founder David Ogilvy for inspiration while moving forward with a newfound energy, thanks to the duo at the top, global chief creative officer Liz Taylor and global chief executive officer Devika Bulchandani. The two have set a tone that continues Ogilvy’s legacy of creativity, but it also departs from its…

Tubi, “Rabbit Holes” Tubi’s Super Bowl debut built intrigue with a Donnie Darko-esque film in which 6-foot rabbits physically manhandled TV fans into rabbit holes. The tagline read, “Find rabbit holes you didn’t know you were looking for.” Then, the streaming service went in an entirely different direction with the screen takeover stunt that made viewers go, “WTF?” Tinder, “It Starts With a Swipe” Tinder had become known as a hookup app, but its first global campaign attempted to change the brand’s image by showing the meaningful connections that can grow from a dating app. Its striking imagery and playful lines also broke category norms by featuring a diverse cast of Gen Z daters. The campaign has helped increase user sign-ups, particularly among women and young people. FanDuel Casino, “Winning…

Angry advertising employees cracking open this Adweek issue might’ve recently wondered why they’ve returned to work at a dusty office building. Small creative agency Alto and its client Upwork, a freelance marketplace, rooted out who’s responsible for those return-to-office mandates and a career’s worth of burnout. It’s not management or even Don Draper. It’s some dead white guy. In Upwork’s “This Is How We Work Now” campaign, a zombie CEO helps businesses realize they should’ve put the 9-to-5 to rest long ago. “There’s nothing like using a dead [fictional] CEO to illustrate how the old way of working is truly dead,” Upwork CMO Melissa Waters told Adweek. Creatives at Alto, the shop Hannes Ciatti founded in 2019 after his JohnXHannes agency split up, couldn’t agree with their client more. Alto…

Diageo, “Introducing Tequila Don Julio Rosado”; Created with Ukrainian filmmaker Tanu Muiño, the launch film for Diageo’s new Reposado tequila brought viewers into a disco-inspired world where Mexican architecture meets high-end fashion meets tequila. And it all happens to the sounds of a classic disco track—“Sunny” by Boney M.—with a modern twist from TikTok rapper Connor Price. Verizon, “Coach to Coach” The second Super Bowl spot from the agency was for longtime partner Verizon titled “Coach to Coach,” highlighting the work that Verizon continues past the football season. The B2B spot leaned into the idea that when football season ends, the support continues for Verizon across the country. Walmart, “Welcome to Your Walmart” In The Community’s debut campaign with Walmart, an anthem was created for the Hispanic and Latinx community…