Adweekの June 3, 2019 の目次

To some ad agency vendors, these new contracts look awfully familiar. “They should not be surprised, because they have been enabling marketers in believing this approach could be realistic,” said Matt Miller, CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers. He believes creative shops have effectively placed themselves “in the same bucket as production companies and other creative vendors” by agreeing to clients’ increasingly restrictive terms. Bernadette Rivero, president of production company The Cortez Brothers, added, “In the same way that General Mills is asking for agencies to pitch on an RFP, for free, and give up control of any of the creativity they bring to the table [also for free], ad agencies have routinely asked production companies for years to triple bid on branded content jobs.” A 2017 ANA…

How do you choose the brands you let into your life? The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the phone you rely on, the way you power your home: You have seemingly unlimited choices. So how do you decide which brands deserve your advocacy, your love and your wallet? We know the face of competition is quickly evolving as customer expectations become increasingly “liquid” across industries. Meanwhile, the pace of new brand and new product creation has never been faster. From beauty to personal banking, products and services have become so quick to create and easy to distribute that we now have a daunting—some might say exhausting—glut of brands hustling for our attention. Faced with so much choice, customers are harder to impress, and brands often find themselves in…

LAST SUMMER, as producers were struggling to cast Batwoman—the latest DC Comics character joining The CW’s Arrow-verse of superhero series—“We always joked, ‘We need a Ruby Rose,’” recalls Caroline Dries, Batwoman’s showrunner and writer. “And it was like, ‘That would be great, but that’s not going to happen. She’s a movie star.’” That may be true, but Rose—a former model and MTV VJ in Australia who had her big U.S. breakout in 2015 as Stella on Orange Is the New Black, which led to films like John Wick: Chapter 2, Pitch Perfect 3 and The Meg—couldn’t pass up the chance to make history by starring in the first live-action superhero series led by an LGBTQ character, and played by an openly gay actress. Debuting on The CW this fall, Batwoman—whose…

In recent years, a burst of creativity from the industry has come from an unlikely source: organ donation nonprofits. From Japan to Peru, agencies from around the world are dreaming up imaginative, award-winning campaigns that all share a common goal: convince more people to become organ donors. Much of the work has cut through the noise and resulted in what is a decidedly straightforward metric of success: increased registration numbers. Perhaps one of the most notable campaigns came from The Martin Agency, known for its “World’s Biggest Asshole” spot on behalf of nonprofit Donate Life. The nearly three-minute video tells the story of Coleman Sweeney—a man whose moral compass is severely lacking—played by actor Thomas Jane. It’s only when Sweeney dies unexpectedly that he’s suddenly cast in a different light.…

What’s the most exciting thing happening in marketing right now? I think it’s important to level set with some context. What is marketing’s role as a business function? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I think it can be summarized like this: Marketers are responsible for demand-led growth. There are a lot of different approaches to drive demand—packaging, positioning, purpose, price—but all of those inputs must lead to the business outcome measured by growth. In that context, the changing role of the CMO is exciting, in that nervous excitement kind of way. If you think back to 2007, the CMO role began expanding beyond the traditional creative and communications requirements. Social and mobile were transformational shifts. But then came big data, programmatic media buying, first-party data…

Earlier this year, American Eagle Outfitters took a gamble that turned the heads of not only customers, but other marketers as well. Like many brands pursuing the fickle tastes of Gen Z shoppers, the mall-based apparel retailer had convened focus groups full of teens, eager to hear what they did and didn’t like. And like plenty of other youth brands, American Eagle was careful to cast actual youths in its advertising, too. But then, it took things a decisive step further by taking a gamble: It put the adolescents in charge of the entire marketing campaign—the concept, the clothes, the shoot, the script, everything. “We turned the whole thing over to the kids,” said global brand president Chad Kessler. Young shoppers, he added, “want to support brands that support them…

A heads-up to those who credit Amazon with the invention of lightning-quick delivery: Napoleon Barragan was doing it first. An Ecuadorian immigrant who as a boy had sold sodas off the back of his donkey, Barragan used $2,000 his wife had earned as an Avon rep to start Dial-A-Mattress in 1976. His proposition was revolutionary: a new mattress delivered to the customer’s door within two hours of calling 1-800-MATTRES. The seven-digit limit to telephone numbers gave Barragan his memorable tagline: “Leave off the last ‘s’—for ‘savings!’” By the early 2000s, Barragan’s annual gross hit $100 million. Competitors, however, were catching up. In 2009, the mattress behemoth was bankrupt, but Barragan had bigger problems. That summer, his wife was found murdered and police arrested Barragan’s son Eduardo for the crime. (A…

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE If you have a specific demographic in mind, think about what they’re likely to respond to—even if it challenges category convention. Organ donation is a serious topic, but The Martin Agency’s “World’s Biggest Asshole” successfully incorporated humor in a way that struck a chord with its target: millennial men. GARNER EARNED MEDIA Knowing that speeding tickets are universally hated, Casanova//McCann found a clever way to reward pulled-over drivers who are organ donors: let them go scot-free, just once, as a thank you for registering. The stunt made headlines, and surely piqued the interest of non-donors. PLAY OFF POP CULTURE Blending advertising and entertainment can be risky business, but Circus Grey managed to do it by working a dramatic organ donation storyline into not one, but two, Peruvian…

Congratulations to Fiona & Sabrina for being named Adweek Women Trailblazers. Your fight for equality is one we all share.Hearts & Science proudly joins our partners AT&T and HBO in celebrating these two remarkable women. Read the news, and it’s easy to feel like the cultural divide not just in this country but around the world is deepening beyond repair—as if every step that’s made toward progress is followed by a push toward the old retrograde ways. But there are those among us who see reason for hope. They’re not waiting for things to change around them; they’re toppling the pillars of injustice, owning their power and paving the way for others in the process. They are Adweek’s 2019 Women Trailblazers, and we are honored to celebrate their accomplishments.…

How did Jen Fisher become the first chief well-being officer at accounting and consulting giant Deloitte? “Out of necessity.” Fisher joined Deloitte in June 2001 and ascended the ranks, serving as chief of staff to the chief operating officer (and eventual CEO) before working with chief marketing officer Diana O’Brien. But it came with a cost. “I was pretty burnt out,” she said. “I had gone pretty hard, sacrificed a lot and hadn’t put my own well-being and boundaries into place.” She added that people in her life expressed concerns, but she feared that admitting something was wrong somehow meant failure and not being “the perfect employee, spouse, sister. … It took me way too long to reach out and ask for help.” Fisher has always been passionate about learning…