Table of contents for June 6, 2016 in Adweek

Ever since last June, when Steph Curry and theGolden State Warriors were celebrating the franchise’s first title in 40 years on the home court of their vanquished opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA fans—and more than a few TV and league executives—were hoping for a rematch. Now, they’ve gotten their wish with Curry and LeBron James going head-to-head for the second straight year in what could end up the highest-rated NBA Finals since Michael Jordan powered the Chicago Bulls to six championships in eight seasons during the 1990s. Last year’s six-game series averaged 19.94 million viewers and a 13.07 household rating, the best performance since Jordan captured his sixth championship in 1998; a potential Game 7 this year could be the league’s first game to reach 30 million viewers in 18…

Multinational food conglomerate Mondelez International, one of the world’s largest advertisers, has made a decisive move away from traditional advertising. The company announced it would be launching “a first-of-its-kind advertising model” in collaboration with various media partners. Mondelez will work with companies like BuzzFeed and Fox to produce more apps, games and “sponsored content” instead of launching its own in-house production studio.…

In the U.S., grocery store sales are a $600 billion industry. With a few key players offering essentially the same product, the industry is dominated by the brands that know how to endear themselves to consumers. In a new study released exclusively to Adweek, Boston-based consultancy C Space homed in on consumer loyalty among the big players, attempting to flesh out some insights about what makes shoppers come back. “The grocery industry is an increasingly crowded space, and every new innovation brings consumers more choices. This data proves that, rather than relying on short-term tactics like discounts and reward programs, building loyalty depends on a grocery retailer’s capacity to intuitively “get” its customers,” said Charles Trevail, CEO of C Space. “The ones that are positioned for long-term growth are those…

Prepd Pack $55 Once upon a time—otherwise known as kindergarten—the opening of a shiny new lunchbox was a thrilling occasion. Nowadays, when the contents are likelier to contain last night’s leftovers than Lunchables, not so much. That’s why San Francisco-based startup Prepd Pack is trying to reinvent the bring-your-own-lunch experience with its modular lunchbox system and accompanying app. Use the Prepd app’s trove of healthy recipes and ideas to help you plan a week’s worth of lunches, then pack them in the Prepd Pack’s configurable containers. On your way out the door, drop them in the insulated bamboo case, slip in the included knife and fork and you’re good to go. Buy it: getprepd.com BREAKFAST Rise and Shine PancakeBot $299 Bring some artistic expression to the breakfast table with PancakeBot,…

Agency: Immersion Creative Ads for real-estate agents are all the same. Except for Patricia Houlihan’s. The Vancouver agent enjoyed the week’s most superpowered ROI, as a single bus shelter—showing Houlihan with lasers shooting out of her eyes—scorched the internet upon hitting Reddit’s front page. So, should you hire Houlihan—or flee in terror from her frickin’ laser beams? “I think anyone with a sense of humor will understand it’s just a fun way to get her name out,” Immersion Creative’s Mike Catherall told Adweek.…

IBM is launching new Watson Ads that will let consumers ask questions by voice or text and receive answers. IBM’s relatively new ownership of The Weather Company’s digital properties is coming into play in a serious fashion: Watson Ads will first appear on Weather.com, the Weather mobile app and the company’s data-driven WeatherFX platform. Later, IBM plans to allow them to appear on third-party properties. Campbell Soup Co., Unilever and GSK Consumer Healthcare are just a few of the brands that will run the ads.…

Called the Organic Valley Coffee Shop, this unique pop-up store opened in New York a few weeks ago to lines a dozen deep. The caffeine-seeking crowd didn’t know, but soon found out, that the joint sold only Organic Valley Half & Half in sizes like Lil Bit, Double and Lotta, a not-so-subtle poke in the eye to a certain mega chain. The whole venture, in fact, was sort of a goof, but it made for great video starring a folksy dairy farmer chatting up NoLita hipsters. (They paid $2 for the creamer but got their cups of joe for free, so no one left without their fix.) The stunt, engineered by ad agency Humanaut, is an example of unexpected, breakthrough marketing that’s happening across the food world where origin stories,…

‘It isn’t about good food versus bad food. It’s about having a small treat. It’s about balance.’ Lynn Dornblaser, director of innovation and insight, Mintel As consumers cut sugar and salt from their diets, fast-food and snack-food brands are fighting for survival. And part of their survival strategy is to downsize, with many brands slashing product sizes or introducing smaller versions of signature offerings. Coke and Pepsi’s 7.5-ounce mini cans, for instance, are in line with the trend of declining U.S. soda consumption, which hit a 30-year low in March, according to Beverage Digest. McDonald’s is currently testing Mac Jr., a smaller version of the Big Mac, in select restaurants (and in some locations it’s testing an even bigger Big Mac called the Grand Mac). Oreo Thins, which have fewer…

Food & Wine’s last editor, Dana Cowin, had been with the brand for more than two decades when she stepped down earlier this year. What’s it like stepping into her shoes? Dana left the brand in great shape. I would say that there’s been really a seismic shift in how editors work. Perhaps when Dana became editor, and until recently, you were more of a magazine editor. But I think that one shift as I go forward is having the entire brand under my purview and collaborating really closely with our publisher. What are you bringing to Food & Wine that’s new and different? I’m of international descent—I grew up in Iran and in Paris and the U.S.—and I’m a big traveler, so that’s certainly important to me. We’ve always…

Some people say grace before a meal. I have a similar ritual before chowing down, as do so many others in this social media age: I take pictures of my food. If I am dining with friends, I excuse myself beforehand, apologizing for the practice. But I perform it religiously. The images go up on social media, mainly Instagram and Facebook. My audience is small—just closing in on 3,000 followers on Instagram and around 800 friends on FB. But it includes some of the most celebrated names in food, who I have gotten to know through my ritual dining out, as well as colleagues in the news business in which I’ve worked for more than 30 years, at Time, People and currently Bloomberg Businessweek, where I am deputy managing editor.…

What’s the first information you consume when you wake up in the morning? I’m 49 years of age and I try to keep fit, so the first thing I look at is the weather because if it’s perfect out, I can go for a swim or a run. As far as news, I have CNN and BBC News on pretty much 24 hours. What TV shows do you watch? Love the new Chelsea Handler show on Netflix. She’s straightforward, she’s honest, and what you see is what you get. I’m a big, big fan of Deadliest Catch. I go to Iceland to salmon fish quite a lot, so I love those programs on Discovery about nature and being out in the wild. Any favorite food magazines or blogs? I’m a…

Fiat Chrysler ended its relationship with Wieden + Kennedy in March after six years, setting up separate creative reviews for Dodge and the corporate Chrysler brand account. Austin’s GSD&M won the Dodge business last month, but the Chrysler corporate review is ongoing. According to sources, that review has entered its final stages as a matchup among Droga5, Minnesota’s Mono and Iris Worldwide. Fiat Chrysler should make its final decision within the next few weeks.…

Bud Light is celebrating Pride Month with a new 30-second spot celebrating same-sex weddings. Unveiled on Wednesday via The Ellen Show’s social channels, the new ad is part of Wieden + Kennedy’s ongoing campaign for the brand, “The Bud Light Party.” The A-B InBev brand also erected two rainbow-lit billboards which will be up for the month of June in New York and Los Angeles. According to the company, Bud Light has worked to be an inclusive brand for decades and featured its first LGBT print ad in 1995.…

Unicorn Bark. Breakfast Ramen. Boozy Skittles Slushies. While these might sound like the culinary fantasies of a stoned college student, they’re actually the titles of short-form recipe videos created by Hearst-owned food site Delish. And each one has more than 10 million Facebook views apiece. Over the past year, Delish—as well as sites like BuzzFeed’s Tasty, which debuted last summer and now averages more than 1.5 billion video views per month, mostly through Facebook—has managed to blow up social media feeds by ditching the serious culinary attitude and instead taking a refreshingly nonfoodie approach to food. Although most of Delish’s 5.1 million 20-and 30-something social media followers have only recently been introduced to the brand, Delish.com has actually existed since 2008 when it was launched as a joint venture between…

Who can deny that food has gone from simple sustenance to trendy to a topic that has come to dominate our lives—whether having to do with public health, personal wellness, the profession and hobby of cooking, the marketing of packaged goods and fast food, and the dissemination of content via social media and endless magazines, blogs and video channels. In this inaugural list of the 30 Most Influential People in Food, we spotlight the chefs, restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, media personalities, authors, social media stars, journalists and marketers who keep us informed, entertained and fed. ADWEEK: You’ve traveled to quite a wide variety of places lately—Chicago, Senegal and Cologne, Germany, which was in the headlines for sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve that many blamed on Syrian refugees. Did you get a…

THE JOE Coffee is Waffle House’s No. 1 seller on the menu, and the chain estimates it’s served nearly 1.3 billion cups of its signature blend coffee since 1955. THE NAMESAKE The “sweet cream waffle” comes with a colorful variety of fold-in extras including pecans and peanut butter. Waffle House serves 145 waffles a minute. THE PLATE Used from day one, the plates feature the Waffle House name enclosed by brown regency swirls. They’re also Pyrex, to stand up to the high waffle heat. In 2007, an intoxicated Kid Rock got into a fight at an Atlanta restaurant and wound up in jail. In 2013, a woman was arrested for public intoxication at a Loganville, Ga., dining establishment where she mistook a cheeseburger for a shoe and wore it on…

Pat LaFrieda Jr. may be the only butcher in America who is a household name. He comes from a long line of meat men (his great-grandfather emigrated from Italy and opened up shop in Brooklyn) who, for three generations, carved a name for themselves, first as LaFrieda Meats and then, when LaFrieda’s father took over the business, as Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors. When the company found itself in trouble in the early ’90s, LaFrieda, working as a stockbroker at the time, stepped in. He cut a deal to supply meat to Mario Batali’s restaurants, positioning the chop shop as the toast of the culinary world. After nearly 70 years in New York’s Meatpacking District, LaFrieda relocated to northern New Jersey in 2010. And though its cuts of meat can be…