Table of contents for June 10, 2019 in Adweek

What’s your general strategy around the publishing space? Neil Vogel: For us, it’s all about the discipline to stick to what we knew, rather than trying to do a ton of different things in the space. That meant going deep on what we were very good at, and over time, we learned that that’s content—specifically, the kind of content that helps people. When that realization hit, all we needed to figure out was the quickest way to get our content to the people that wanted and needed it. When you think of it that way, suddenly the path becomes very clear; we just needed to figure out how to make our sites as fast as possible, to get people the content they loved as quickly as possible. And it turned…

At last month’s upfronts, Target gathered press and media buyers in a room bathed in neon lighting on New York’s West Side, where one of the company’s executives presented the retailer’s newest innovation: Roundel. Rebranded from Target Media Network, Roundel is Target’s in-house creative agency and media network. The shop offers content creation, media placement and other advertising-related services for brands lining the shelves of Target stores, like Disney and Unilever, as well as those that don’t, like Mastercard. It’s a model we’ve seen other behemoths debut in recent years. Walmart Media Group and Expedia Group Media Solutions follow a similar formula, and major brands like Verizon and Procter & Gamble have brought some or all of their advertising in-house. But now, these marketers aren’t just doing their own advertising—they’re…

CUSTOMER It’s all about the customer: science, experience and care. You can imagine our lake of customer data that we augment with structured and unstructured data to get a great view of the customer. The Customer Science team is focused on metrics and measurement to feed our Customer Experience team, which is looking at customer journeys to improve experiences, eliminate pain points and anticipate future needs. The customer care organization—our digital and phone contact center—is focused on delivering customer value and feeding back insight around how best to support customers so they don’t need to call us. PRODUCT The product organization includes the design thinkers, UX, UI and the product managers who are working with the engineers to develop products in their physical and digital sense. We think about solving…

RYAN REYNOLDS ACTOR, PRODUCER AND OWNER OF AVIATION GIN BEST KNOWN FOR Starring in and producing the Deadpool film franchise, plus creating viral marketing for Aviation Gin, in which he acquired an ownership stake in 2018. PARTNER IN CRIME George Dewey, president of Reynolds’ Maximum Effort Productions. The two worked together on Deadpool marketing stunts, including a Bob Ross spoof and photobombing an entire Blu-ray section at Walmart, and now partner on Aviation’s creative strategy, often brainstorming ideas via text messages. MARKETING PHILOSOPHY “How can we tackle something that is culturally relevant, have fun with it and be self-deprecating while also creating a certain level of brand awareness?” —Jameson Fleming LIZZO SINGER, SONGWRITER AND RAPPER BEST KNOWN FOR Her 2019 major-label debut, Cuz I Love You, which reached No. 1…

SERGIO GORDILHO CO-PRESIDENT, CCO AND ART DIRECTOR, AGÊNCIA AFRICA BASED IN: SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL RECENT WORK Budweiser “Tagwords,” which used cryptic words in print ads to send fans Googling, resulting in pictures of celebrities drinking Bud. “It was a purely data insight that brought us those amazing images of rock stars having a great time, mostly holding a Bud. Rock stars and beer—what a combination! Then it was easy. We just had to do two things: Choose the right words, and call a good lawyer.” And Telefonica’s “My Name My Game,” in which male gamers tried using female names, discovering the rampant harassment against women in gaming. “Sexual harassment is a big issue in the digital gaming world. I found out my two daughters were being harassed. So we created…

A well-rounded résumé is never a bad thing. With experience in fields ranging from wood furniture to startup incubators to online investment, Deutsch executive vice president and director of technology and innovation Husani Oakley certainly has that—and he’s let his instincts guide him along the way. Oakley was in his fourth year as chief technology officer for startup online investment platform GoldBean when a former colleague and personal friend at Deutsch convinced him to rejoin the agency world. He had previously worked with Euro RSCG Worldwide (now Havas Worldwide), Omnicom’s EVB and Wieden + Kennedy. While reluctant at first, Oakley felt deep down that GoldBean was nearing its end, so he sold the startup and began the interview process. “I felt really silly when I did finally have those conversations…

When Walter Cronkite stepped down from the CBS Evening News in 1981, eyebrows rose over the man the network moved into his place: Dan Rather. Granted, Rather had his chops. He’d covered everything from the JFK assassination to Watergate and had most recently moved onto 60 Minutes. But many thought the chilly, hard-bitten Rather was a poor understudy for the fatherly Cronkite, for years known as “the most trusted man in America.” Among the skeptics was Adweek, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Early in 1981, we suggested that “CBS may have blundered when it chose Dan Rather.” He was too stiff, we said; he lacked “charisma.” We’ll never know if CBS brass read that issue, but soon afterward Rather ditched his blazer and started wearing sweaters on…

It seems robots can now create artwork and write symphonies. Last year, Christie’s sold a painting created by artificial intelligence for $432,000. But can robot-made or data-driven art, literature or music really stir the soul? I’ve been a judge at various creative awards shows over the years. In this time on awards juries, I have seen lots of innovative technology and plenty of so-called “data-driven” entries. But despite their inventiveness and slickness, most of them leave me cold. When the focus is purely on tech and there’s little evidence of human creativity alongside this, there’s no spark, warmth or humor. It all seems a little soulless. To craft great work, we still need humanity to be the driving force. There is, of course, a massive role for technology and data,…

THEIR WORK MAKES US THINK, INSPIRES US, CHALLENGES US TO ASPIRE TOWARD A BETTER WORLD AND JUST PLAIN ENTERTAINS US. THEY ARE THE BRANDED CONTENT INNOVATORS, CELEBRITIES AND INFLUENCERS, SENIOR AGENCY LEADERS, VISUAL ARTISTS, MEDIA INNOVATORS, COMMERCIAL DIRECTORS AND GLOBAL CREATIVE LEADERS OF THIS YEAR’S CREATIVE 100. OUR LIST DRAWS FROM TALENT ALL AROUND THE GLOBE, FROM AS FAR AWAY AS THAILAND AND AS CLOSE AS THE BRONX, HOME TO THE QUIP-TASTIC DUO WE CHOSE TO KICKS THINGS OFF WITH.…

SAM BERGEN VP, GLOBAL BRAND CREATIVE, BEATS BY DRE PRIOR ROLES Managing director of Vice’s agency, Virtue; CCO of We Are Unlimited (Omnicom’s bespoke agency for McDonald’s); creative director stints at Deutsch and Ogilvy. FIRST BIG PROJECT AT BEATS After less than a year in his role, Bergen was tasked with leading creative for one of Beats by Dre’s newest products: the Powerbeats Pro. The resulting spot, “Unleashed,” brought together more than a dozen star athletes, with direction from Hiro Murai and a new track from Beck. ON KEEPING BEATS RELEVANT “For us, the desire of making work has never been to just be edgy. That’s not a good comms strategy for any brand. You have to be original.” —Marty Swant PABLO ROCHAT ART DIRECTOR AND OWNER, PABLO ROCHAT STUDIO…

DANA SCRUGGS PHOTOGRAPHER ON HER RAPID RISE TO THE NATIONAL STAGE In the span of a month, she went from taking photos with a point-and-shoot for her Etsy shop to landing three major magazine covers, including Diddy and his family for Essence. “This past year has been the most affirming of my life—not just as a person but also as an artist. It took over six years of struggle and constantly feeling anonymous in this industry before I got to this point.” PUBLICATIONS WHERE HER WORK HAS APPEARED ESPN The Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Town & Country, Rolling Stone and New York magazine, among others. ON BALANCING WORK AND PASSION “I hope people learn that there doesn’t have to be a difference between personal work and commercial work. My commercial…

What defining characteristics make Sweetgreen a challenger? Some of our biggest innovations have been focused on building our supply chain for scale and leveraging technology. Today, we work with over 150 farms that distribute food to six regional supply chains servicing 94 locations nationwide. We have spent the last few years building a decentralized supply chain system so that we can provide the best quality and consistency while still being flexible to what is in season. We want to change the industry norm that fast food has to taste the same everywhere and show that it’s normal to have a Guacamole Greens taste different in Los Angeles than it does in Washington, D.C. Technology has always been a tool for us to enhance the experience, but never to replace it.…

SHOWTIME’S DESUS & MERO is not for background viewing. Viewers have to strain to listen, to make sure they’re not missing the latest throwaway joke or tangent from Desus Nice (Daniel Baker) and The Kid Mero (Joel Martinez), who host the premium-cable network’s first late-night talk show. The duo keeps you on the edge of your seat, and that means everything in this high-stakes world of distracted viewers. It’s the same in real life: They finish each other’s sentences, jump in when one feels the other is rambling or quickly pick up on a riff, raising their voice to match the other’s enthusiasm. Desus and Mero first crossed paths as teens in summer school in the Bronx (though they weren’t close then) and reconnected six years ago on Twitter, which…

LANCE ACORD REPRESENTED BY: PARK PICTURES/BASED IN: LOS ANGELES AND BOLINAS, CALIF. /HOMETOWN: FAIRFAX, CALIF. RECENT WORK “Dream Crazy” for Nike, featuring Colin Kaepernick. “Brands like Nike have shown again and again their power to influence political/social discourse. It was great to have the opportunity alongside Chivo Lubezki and Christian Weber to direct a project where moral and ethical considerations outweighed more straightforward corporate interests. Nike sells plenty of sneakers day in and day out; no one forced them to wade into those waters.” ADVICE FOR ASPIRING DIRECTORS/FILMMAKERS “Make stuff. Filmmaking is different than other art forms in that sometimes the sheer complexity and need for collaboration makes it hard to practice, experiment and make mistakes. Seize every opportunity.” PERSONAL MANTRA “Make inspired choices, and accept a degree of indecision…

KRYSTLE MULLIN CREATIVE DIRECTOR, RPA / BASED IN: LOS ANGELES HOW SHE GOT STARTED “I was answering the phone at McCann-Erickson Brisbane in 1998 and wrote funny all-staff emails about time sheets and kitchen etiquette. A creative director told me I was a copywriter.” RECENT WORK “Live Life Comfortably” for La-Z-Boy, starring Kristen Bell. “For me, this project is a great example of what advertising should do for people: [It] makes them feel good and makes them think about something in a new way.” ADVICE FOR ASPIRING CREATIVES “Be yourself, no matter what. If the place you’re working doesn’t like who you are, go someplace else. Find a place that loves you for everything you are.” —D.Z. JULIE SCELZO GLOBAL ECD, MCGARRYBOWEN / BASED IN: NEW YORK RECENT WORK “Shop…

One afternoon in the summer of 1969, Woodstock promoter Michael Lang took sound engineer Bill Hanley to Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, N.Y., to show him the grounds for the concert he was planning. The moment Hanley looked out at 700 acres of grassy hillside, he knew the only way to throw sound that far was to build a system from scratch. Soon, two towers of yellow construction scaffolding rose 70 feet in the air, each cradling two clusters of speaker cabinets. The cabinets were six feet high, seven feet wide and weighed half a ton each. Hanley had stuffed each of them with four quads of 15-inch speakers—D130s, they were called, made by a California company called JBL. Plenty of history was written at Woodstock, as everyone knows, but…

You’ve probably heard how, back in the days before deregulation, airplane food was actually worth eating—and it was. And one of the reasons why was Victor Jules Bergeron—better known as Trader Vic. A born entrepreneur who got his start mixing drinks in his uncle’s saloon in Oakland, Calif., Bergeron opened his own place in 1934. After a trip to the South Pacific left him wide-eyed, Bergeron instituted a Tiki theme, changed the eatery’s name to Trader Vic’s and grew it into one of America’s first fine-dining chains. In 1971, United Airlines asked the restaurateur to spice up the menus on its long-haul Pacific flights. “Many of the things we did in our own kitchens could not be done on a plane at 35,000 feet,” Bergeron said, “but with some planning…