Table of contents for October 7, 2019 in Adweek

One of the more reliable tricks in the commercial realm involves reaching into the past and finding some forgotten star to resurrect, the latest example being the Brady Bunch kids for HGTV’s latest renovation series. But one of the pioneering efforts in where-are-they-now casting took place in 1986, when Quaker Oats produced a special box featuring Mikey, the finicky kid who, in ads that first aired in 1972, “hates everything”—except for Life cereal. Adweek, celebrating 40th anniversary this year, enthused then over the fact that Mikey was “no longer a chubby-cheeked toddler.” And indeed he was not: actor John Gilchrist had grown into quite the strapping 18 year old. He appeared on the box with other young bucks in Quaker’s “Guess Who’s Mikey” contest. The prize for the first 5,000…

KLM might be the “world’s oldest airline,” but judging from its digital presence, you wouldn’t know that. The company prefers to have a first-mover advantage when it comes to testing out new apps and technologies. Two years ago, it proclaimed to be the “first airline” with a verified WhatsApp business account, and it has its own artificial intelligence bot (Blue-Bot) that helps customers through Facebook Messenger. The carrier is also taking a more forward-thinking approach to sustainability as climate change becomes more of a hot-button issue. Pieter Groeneveld, svp of digital at the airline’s parent company, Air France-KLM, is in charge of spearheading these efforts. “I have a bit of tech FOMO,” he said, explaining that the brand tries to be in the “front row” when it comes to experimenting…

EMBRACE TENSION IN YOUR STORY Any good story has tension at the center of it and while we’re a big brand, we’re not the biggest in our category, so we had the opportunity to really keep that challenger mindset and focus in on what makes us unique, different and special. By focusing on those things and really being overt about how we want it to attack those differences, we’ve been able to have a lot of tension and conflict in the story. The more we do it, the more positive attention we get as a brand, the more the brand continues to grow. —Kurt Kane FIND YOUR SOCIAL BALANCE The magic of [wholesale clubs] is discovery. Maybe you came in for a bag of Cheetos but you left with a…

Red hats took on new meaning in the years leading up to 2016. They seemed to symbolize their own movement and connotation and seeing one now likely makes you feel a certain way. That’s the power of a brand. Specifically, it’s the power behind President Trump’s 2016 slogan to “Make America Great Again.” As the nation heads into the 2020 presidential election, that’s what challengers are up against. These candidates—and their respective brands—have to come up with a splashy, succinct way to communicate their positions and stand out from Trump and his throng of symbolic red baseball caps. The challenge this time around isn’t simply going up against the MAGA brand, and it’s not just about shock value. Candidates have to establish a brand that is broad enough to appeal…

AS THEY SAY, IT ALL STARTED WITH A TWEET. Last year, Nike enlisted Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who made headlines in 2016 for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in the U.S., to help the brand celebrate the 30th anniversary of its iconic “Just Do It” tagline. Just days before the 2018 NFL season kicked off, Kaepernick tweeted a striking black-and-white photo of his face paired with Nike’s famous slogan and the following copy: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” It was bound to be controversial, as Kaepernick at the time was in the midst of a lawsuit against the NFL, alleging its owners of colluding to keep him out of the league because of his protests. Within mere hours,…

Chatbots can outperform salespeople—with one big caveat. A study published in the journal Marketing Science analyzed 6,200 outbound sales calls by bots and sales reps to customers of an Asia-based financial services company. When the customers knew they were speaking with a chatbot, sales dropped by 80%. When they didn’t know, the bots were four times more likely to close the deal than inexperienced salespeople. “The negative disclosure effect seems to be driven by a subjective human perception against machines,” the researchers wrote, raising ethical concerns about the nascent industry.…

Many networks are panicking as linear ratings continue to plummet—but not A&E. The network saw nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth in the 25–54 age demo, due in large part to a show that has quietly turned into one of TV’s most successful franchises: Live PD. The show, which is hosted by Dan Abrams and follows police officers around the country live for three hours on Fridays and Saturdays, has made A&E the No. 1 cable network during those days in the same demo (in live-plus-3), lifting the net 20 spots from its prior rank before the series debuted in 2016. During its 200-plus episodes, Live PD has ranked No. 1 in all of cable and broadcast in that demo 25 times. And as networks try to keep audiences from…

For Madonna Badger, chief creative officer of Badger & Winters, there’s always been a big payoff from making bold moves. Whether it was her edgy campaigns for Calvin Klein or her shop’s viral hits like #WomenNotObjects and, more recently, the provocative #NoKidsInCages work, which garnered 120 million impressions overnight through guerrilla installations across New York City. Read on to see why this award-winning risk-taker’s advice is all about embracing change. What’s a recent project that you’re proud to have worked on? The most important work we have done as an agency this year is #NoKidsInCages. Working with Raices (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services), a powerful immigration nonprofit, we were able to bring this tragedy back into the news, to make people listen again. Congress held hearings,…

Marketers can become a bigger part of the emerging cultural conversation across platforms. Streaming media has opened doors to brands trying to reach Hispanic consumers. Ahead of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Pandora surveyed the cultural landscape and behavioral attitudes of this growing market. The data reflects the diversity—how many Hispanic consumers are bilingual (35%), mirrored by how many prefer both Spanish and English in ads on streaming platforms (21%). Meantime, the enthusiasm and demand for Latin music has exploded. “At Pandora, we’ve witnessed this evolution firsthand,” said Mike Reid, vp of multicultural at Pandora. “Our data tells us that Hispanics live seamlessly in both worlds. Depending on the mood, time of day or event, Hispanics freely choose their music environment, and more time than not it’s Latin time.”…