Table of contents for July 27, 2020 in Adweek

Consumers want to see more economic opportunities for the Black community. In a July survey from GlobalWebIndex, consumers were asked how brands should best respond to the Black Lives Matter movement. Here’s what U.S. consumers in three age groups said brands should do in order to promote racial equality: 1 Review hiring policies Gen Z and millennials said this was the most important step (50%), along with 46% of boomers and 43% of Gen X. 2 Ensure diversity in management teams 46% of boomers and Gen Z/millennials, along with 44% of Gen X made this the second most popular step for brands to take. 3 Ensure diversity in supply chain 46% of Gen Z and millennials want to see brands use more diverse suppliers while 38% of boomers and 37%…

The pandemic has shed light on a large trend of discrimination against the Asian-American community within the workplace and society. During Adweek’s Asian-American Summit, top marketing leaders dove into tough topics, including the silencing of their community, challenges in the workplace and the importance of empowerment now more than ever. “I want to get to a place where a brand doesn’t have to be considered brave when it [embraces diversity], and it just becomes the norm.” JUDY LEE global head of experiential marketing, Pinterest “Every day I think about how I can amplify underrepresented voices. And how do we democratize content scale and showcase those folks that otherwise wouldn’t have been seen? That gives me that fire to keep going.” NICK TRAN head of global marketing, TikTok “It’s not enough…

‘My advice is [to] learn how to break an ill-defined problem down to its component parts and come to a solution from first principles.’ Tamer Hassan was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan (his fourth overall in the Middle East) in the fall of 2012. He was a pilot in the Air Force running search and rescue missions. He slept in a tent next to the helicopters, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. In his downtime—and when he had an internet connection—he was also leading White Ops, the company he co-founded in January of that year while on standby duty. White Ops, a cybersecurity company that tackles ad fraud and bot detection, has held weekly all-hands meetings since its inception. Hassan used a satellite phone, which is…

Some feared Apple would revoke its identifier for advertisers (IDFA) when it announced details of its upcoming iOS 14 rollout last month, which is the primary means for advertisers to target and track the effectiveness of their ads on iOS devices. Such a move would have replicated the rollout of intelligent tracking prevention, which has taken place in its Safari browser in recent years and slowly hurt publishers. Though the announcement fell short of these earlier fears, Apple nonetheless threw the $45 billion in-app advertising economy a curveball. Apple’s pending iOS 14 update will require publishers (app developers) to seek consent from device users in order for third parties (app monetization partners) to access data. This in effect makes IDFA an opt-in feature for users, and advertisers will no longer…

Washington, D.C.-based attorney Khadijah Robinson spent much of 2019 preparing to launch her passion project, an ecommerce marketplace called Nile that puts “Black women and Black-owned businesses” at the forefront. When she launched Nile in March, she never could have predicted that a pandemic would create a surge in the ecommerce sector; she definitely couldn’t have predicted that the Black Lives Matter movement in June, spurred by the police killing of George Floyd, would drive traffic to her new website. In March, Nile saw 1,600 unique visitors; in June, that number increased to 19,000. “The growth was exponential,” Robinson said, adding that she spent much of July working 21-hour days and is considering retiring from the legal profession to run Nile full time. The renewed awareness and protests around racial…

People tend to drink coffee where they are, which lately hasn’t been on campus, in the office or meeting friends at local cafes. They’ve been home. This shift in location has brought about a change in how consumers get their daily dose of caffeine. Dunkin’s and Starbucks’ physical stores have suffered, but their lines of at-home coffee products have not. From March through June, U.S. retail sales of packaged coffee were up 17.9% compared to the same period last year, according to Nielsen. With no quick-and-tidy end to the pandemic in sight, coffee brands have been embracing the idea that a greater number of consumers will be brewing their own coffee at home for the foreseeable future. And they’ve adjusted strategies accordingly. The J.M. Smucker Co., for instance, which makes,…

PUT IN THE WORK A gentleman named Matt Knott, who I worked for at PepsiCo, said, “My single piece of advice for you is to kick ass at your current job. You want to create a pull strategy because you have done such a remarkable job that people want to work with you. You’ve been someone that can solve problems, who treats people well and someone who is unafraid to do the work.” That has been foundational guidance and direction for me. … It helped me calm down and hunker down to really focus on doing the work. POSITION YOUR TEAM FOR SUCCESS I was a point guard and I often tell people that because the point guard is responsible for being like the coach on the court, making sure…

On April 7, 2019, drivers at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway started their engines and ran the Food City 500. The race was as fast and exciting as ever, but fans couldn’t help but notice a problem: a lack of other fans. Not many years ago, it was hard to get a ticket to Bristol. But while its stands can hold 162,000 gearheads, 120,000 of those seats sat empty for the Food City race. In many ways, the race seemed to embody the state of Nascar itself. It is a thrilling sport that boasts devoted followers, but Nascar needs more of them. “Our biggest challenge is getting fans,” legendary driver Richard Petty told the Charlotte Observer in 2018. “As we go through generations of people, there’s so much competition out there…

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius first aired on Nickelodeon on July 20, 2002, lasting for three seasons. Upon first watch, the series had all the typical Nickelodeon cartoon elements: quirky cast getting into hijinks that their parents would likely not approve of coupled with some clever writing that would even make adults laugh. What made Jimmy Neutron so unique, however, was that the creators opted for computer animation instead of traditional hand-drawn animation. While some found it jarring, others saw it as a perfect way of illustrating a show about a science-loving young boy traversing space and time with his robot dog and friends. Although it’s on the earlier end of computer animated shows, the first of which happened in the early ‘90s in the U.S., it’s a…