MultiCultClassics

17559: Weighing In On Novo Nordisk Media Review.

2026-08-06T00:17:11.422-05:00

Mediapsssst reported Big Pharma company Novo Nordisk is launching a review of its $600+ million media account. The US portion is currently being handled by WPP.

According to Mediapsssst, rumors indicate Omnicom has already won the business.

Novo Nordisk founded the lucrative GLP-1 category—so, WPP is gonna feel very sick if it loses another ton of revenue.

Novo Nordisk Reviewing Media Account

By Richard Whitman

Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is conducting a review of its media account, according to multiple sources.

The firm spends upwards of $600 million annually on media, according to agency research firm COMvergence.

The company’s last big media review was in 2020 when WPP’s Wavemaker was awarded the U.S. portion of the account where the company spends most of its ad budget.

There were rumors circulating this week that NN had completed the review and that Omnicom came out on top. However, a spokesman for the pharma company said that no award had been announced to the contenders as of late Tuesday.

“We received your note and wanted to confirm that Novo Nordisk has not communicated any decision related to an AOR,” the spokesman replied to an email query.

The company has been in the news recently—for a lawsuit it filed earlier this month against rival pharma company Eli Lilly for allegedly false GLP-1 advertising. The two companies are fierce competitors in the GLP-1 weight loss drug category. NN founded the category with the launch of Wegovy and Lilly followed with Zepbound.

17558: Bye-Bye, AI…?

2026-08-05T00:36:59.849-05:00

More About Advertising published an Op-Ed titled, “Why don’t we just forget about AI?”

Um, because most White holding companies and White advertising agencies would have nothing to hype if everyone forgot about AI, creating a chorus of crickets.

The acronym should be revised to pose this question: “Why don’t we just forget about Advertising Industry?”

Why don’t we just forget about AI?

By Stephen Foster

Later this week Cindy Rose, a former Microsoft executive, will doubtless tie herself in knots trying to explain how “agentic” deals with the likes of Google and Meta (would you join them for dinner without the benefit of a Roman-style taster?) will help realise WPP’s ‘Elevate28’ transformation.

WPP has certainly gone all-out for Artificial Intelligence, firstly under former boss Mark Read and now under Rose although it’s far from clear how it can help an agency group apart from cheaper production. Brandtech’s David Jones hit the nail squarely on the head the other week when he told the FT: “We like to believe that every person who creates is brilliant, but if you watch the basketball [on television] this week, most of the ads are terrible…95 per cent of people don’t produce much that’s creative or original. So why not do that with fast, efficient machines and let the geniuses handle the other 5 per cent?”

So why don’t agencies concentrate on the clients who do care about impactful communications (Adidas being a case in point as it bunged money into the World Cup only to frighten Wall Street’s algo-driven horses) and leave the AI wizards to squander billions on yet more ways to get bots to talk to bots? Even the IAB acknowledges that such ads gain only the most fleeting attention.

Agencies through their history have gone careering away after the latest fashion (AI now obviously but also influencers or creators as they like to be known) with no real evidence that it delivers better results than ads created by people and placed by people in media that people actually consume?

AI has become a vast circular industry where the chip makers fund the companies who buy their products. Sooner or later the musical chairs will stop and there’ll be a financial crash that makes 2008 look like a practice run. That’s if these fiendish AI inventions don’t keep escaping and bring the whole world crashing down anyway.

Agencies and sensible advertisers should steer clear.

17557: Glassdoor + Indeed = Fireworks + Firings.

2026-08-04T01:22:36.941-05:00

Adland isn’t the only industry staging questionable M&A deals.

Better together: Glassdoor is part of Indeed…?

Glassdoor has been hyping its Glassdoor Recruiter services, designed to help job seekers by mimicking Indeed offerings.

Ironically, the acquisition will likely lead to redundancies, restructurings, and RIFs, resulting in Glassdoor and Indeed ex-employees needing Glassdoor and Indeed to find new livelihoods.

17556: On Creating And Influencing DEIBA+ Change In Adland.

2026-08-03T02:16:47.101-05:00

The previous post about Equinox and its White advertising agency perpetuating racist Asian stereotypes warrants additional commentary.

Advertising Age spotlighted creators who criticized Equinox via Instagram and TikTok, including Eunnuri Lee and Ed Choi.

Lee—who boasts 108K Instagram followers and 237K TikTok followers—skewered Equinox and the responsible advertising team, ultimately vowing to boycott the fitness brand.

Choi—who boasts 322K Instagram followers and 680K TikTok followers—went directly after the Equinox Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Digital Officer, calling her out by name and blasting her professional credentials.

Creators and influencers have infiltrated Adland, delivering content, promoting brands, and wielding considerable power.

Yet can they impact progressive change, succeeding where trade organizations, clients, protesting insiders, legal advocates, and politicians have failed? That is, can they bring DEIBA+ to Adland?

17555: On Gen Z Loneliness.

2026-08-02T20:07:25.402-05:00

MediaPost spotlighted a report from Stagwell enterprises—The Harris Poll and Alison Worldwide—casting Gen Z as the loneliest generation in history.

According to the data, 51% of Gen Z feel lonely on the weekend; 74% stay home for at least half of their monthly weekends; 73% make staying home their default weekend agenda.

Given Gen Zers will unlikely land a job with Stagwell or any White advertising agency in Adland, at least they won’t have to worry about working on weekends.

Report Finds Gen Z Is The Loneliest Generation

By Richard Whitman

They may be the most digitally connected generation in history but they’re also the loneliest, at least on the weekends, according to new research from Stagwell’s The Harris Poll and Allison Worldwide.

Reasons vary, but for many it’s financial or avoiding big, alcohol-focused gatherings. And some just don’t have a lot of IRL friends.

The report found that 51% of Gen Z say they feel lonely on a typical weekend — the highest of any generation and 37 points higher than Boomers.

74% stay home at least half of their weekends each month, and 73% say staying home has become their default weekend plan.

49% of Gen Z adults say they don’t have enough friends to spend time in person and 47% stay home to recharge their physical and mental health.

Per the research, young people’s social life is increasingly screen-based, with 65% saying they connect more through their phone than in person.

88% actively avoid at least one social setting, including large groups of near-strangers (39%), loud crowded spaces (38%) and spending a lot on a single night out (36%).

73% of young people want more social settings where alcohol isn’t the focus.

17554: Adland Hospitality Is A Nauseating Notion.

2026-08-01T23:10:39.215-05:00

Advertising Age published a perspective opining Adland could enhance its value to clients by embracing restaurant-style hospitality.

It’s an odd notion, as most restaurants—especially in the QSR category—struggle mightily to survive.

The holding companies complicate matters by presenting similar menus and serving bland offerings.

What’s more, White advertising agencies are unhospitable to anyone who isn’t a White man or White woman.

And non-White advertising agencies must cook with crumbs.

Why hospitality is advertising’s most human competitive advantage

By Heather Freiser

Coming out of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, one message was impossible to ignore: in the age of AI, human connection matters more than ever.

Across stages and conversations, industry leaders debated how artificial intelligence will reshape creativity, productivity, and the future of agency work. That question has only grown louder as industry leaders debate AI’s impact on agencies.

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that AI could eventually reduce brands’ need for agencies, it sparked plenty of debate. Regardless of whether you agree with him, it raises an important question: what value can’t be commoditized?

I think we’ve been overlooking one answer: hospitality.

In advertising, we celebrate strategic thinking, creative excellence, and operational rigor. We rarely celebrate hospitality.

We should.

Hospitality is one of the most overlooked strategic capabilities an agency can develop. It’s not soft. It’s not a personality trait. It’s the ability to make people feel seen, supported, and genuinely cared for while you’re doing the work. And in an industry built on relationships, that capability compounds over time.

I didn’t learn that in advertising. I learned it in restaurants.

Before joining the agency world, I spent years working in—and eventually owning—restaurants. The restaurant business teaches you something agencies often forget: people don’t just remember what you delivered. They remember how you made them feel.

Restaurateur Will Guidara captures this perfectly in Unreasonable Hospitality: “Service is black and white. Hospitality is color.”

Service is delivering what’s promised. Hospitality is how you make someone feel while you deliver it.

Agencies have become incredibly good at service. We deliver on time, on budget, and on brief. We optimize workflows, build airtight processes, and obsess over execution. Those things matter. They’re the cost of entry.

But they’re rarely what people remember.

A few years ago, I was in New York during a production shoot with my kids. After a long day, they desperately wanted to visit the M&M’s store in Times Square. I kept saying, “Maybe tomorrow.”

While we were eating dinner at the hotel, the front desk manager walked over carrying a giant bowl of M&M’s.

“I heard someone was hoping to make it to the M&M’s store tonight,” he said. “Here’s your amuse-bouche.”

My kids were ecstatic. My stress disappeared. In one thoughtful gesture, he solved a problem I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.

Years later, I still remember his name.

That’s hospitality.

Guidara encourages restaurants to reserve a small portion of their time and budget for creating moments guests never expect. He calls it “the 5%.”

The 5% isn’t where the margin is. It’s where the memory is.

What would happen if agencies adopted the same philosophy?

Maybe it’s remembering something a client mentioned months ago. Making an introduction without expecting anything in return. Anticipating a problem before it becomes an email chain. Creating meetings that leave people energized instead of exhausted. Finding small ways to reduce someone else’s stress simply because you can.

None of those gestures appear in a statement of work.

All of them build trust. And trust builds loyalty.

As AI makes execution faster and more accessible, agencies will increasingly compete with firms using the same tools, the same models, and many of the same strategic frameworks. The gap between capabilities is shrinking.

The experience of working together isn’t.

AI can generate ideas. It can build decks. It can accelerate production.

It can’t notice that your client hasn’t eaten all day. It can’t remember the story they shared six months ago about their daughter’s graduation. It can’t create the small, thoughtful moments that transform a transactional relationship into a lasting one.

That’s hospitality.

If Cannes reminded us of anything this year, it’s that our industry’s future won’t be determined solely by the technology we adopt. It will also be shaped by the humanity we choose to preserve.

Great work will always matter.

But in a business where AI is rapidly commoditizing execution, hospitality may become the most valuable competitive advantage agencies have left.

17553: Equinox And Its White Advertising Agency Are Sweating Over Racist Workout.

2026-07-31T23:13:41.281-05:00

Advertising Age reported on an Equinox campaign featuring imagery publicly condemned as racist Asian stereotypes.

Based on the corporate response, Equinox apparently agrees with the protestors, as the ads are being fully pulled and official apologies have been formally posted.

The responsible White advertising agency—Angry Gods—also admitted to cultural cluelessness. Plus, Angry Gods pledged charitable donations to the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. Expect scholarships to follow in performative style.

Ironically, the campaign theme reads, “Question Everything But Yourself.”

Equinox and Angry Gods failed to question everything while executing the work. And the co-conspirators will probably not question themselves for being insular, insensitive, ignorant racists.

Equinox pulls AI ad after creators call out racist Asian stereotypes

By Gillian Follet

Equinox, the luxury fitness company, has pulled an AI-generated out-of-home ad and apologized after dozens of Asian content creators accused it of perpetuating racist stereotypes.

The ad, part of a campaign that broke in January, featured an AI-generated image of an Asian woman’s head mounted on a metal rod, with a hand pressing a thumb between her lips; the image was juxtaposed with a real photo of a different woman, including her exposed torso. Over the past two weeks, creators across Instagram and TikTok have condemned the ad as dehumanizing and fetishistic.

“Asian women have already been treated as dolls, submissive sex machines, anime girls, robots, decorative objects [and] mail-order fantasies for decades now,” said artist and content creator Eunnuri Lee in a video posted Friday. “We are constantly positioned as hypersexual beings and also not fully human.”

Lifestyle creator @relishwithreese called the ad “so disturbing” in a video uploaded earlier this month, questioning what message Equinox was attempting to convey. Soogia, a food creator with nearly 3 million total followers who uses only her first name online, called the ad a “literal embodiment” of the sexualization and objectification of Asian women. And Ed Choi, a creator and podcaster, went further, directly calling out Equinox’s chief marketing and digital officer, Bindu Shah, in a video criticizing the ad for “overly sexualiz[ing] Asian women.”

Though conversation around the ad spiked over the past two weeks, it originated as part of the company’s “Question Everything But Yourself” campaign, launched in January. Made with Los Angeles-based design and strategy agency Angry Gods, the ads addressed the proliferation of AI imagery online by pairing absurd AI creations—Pope Francis in a puffer jacket, a high-heel-wearing Justin Trudeau wrapped around a stripper pole—with images of real people. The idea was to position human strength as a counterpoint to digital fakery.

The ads ran across social, digital and out-of-home placements.

Equinox told creators in comments and DMs last week that it was “in the process” of “fully remov[ing]” the ad from OOH placements. The ad has been taken down from 10 Equinox club locations across New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco where it was still on display, an Equinox spokesperson confirmed today.

“This campaign was designed to explore the false realities created by AI and social media, including fake leaders, fake bodies, fake food and fake robots,” another spokesperson for the company said in an email. “While that was the creative goal, we recognize there was an unintended impact, and we apologize for that. We made the decision more than a week ago to fully remove the image—a choice guided by our core values of inclusivity, mutual respect and empathy, which ensure the Equinox community is a place where everyone is welcome.”

The agency, Angry Gods, also apologized for the offending image in an Instagram post shared Friday, then edited the statement the same day after facing criticism for initially referring to the backlash as a “discussion.”

“Whatever we intended, an artificial, eroticized Asian woman’s face is not a neutral symbol of ‘fake,’” the agency stated. “It carries a history, and we should have seen that before the work ever shipped.” The agency will be donating $5,000 to the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, with agency founder and CEO Krish Menon contributing an additional $5,000 to the organization, Angry Gods stated.

Some OOH displays from the campaign, including the ad at the center of the backlash, had remained up for months in cities such as New York before Equinox removed them. While some creators had occasionally discussed the ad since it went up in January, Equinox earlier this month posted a video of its gym on New York’s Bond Street, where the ad was prominently displayed in one of the windows. The video has since been deleted.

Several of the creators who criticized the ad, including Choi, pointed out that the unsettling image of an Asian woman’s disembodied head didn’t match the surreal yet playful tone of the rest of the campaign.

“Hey, Equinox, if you want me to ‘question everything,’ I’m gonna ask: why the f*ck did you … think [this] was a good idea?” Lee said in her video. “Why did you need to use an Asian woman’s body? And I’ll also ask this: who the f*ck was in that marketing room?”

The controversy around the ad echoes the backlash American Eagle faced almost a year ago, when its Sydney Sweeney campaign was criticized as racist and overly sexual. American Eagle stood by the campaign, with Craig Brommers, the retailer’s chief marketing officer, later telling Ad Age that the polarizing campaign actually boosted the brand’s business.

17552: FYI Stagwell Q2 BS.

2026-07-30T23:05:51.551-05:00

MediaPost reported White holding company Stagwell experienced the biggest Q2 in its history.

“Stagwell was founded as a tech-forward challenger to the legacy players for the vision of providing customers with everything from global full service to platform self-service solutions,” gushed Stagwell CEO Mark Penn, adding the Q2 performance “is validation of these founding principles.”

Sounds like Stagwell adopted the founding principles of all holding companies—except Stagwell is smaller, dumber, and worse than the rest.

Stagwell Q2 Driven By Digital Transformation, Political

By Steve McClellan

Stagwell reported second-quarter net revenue of $632 million, up 6% with organic growth (excluding M&A and currency impact) of 5%.

The company reported a record $171 million (annualized revenue) in net new business wins for the quarter and $540 million in wins over the last twelve months. Wins in the quarter included IBM, Adobe, Mondelez and Heineken.

The company reiterated full-year net revenue growth guidance of between 8% and 12% and upgraded its earnings-per-share forecast to between $1.03 and $1.17. It did not provide a net organic revenue growth guidance for the full year.

“This was the biggest second quarter in the history of the company,” CEO Mark Penn told investors and analysts on an earnings call Thursday morning.

“Stagwell was founded as a tech forward challenger to the legacy players for the vision of providing customers with everything from global full service to platform self-service solutions,” he added. Performance in Q2 “is validation of these founding principles.”

The standout performance was delivered by the company’s digital transformation operation (essentially Code And Theory and Instrument), which posted an 18% net organic growth gain for the period. Communications (PR and political consulting) was up 12%.

Those were the two biggest drivers of growth for the company in Q2. Media and marketing advisory firm Madison & Wall noted that “activity at the rest of the business was much more tame, with Media & Commerce (i.e. Assembly) up 1.0%, The Marketing Cloud (the company’s smallest segment) up 4.1%, and Marketing Services (the largest segment at 37% of net revenue) up just 0.5% organically.”

M&W noted: “This marks two consecutive quarters of flat growth for Marketing Services, the segment that houses the creative agency networks 72 and Sunny and Anomaly along with Harris Poll and NRG, which is a meaningful deceleration from the 6.6% organic growth in 3Q25.”

By region, the U.S. was up 7% and the U.K. posted a 13% gain.

Adjusted pre-tax earnings was $109 million in Q2, up 15%, which Penn attributed to “continued focus on cost management.”

M&W noted that Stagwell did not explicitly disclose political revenues, which likely represented a 2% bump in reported organic revenue. “Consequently, the as-reported 5% organic net revenue growth was likely closer to 3% on a basis that’s comparable to other agency groups — still stronger than most of them, other than Publicis.”

17551: Popeyes Adds More White Meat To Its Marketing Menu.

2026-07-29T00:20:07.435-05:00

Advertising Age reported Popeyes shook up its roster of White marketing firms, appointing White non-advertising-agency Anomaly to handle US creative duties.

In recent years, Popeyes experienced declining sales, prompting a revised strategy to improve its execution, simplify its menu, and better communicate its value proposition.

Gee, seems like things were fine when Annie the Chicken Queen ruled the Louisiana Kitchen.

Popeyes names Anomaly its US creative agency as part of a broader roster overhaul

By Brian Bonilla

Popeyes has appointed Anomaly as its new U.S. creative agency of record as the chicken chain looks to sharpen its marketing around its core menu and value positioning following a prolonged stretch of sales declines.

As part of the broad overhaul of its roster, Popeyes also named LaForce as its U.S. communications agency, Angry Butterfly as its creative agency of record in Canada and Massive Rocket to lead its CRM and customer lifecycle marketing. Angry Butterfly had already started working on the business earlier this year. The agencies join existing media agency PHD and shopper marketing partner 500 Degrees.

The U.S. review was managed by Jeffries Consulting, while Graphic Content Consulting oversaw the Canadian search. Stagwell’s Anomaly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The appointments mark the end of Popeyes’ relationship with McKinney, which had led the brand’s creative business in the U.S. and Canada since 2023. “Popeyes has been an incredible partner and we’re proud of the work we created together,” a McKinney spokesperson previously told Ad Age. “While we chose not to participate in the review, we wish the Popeyes team continued success.”

Popeyes framed the agency shifts as a move to further its focus on food quality, its Cajun and Creole roots and its affordability. “Popeyes is built on bold Louisiana flavor and a deep connection to our guests,” Matt Rubin, chief marketing officer of Popeyes U.S. and Canada, said in a statement. “These partners were chosen to help us do what we do best, better: bringing our food quality and brand character to life consistently for every guest, every visit.”

Rubin took over the chain’s marketing in January, following the departure of Bart LaCount, who is now CMO of Driven Brands. Jeff Klein, who oversaw Popeyes’ 2023 appointment of McKinney during his tenure as CMO and later served as president of Popeyes U.S. and Canada, earlier this year joined Subway, where he currently serves as its U.S. CMO. (Subway is currently in the midst of its own agency review process.)

The agency shakeup comes as Popeyes, the nation’s 14th-largest restaurant chain according to Technomic data, works to reverse declining sales. Popeyes’ U.S. comparable sales fell 2.9% in 2025, followed by a 6.5% decline in the first quarter of 2026, parent company Restaurant Brands International reported in May. By comparison, sibling chain Burger King posted a 5.8% increase in U.S. comparable sales during the first quarter.

Josh Kobza, the CEO of RBI, told investors in May that the company had identified the underlying issues at Popeyes and was focused on improving its execution, simplifying the menu around core offerings and better communicating the brand’s value proposition. Some of the changes, he said, include more field support to ensure more consistent training on brand standards, as well as refocusing the company’s menu on bone-in chicken, tenders and sandwiches.

“A tighter focus makes it easier to execute well in the restaurant and ensures our marketing is working harder behind fewer, stronger bets,” Kobza said in May.

The changes follow a modest increase in advertising investment. Popeyes’ U.S. measured media spending rose to approximately $182 million in 2025 from $169 million in 2024, according to MediaRadar.

RBI is set to report its second-quarter results on Aug. 6.

17550: On Ogilvy US CEO CUL8R TTFN.

2026-07-28T00:17:21.637-05:00

Advertising Age reported on the Ogilvy US CEO, who is bailing out of the White advertising agency after roughly nine months in the role.

Maybe winning Network of the Year at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity signaled mission accomplished.

David Ogilvy articulated his core philosophy on hiring as follows: If you hire people smaller than you, the company becomes a company of dwarfs; hire people bigger than you, and it becomes a company of giants.

Wonder what the iconic adman would think about his company being in giant flaming dumpster WPP, where hiring creates a revolving door of dwarfs.

Ogilvy US CEO to depart after less than a year in the post

By Ewan Larkin

Ogilvy U.S. CEO Lyndsey Corona is set to leave her post after less than a year at the WPP agency and is expected to pursue a new opportunity adjacent to the ad industry, Ad Age has learned.

Laurent Ezekiel, Ogilvy’s global CEO, will serve as interim CEO for North America, an agency spokesperson said. However, the agency does not plan to name a permanent replacement, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“Ogilvy thanks Lyndsey for her leadership and contributions to our clients and teams, and wishes her the very best in her next chapter,” the Ogilvy spokesperson said in a statement.

Corona’s late 2025 appointment followed an executive reshuffle in Ogilvy’s top ranks. In September, Devika Bulchandani, then Ogilvy’s global CEO, moved upstairs to WPP as chief operating officer. Ezekiel succeeded her at Ogilvy and subsequently installed Corona in November, giving her oversight of the storied creative agency’s largest region.

Corona joined amid a turbulent stretch for Ogilvy, which cut roughly 5% of its workforce last year as part of a restructuring. One of her core focuses was to simplify complexity for marketers and better integrate the agency’s various disciplines. WPP itself is working through a multiyear turnaround, including layoffs and the formation of WPP Creative, a unit designed to house Ogilvy and VML, among other shops.

Before Ogilvy, Corona served as WPP’s global growth lead on Verizon. Earlier in her career, Corona worked as president and partner at independent creative boutique Slap Global. Her experience also spans agencies including Stagwell’s Forsman & Bodenfors and Omnicom’s McCann.

17549: On The Political Fallout Of Bad-Boy Behavior, Blatant Bias, And Bashing Bud Light.

2026-07-27T13:42:11.512-05:00

At the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, President Donald J. Trump delivered a disturbing monologue that included comparing CNN News Anchor Kaitlan Collins to transgender actor and influencer Dylan Mulvaney, making repeated references to the latter’s infamous Bud Light promotion.

Trump later shared the social media post depicted above, extending the crass comedy routine.

Now, Trump and his sycophantic supporters continue to position the Commander-in-Chief as a famously successful businessman. Yet would any executive—even in a White advertising agency—be allowed to present such words, visuals, and actions without consequence today? Behavior like this typically results in immediate reprimand, rejection, and termination.

Sorry, Trump is a thoroughly outdated businessman, representing cartoonish characteristics of the Mad Men era.

POTUS proudly declared, “We ended DEI in America!” Despite the vehement denials, it appears the man also resurrected, reinvigorated, and reinvented racism.

What’s more, will Trump’s latest antics reignite the political protesting, bashing, and boycotting for Bud Light?

The entire spectacle catapults Trump to probably repeat his White Man Of The Year honor.

17548: Mattel Puts All Its Media Toys In One Box.

2026-07-26T22:56:00.662-05:00

MediaPost reported Mattel consolidated its global media duties with Publicis Groupe’s Spark Foundry.

Mattel declined to explain the move. The toy company probably just preferred the Barbies and Kens working at the White media agency.

Mattel Consolidates Global Media With Spark Foundry

By Steve McClellan

Mattel has consolidated its global media assignment with Publicis Groupe’s Spark Foundry.

The toy and family entertainment company spent $522 million on advertising and promotion last year, according to an SEC filing.

In 2019, Mattel split its media account between Spark Foundry and IPG’s UM. At that time Spark Foundry was awarded the U.S and Canada and UM was selected for regions outside North America.

Mattel confirmed the consolidation but declined to provide any context explaining the move.

17547: Note To Glassdoor—Try Creating Advertising That Doesn’t Suck.

2026-07-25T23:06:08.822-05:00

WTF is this digital promotion trying to communicate? Glassdoor Recruiter can help people land remote jobs, allowing you to sneak off on company time? Or when reaching out to a Glassdoor Recruiter, they’ll never be at their desk, so expect to get ghosted…?

17546: On Fearing Wokeness And Fearlessly Awakening Racism.

2026-07-24T22:22:24.803-05:00

Adweek published a perspective arguing for investing in diverse media with cash versus crumbs. There’s nothing new in the content, which is titled, “By Fearing Wokeness, Marketers Are Hitting the Snooze Button on Growth.”

No, marketers don’t fear wokeness; rather, they are hitting systemic racism with eyes wide open.

By Fearing Wokeness, Marketers Are Hitting the Snooze Button on Growth

Investing in diverse media is not woke—it’s following the money.

By DéVon Christopher Johnson

America is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. Between the speeches about 1776, the stubborn fight for independence, and building a new nation, we must recognize the vital role inclusion played then and still plays today.

Before we were the United States, we were 13 colonies with different dialects, agriculture, economic, and social norms. They decided to come together, combining their differences as an asset to push out a tyrannical monarchy in favor of representative democracy. Then as now, this nation’s greatness belongs to its diverse population—the very audience media budgets are supposed to capture.

Yet the corporate pledges of 2020 have quietly vanished without the same fanfare and press releases that had heralded their arrival. It is clear now that funding diverse-owned media was driven by temporary sympathy rather than a structural business model. But sympathy is a fleeting foundation; it has no contracts or renewals, and quickly evaporates when the political climate shifts.

Those brands were never truly doing business with us. At best, they were doing temporary penance. Which has now expired.

Sympathy is for cards. The moral case for inclusion remains solid. But within a corporation, it’s as unreliable as the weather in April, shifting with the storms and vanishing with clear skies.

Corporations rely on comfortable profitability rather than durability, so we must shift the focus from a moral plea to a rigorous economic argument.

Good thing the math supports the same conclusion.

The multicultural market is worth $5.3 trillion. Despite this immense scale, the advertising sector allocates less than 2% of its total budgets to diverse-owned media platforms. These outlets hold the trust of the fastest-growing consumer segments. Instead of working toward the ANA’s 6.5% benchmark established for 2025, the industry spent the entire year locked in debates over whether such targets should even exist.

Under normal market conditions, a gap this wide between market potential and actual funding would be seized upon as a classic arbitrage opportunity. Instead, having been stamped with the “diversity” label, this highly lucrative audience segment is cast aside as a political liability rather than valued for what it actually is: the single most underpriced connection in the modern media landscape.

The industry is conflating DEI with any marketing spend that targets diverse communities. DEI is strictly an HR and workforce imperative, designed to ensure internal staffing mirrors the broader population. Whatever your political stance, that internal representation matters.

On the flip side, investing in multicultural media is pure marketing. A diverse consumer base is not a social cause; it is a vital market. Marketers must focus strictly on the numbers: reach, resonance, and ROI. When chief marketing officers scale back multicultural ad buys under the guise of “DEI being under fire,” they commit a fundamental category error. It allows external ideological skirmishes to quietly override media plans and disregard actual spreadsheets.

We saw this play out in 2025, where the market graded these choices in real time. Facing identical external pressures, two major retailers chose entirely different paths. In January 2025, Target capitulated by rolling back its DEI-focused initiatives in hiring and its supply chain, triggering an 11-week freefall in foot traffic; its now-former CEO later conceded on an earnings call that retreating directly caused the revenue decline and wiped out billions in market value.

Conversely, Costco stood its ground by handing the choice to its shareholders, who resoundingly rejected an anti-DEI proposal with over 98% of the vote. The very week its competitor’s traffic plummeted, this steadfast retailer experienced a surge in foot traffic. Two identical situations, but diametrically opposed decisions and results.

Ultimately, both “woke” and “anti-woke” are shallow, reactionary ideologies. Being truly awake is an active discipline. It means deeply understanding who your audience is, what they consume, who they trust, and where they will stand two decades from now. The brands that eagerly paraded their “values” in 2020 only to drop them in 2025 were merely sleepwalking, then hit the snooze button on their own consumer base.

For half a decade, marketers were told to fear wokeness. Few bothered to actually wake up.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense mobilized a reluctant nation toward revolution by masterfully balancing commercial interests with moral duty. Now, as it was then, America’s true strength is rooted in all of its people, including those currently excluded from media plans.

I challenge marketers to summon the very quality Paine championed: courage, which is currently in desperately short supply. Now that ethical responsibility and business intelligence have finally converged, the sole remaining ingredient is simply the raw nerve to act.

17545: On The True Meaning Of AI At Havas.

2026-07-23T22:50:41.039-05:00

Adweek published a report titled: ‘No Longer AI Losers’: Havas Leans Into AI-First Identity as North America Revenue Grows

Havas has an AI-first identity? Only if AI stands for Ancestral Insularity.

17544: On Banning Advertising For Junk Food And Junk Perspectives.

2026-07-22T22:23:23.912-05:00

MediaPost reported the 4As, ANA, and AAF sent a letter to lawmakers expressing concerns over a proposed bill that would ban advertising junk food to kids under 13, citing First Amendment rights as part of the opposing argument.

When industry revenue is at risk, the trade organizations prop up First Amendment rights.

Yet when DEIBA+ and Civil Rights come up, there is only political, patronizing, performative propaganda. Or crickets.

Ad Groups Raise Concerns Over Bill Banning Junk Food Ads To Children

By Wendy Davis

A bill that would ban junk food advertising to children under 13 raises “significant” First Amendment concerns, ad industry groups said in a letter sent to lawmakers Tuesday.

The Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act of 2026, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), includes provisions that would prohibit companies from marketing or advertising junk food “in a manner that reasonably appears to be directed at children.”

The measure “would regulate truthful, non-misleading advertising concerning products that may lawfully be sold in commerce,” the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies and American Advertising Federation say in a letter sent to Sanders and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

The groups add that the bill “may have the practical effect of discouraging lawful advertising for ordinary food and beverage products, including, for example, restaurant advertising and advertising for products lawfully sold in commerce, even where the intended audience is not primarily children.”

The bill provides that ads will be considered child-directed if they use “themes or promotional strategies that appeal to children” — such as “fun or fantasy” themes, cartoon characters, social media influencers, free toys, interactive games or apps.

The ad groups write that those factors “are inherently subjective, making it difficult for regulated entities to determine in advance what advertising conduct is prohibited.”

The organizations add that many of those factors “are commonly used in mainstream advertising regardless of the intended audience.”

The bill also provides that ads are child-directed if placed in media where children make up at least 30% of the audience.

The ad groups say that threshold is low enough to “encompass a substantial portion of mainstream media.”

“While well-intentioned, this bill misses the mark by imposing broad restrictions on protected commercial speech that may extend well beyond advertising directed at children, while relying on vague standards that create substantial uncertainty regarding the scope of the prohibition,” the organizations write.

The bill would also require warning labels on junk food.

Some advocacy groups, including the nonprofit National Center for Health Research, support the bill. That organization said this week that the measure “would greatly improve children’s health by banning ads for junk food that are aimed at children.”

17543: Overreaction Of The Week.

2026-07-21T22:41:27.628-05:00

Brand Insider Summit for Retail declares, “Welcome to the Insider Circle.” The banner copy seems to indicate business relationships happen via drinks and luxury cruises versus proven performance and professional capabilities. Plus, based on the website image below, the Insider Circle is insular and exclusive.

Is the retail industry sold on systemic racism?

17542: More On Farmers Insurance—A Tale Of Simplicity & Simpletons.

2026-07-20T14:02:13.685-05:00

Advertising Age published additional content related to the newish Farmers Insurance campaign produced by Dentsu Creative and placed by Havas Media, presenting disturbing trends in Adland.

For starters, the new White advertising agency is essentially pooling out the concept originally hatched by the previous White advertising agency—and arguably doing so with less cleverness and creativity.

What’s more, the original campaign was allegedly conceived by a single freelancer and partner, while the newish campaign lists quite a few White men as creators.

The newish campaign is rooted in simplicity—yet its execution and delivery appear to be cumbersome, clumsy, and complicated.

RIP, Professor Burke—how the J.K. Simmons character made Farmers famous

By Tom Hamling

Helluva run.

The last time I saw J.K. Simmons was in 2013 and he was surrounded by a dozen stunt cats and a giant pile of fake snow. We had just wrapped up a scene about how putting kitty litter behind your tires is a great way to get your car unstuck after an ice storm. A ridiculous end to what had been a ridiculous run of probably 30 commercials we had shot together over the previous three years.

You see, in 2010 Farmers Insurance had a massive problem. They were totally invisible and being outspent ten to one. Not only that, every time they ran a commercial, more people attributed it to State Farm than to Farmers. I was freelancing at 72andSunny when the RPA recruiter called and asked if I could work on the Farmers pitch for a couple of weeks. I asked, “What’s Farmers?” They said, “It’s insurance.” I said, “Never heard of it.” They said, “That’s the problem.”

I took the gig, and my parter Laura Hauseman and I immediately got to work reading everything we could about this invisible billion-dollar brand.

Hidden deep in the research was an internal program, the University of Farmers, that the company used at its headquarters to train agents. It was an ownable point of differentiation. That was the answer. We knew it. By the end of the day, we had a strategic brand platform around “smart” and a campaign featuring a “tough but fair” insurance professor teaching a new crop of agents the ins and outs of smart coverage.

The campaign that won the pitch was literally written for J.K. Simmons.

I hung his picture above my desk and cranked out 100 scripts in his voice. I never thought he would say yes. That never happens. But he did … on the condition that this character had a name. Sidenote 1: His original name was Professor Aloysius Finch—later changed to Professor Nathaniel Burke after lots of back and forth with our awesome client John Ingersoll. Sidenote 2: Our backup choice was Academy Award winner Chris Cooper.

The first spot ever featured Professor Burke quizzing agents about a flaming jet ski caught 10 feet up in a tree. Other spots had Professor Burke manning an actual flame thrower, walking through scenes while being attacked by multiple dogs and standing in a subzero freezer holding an exact replica of the biggest hailstone in U.S. history.

Of course, when trying to transform a brand you need lots of distinct and ownable assets. Professor Burke was one of many. Every one of the spots opened with a distinct class-bell sound effect, a sign saying “University of Farmers” (shot on UCLA’s main quad) and of course the jingle that we wrote to sound like a glee club at a smart Ivy League college.

It worked immediately. In just a few months, agent quotes went up 30%. Brand linkage went from 15% to 77% despite still being enormously outspent.

This past Monday, my phone lit up like a Christmas tree. Texts from a lot of old and current friends that Professor Burke was done. Even though I had left three years into the campaign, Farmers and a slew of talented people at RPA did an amazing job keeping this baby running for 13 more. Almost unheard of in today’s day and age. Hats off.

As I was saying goodbye to J.K. around a craft service table surrounded by feral cats, we talked about how crazy the past couple of years had been. Almost overnight, Farmers went from being totally invisible to being a part of pop culture. The brand instantly became a question on “Jeopardy.” Diplo and Andy Milonakis made NSFW rap videos about it. Yes, the jingle was a big part of that. But so was J.K. And when he won his Oscar in 2014 for “Whiplash,” Neil Patrick Harris sang “He won an Oscar” to the tune of the jingle we wrote.

A lot of people will be armchair quarterbacking this week asking if Farmers was right to retire Professor Burke. The honest answer is that I don’t know. There are a lot of smart people who know the business and what it needs today better than I do. What I do know is this: when you take an honest truth about your company, pursue it relentlessly and consistently and make it a part of culture, it changes the course of a brand.

Brands that make culture make money. And a lot of that comes down to leveraging distinct brand assets. Sometimes you create them and sometimes you inherit them. But all that really matters is what you do with them. That’s how you make a brand rich and famous. And while Professor Burke may have retired to a beach, the mark he left on Farmers will last forever. I hope the jingle lasts another 16 years.

Helluva run.

17541: The Tech Bro-ification Of Marketing Is Technically BS.

2026-07-19T22:27:24.745-05:00

Time published content titled, “The Tech Bro-ification of Marketing,” whereby the author believes White men are seizing control of marketing despite being outnumbered by White women.

Okay, except it’s common knowledge the White men versus White women numbers skew in favor of females, but White men still dominate in positions of power and pay.

And don’t forget White men and White women—separately and collectively—do waaaaay better in the marketing arena than people of color.

The true problem remains the whitewashing—that is, white privilege, systemic whiteness, and white supremacy—of marketing.

The Tech Bro-ification of Marketing

By Miranda Shanahan

Miranda Shanahan is a brand consultant, content creator, and speaker.

Scroll through LinkedIn, and you will find a flurry of new job listings with curious titles: “Narrative Engineer”, “UGC Engineer”, “Media Engineer.” At first glance, they sound like entirely new disciplines. Look closer, and they feel suspiciously familiar.

As someone who has built a decade-long career in the marketing industry, I wondered: Why are these marketing roles being relabeled? I took my question to social media. “Is marketing being rebranded so boys can do it too?” I quipped on TikTok between meetings.

I checked back a few hours later, and my comments section was aflame with marketers, tech folk, and VCs. Some had sensed something was off but couldn’t quite name it; others shared the most absurd titles they’d come across; and some pushed back, arguing that something genuinely new was emerging.

The tech bro-ification of marketing is underway. It’s not the first time a profession has been repackaged like this. But beneath this trend lies a broader pattern around how work is named, coded, and valued. The question: why is this happening to marketing—and why now?

Part of the answer lies in who marketing has come to be associated with. According to a study by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), 67% to 70% of marketing practitioners are women, making it one of the few female-dominated fields in the corporate sector. Research consistently shows that as a profession becomes associated with women, its pay and status tend to decline, and marketing is no exception. Plenty of professions skew one way or another, but those patterns aren’t driven by biology but rather our cultural stereotypes about who is good at what kind of work.

The marketing industry is a broad church, but decades of cultural shorthand have flattened it into something quite specific. Shows like Sex and the City and, more recently, Emily in Paris have portrayed marketing as women and gay men throwing parties and coming up with zany ideas. Over on social media, this has calcified into the “marketing girlie” trope: the personality hire who makes things pretty in Canva and forces her boss to do TikTok dances. The cliché of a tech bro, by contrast, is that of a hyper-optimized lone wolf genius. These are stereotypes, but they have economic implications.

The perceived value of a profession, the language used to describe it, and who is seen to be performing it have always been intertwined. Before “software engineer” was a job title, coding was a secretarial task, mainly done by women. Cosmopolitan even ran an article in 1967 titled The Computer Girls, touting it as an ideal career for women.

Software was “soft” work versus the “hard” work of building physical things. Even Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist at NASA in the 1960s, described feeling like a misplaced “stepchild” among the hardware engineers.

Hamilton coined the term “software engineer” in an effort to get her work taken seriously, much to the amusement of her almost exclusively male colleagues. Yet through the 70s and 80s, “software engineering” emerged as a bona fide profession: well-paid, prestigious, and over time, predominantly male.

There were many different forces responsible for the shifting demographics of the software engineering profession, but it is undeniable that changing language has a habit of changing who feels welcome. Research has shown that women are less likely to apply for roles unless they feel they are 100% qualified or, in other words, welcome.

The same dynamic is now playing out in marketing in reverse. In consumer brands, marketing has always been a core discipline. I would argue Nike’s most valuable asset isn’t the technical spec of a sneaker, but the story around it. However, in Silicon Valley, the hierarchy works differently: those who build sit above those who sell. Except now the very thing they’ve relied on for growth—coding and technical creation—has been commoditized by AI.

The first inkling of recalibration came when tech bros suddenly started emphasizing the importance of taste. “Taste is a new core skill,” declared OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. “In the AI age, taste will become even more important. When anyone can make anything, the big differentiator is what you choose to make,” pronounced technologist Paul Graham.

As Snap CEO Evan Spiegel put it: AI makes it easier to build new products, so distribution is the biggest challenge facing consumer technology businesses.

The truth is that taste, distribution, and marketing have always been important. But now that AI is cheapening other kinds of work, tech has been forced to admit that marketing actually matters.

The problem is, “marketing” comes with baggage. Decades of cultural coding have made it a hard sell internally, so tech is dressing it up in clothes they feel comfortable wearing. Brand strategists become narrative engineers. Marketing managers become growth architects. This shouldn't be much of a surprise. Tech has a penchant for taking familiar ideas and selling them back to us as revolutionary. Taxis become Ubers, bed and breakfasts become Airbnbs. Marketing is just the Emperor’s latest outfit.

In some cases, these roles are genuinely becoming more technical, but mostly the language is being stretched so thin it’s hard to separate reality from corporate fiction. Just like using a calculator doesn’t make you a mathematician, using vibe coding and automation tools doesn’t make you an engineer. Marketing has always been part science, part art. The irony is, AI is automating the technical parts faster than anything else. Creative intuition, human judgment, and, yes, taste, are still the hardest things to replace. Yet still, employers reach for technical language to signal value.

Perhaps the upside will be that job titles with a technical veneer could command higher salaries and more respect from leaders who respond better to “engineer” than “marketer.” The problem, though, is the more we conflate value with tech, the more we devalue the art of marketing and the people who practice it.

It might not seem that deep, but marketing’s rebrand is part of a bigger pattern. When you control the vocabulary of a field, you decide who deserves a place. Tech has always been good at making familiar ideas feel like breakthroughs, and marketing is just the latest one.

17540: Honestly, New Farmers Insurance Campaign Is BS.

2026-07-18T23:02:34.404-05:00

Advertising Age spotlighted the newish campaign for Farmers Insurance produced by new White advertising agency Dentsu Creative, with media duties being handled by new White media agency Havas Media.

The campaign theme declares, “Honesty Is Our Policy.”

Good luck promoting that platform. After all, advertising practitioners and insurance salespeople are consistently ranked among the least-trusted professions.

Farmers Insurance unveils a pink-drenched refresh and tweak to its jingle

By Tim Nudd

Farmers Insurance is refreshing its brand with a coat of pink paint and a change to its famous jingle.

The company’s first major brand refresh in several years debuts in a campaign from new agency Dentsu Creative. The effort, themed “Honesty Is Our Policy,” debuts today (July 13) across TV, digital, social, out-of-home and experiential. It includes updated branding that prominently features bright pink visuals and a reworked version of the insurer’s longtime jingle.

A minimalist 30-second anthem spot … speaks directly to viewers against a solid pink background, delivering a straightforward message about understanding insurance. The spot also introduces a choir that will become a recurring brand element as part of the new platform.

Longtime spokesman J.K. Simmons is absent from the new campaign. “Professor Burke has been a strong and recognizable part of the Farmers brand for many years, but all professors reach their tenure, and we’ve retired him from the new campaign,” Farmers told Ad Age.

The choir sings much of the dialogue in the melody of the famous Farmers audio signature. At the end, the “We Are Farmers” refrain has been rewritten as “You Have Farmers,” shifting the focus from the company to the customer.

Supporting spots have a similar structure.

The repositioning reflects Farmers’ effort to address what it sees as lingering confusion around insurance policies and coverage details. Rather than emphasizing products or pricing, the campaign focuses on helping consumers better understand what their policies include and how coverage works, using more direct language across marketing and customer communications.

“The strategy is grounded in a simple belief: our customers’ insurance coverage should be easy to understand, with no jargon, no big words and no lawyer needed to make sense of it,” said Eleanor Solomon, head of creative for Farmers Insurance. “Farmers is introducing tools that help make insurance easier to navigate—highlighting what is and is not covered, offering coverage reviews even if your policy is with another insurer, and, in some cases, helping consumers explore alternatives when Farmers isn’t a fit for them.”

“The strongest brands don’t abandon their history, they build on it,” said Andres Arlia, executive creative director at Dentsu Creative. “We took the equity Farmers has earned over decades and reimagined it for a moment when consumers are looking for transparency over jargon and understanding over complexity. Every creative choice, from the visual refresh to evolving ‘We Are Farmers’ into ‘You Have Farmers,’ was designed to make the brand feel useful, human and relevant.”

The work is Dentsu Creative’s first major campaign for Farmers since being named the insurer’s creative agency of record. Before moving to Dentsu this spring, the Farmers account had been at RPA since 2010.

17539: WPP CPO WTF.

2026-07-17T15:47:31.212-05:00

More About Advertising reported on impending layoffs at WPP, spotlighting the new WPP Media Chief People Officer, who will likely be among key players executing the latest RIF.

The content closed by asking: Is there a People job in [Adland] that doesn’t really mean less people?

That’s a good question, prompting a Google search to define the C-suite function. According to M&A Executive Search, CPO responsibilities include:

• Shaping organizational culture and employee experience

• Developing DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) programs

• Creating leadership development initiatives

• Driving employee engagement strategies

• Aligning the workforce with the company vision and values

• Building talent acquisition competitive advantages

• Fostering a sense of purpose and belonging

Okay, except no way can a new CPO shape organizational culture and employee experience at a global flaming dumpster that is burning out of control.

DEIBA+ programs have already been abandoned.

Leadership development cannot commence until after dealing with honcho redundancies, resignations, and restructurings.

Employee engagement strategies likely involve mandated rah-rah events.

Expressing the company vision and values won’t happen before WPP CEO Cindy Rose hatches and articulates the grand scheme. For now, it’s chirping crickets.

Talent acquisition competitive advantages are trumped by talent termination.

Sense of purpose and belonging? Nonsense of purpose and belonging would be a more appropriate term.

In short, given WPP’s current death-spiraling direction, the CPO role could be handled via AI—or eliminated entirely.

WPP sets sail for another round of job cuts

By Stephen Foster

WPP is reportedly embarking on another round of job cuts and newly-hired chief people officer at WPP Media Darren Minshall looks as though he’s been hired to lead the charge. Or maybe retreat. WPP Media employs about 40,000 people.

Like all such execs Minshall [above], who’s worked at numerous companies including, back in the day, Havas and MullenLowe, says the right things including “AI isn’t the hard part. Leading people through it is” and “AI should improve work, not blindly replace it” which may reassure some WPP Media folk although the embattled holding company, first under Mark Read and now under Cindy Rose, has made no secret that it sees AI as the secret sauce to put it back on the road to growth.

So will Minshall be the grim reaper, on the lines of George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air, where he plays corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham or someone to bring a little balance to the seemingly AI-obsessed holding company?

WPP is now divided into creative, media, production and commerce and most people expect its creative agencies to bear the brunt of tech-driven changes. When JWT, Y&R and Wunderman were lumped together with VML it was said to be the biggest creative agency in the world with about 30,000 people. WPP also has Ogilvy of course, which seems to be staying above the fray.

But the old GroupM media operation comprising EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker was pretty substantial and numerous too and, although its fortunes have recovered to a degree, it has still to return to winning ways for the world’s really big media accounts, most of which are at Publicis with some others at Omnicom.

Is there a People job in adland that doesn’t really mean less people?

17538: On Farmers Insurance And City Slickers-Hucksters.

2026-07-16T00:12:47.371-05:00

MediaPost reported Farmers Insurance named Havas Media as its new White media agency. Earlier in the year, the insurance company appointed Dentsu Creative as its new White advertising agency.

The only explanation for such mediocre firms winning media and creative duties must be the other White holding companies—Publicis Groupe, Omnicom, and WPP—already service insurance brands.

Referring to the latest campaign platform, the head of creative for Farmers Insurance declared, “The strategy is grounded in a simple belief: our customers’ insurance coverage should be easy to understand, with no jargon, no big words, and no lawyer needed to make sense of it.”

The same probably cannot be said for coordinating efforts between Havas Media and Dentsu Creative.

If there’s a policy covering marketing malpractice, Farmers Insurance should apply pronto.

Havas Media Named AOR For Farmers Insurance

By Steve McClellan

Farmers Insurance has appointed Havas Media as its new media agency of record after a review, the company confirmed today.

Farmers’ estimated annual media expenditure is $51.5 million, according to agency research firm COMvergence.

“Effective immediately, Havas will support media strategy, planning, buying, activation and measurement across Farmers Insurance’s national marketing initiatives,” the company stated.

Earlier this year, Farmers Insurance launched separate creative and media agency reviews. The firm announced that it had named Dentsu Creative as its new media agency in April.

The firm previously worked with both RPA and Zenith on media assignments. RPA had been the firm’s longtime creative agency.

Separately, the company unveiled the first work from Dentsu Creative and new assets that the company said are designed to make its offerings easier for consumers to understand. Changes include the new Farmers Coverage on a Page resource, a snapshot of coverage included in select Farmers auto and home policies. Also new: Farmers Coverage Review sessions.

“The strategy is grounded in a simple belief: our customers’ insurance coverage should be easy to understand, with no jargon, no big words, and no lawyer needed to make sense of it,” stated Eleanor Solomon, head of creative for Farmers Insurance.

17537: WPP Reduces Staff, Increases Exclusivity.

2026-07-14T18:13:42.151-05:00

Advertising Age reported WPP plans to eliminate hundreds more jobs in 2026 as the Roserrection advances.

Advertising icon Jay Chiat famously wondered, “How big can we get before we get bad?”

As this blog previously opined, WPP answered that question for holding companies decades ago. The global flaming dumpster continued answering the query for White advertising agencies, bundling and erasing iconic firms to create mediocre monstrosities like VML.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose now finds herself in the peculiar position of trying to answer, “How small can we get before we get bad?”

There’s something counterintuitive about improving WPP by firing thousands.

Rose can feel relieved DEIBA+ dedication disappeared before she joined, so Elevate28 need not be concerned with outdated imperatives such as fairness, equality, and justice.

Ad Age stated, “Cindy Rose has acknowledged that there will be job cuts and said that savings will come largely from eliminating duplicative finance and HR functions…” Um, Chief Diversity Officers and DEIBA+ teams were typically compartmentalized in the HR department.

It appears Elevate28 will elevate exclusivity, underrepresentation, and systemic racism—except for White women—potentially taking the industry back to 1928.

WPP plans to cut hundreds more jobs this year as its restructuring continues

By Ewan Larkin

WPP expects to cut jobs globally in the mid-to-high hundreds between now and the end of the year, according to a person familiar with the matter, as part of the company’s ongoing turnaround strategy.

Some employees were informed today of their roles being affected at WPP agencies including VML, though the scope of today’s cuts was not immediately clear. WPP and VML declined to comment for this story. WPP had 98,655 employees at the end of 2025, it previously reported.

The layoffs are part of WPP’s broader Elevate28 turnaround plan, under which the company is targeting £500 million ($678 million) in annual cost savings by 2028. CEO Cindy Rose has acknowledged that there will be job cuts and said that savings will come largely from eliminating duplicative finance and HR functions, cutting real estate costs and selling assets. The company has also reorganized into four core units: creative, production, media and enterprise solutions.

WPP’s workforce has contracted sharply in recent years. The British holding company ended 2025 with 8.7% fewer employees, accelerating from a 5.4% decline the year before. That left its workforce at the end of last year at about 1,200 employees below its 2020 level, when pandemic-era cuts reduced staffing by about 6.5%.

Contributing: Brian Bonilla and Jess Nagamoto

17536: OOH WPP VML ODN WTF.

2026-07-13T13:01:27.218-05:00

The social media post depicted above from Outdoor Nation unintentionally underscores how Adland is a messy cesspool.

First, WPP Creative White advertising agency VML hatched the Wendy’s creative campaign to run in Indianapolis. Um, localized messaging is hardly groundbreaking—and this concept doesn’t even qualify as mediocre.

Next, Outdoor Nation boasting about its strategic media plan is pathetic too. Surely the strategizing, planning, and execution could have been handled via AI or any entry-level media wonk who wasn’t replaced by AI.

Additionally, WPP has been positioning itself as a single White operating company, offering simplicity, efficacy, and efficiency to clients. Yet Outdoor Nation is an independent vendor. So, why did VML partner with the Tennessee-based firm versus tapping WPP Media—given the global unit supposedly won the Wendy’s media account earlier this year?

Finally, the social media post and associated PR make no mention of Black-owned media involvement, which is outrageous given Blacks represent nearly 28% of Indianapolis’ population.

In summation, the OOH from VML, WPP, and ODN warrants WTF.

17535: DIY Multicultural Marketing From The Home Depot…?

2026-07-12T22:50:03.507-05:00

ModernRetail at Digiday reported The Home Depot recognizes Latinos comprise a major revenue-generating opportunity, prompting World Cup promotional activities to reach the audience—because Latinos love soccer.

The Home Depot evicted BBDO as its White advertising agency earlier this year, moving marketing duties to in-house resources.

Plus, the retailer is among corporations that bowed to political pressures, quietly abandoning DEIBA+ dedication in 2025.

Is The Home Depot tapping internal or external experts to verify Latino-targeted messages are relevant, authentic, and culturally competent?

Are the multicultural initiatives receiving fair marketing budgets—or crumbs?

Are in-house resources such as Orange Apron Media and Studio Orange predominately White?

Don’t expect official statements—delivered in English or Spanish—anytime soon.

Hispanic shoppers and pro customers are key to The Home Depot’s World Cup retail media strategy

By Mitchell Parton

While The Home Depot is not a sports equipment or sports apparel retailer, its consumer base has given it ample reason to develop a comprehensive retail media strategy around the World Cup.

Customers often come to The Home Depot and other home improvement retailers to solve a problem or take on a project — especially working professionals like remodelers, painters, electricians, plumbers and other contractors.

Taryn Dominie, senior director and head of industry for Orange Apron Media — The Home Depot’s retail media network — said the diversity of the growing soccer fan base mirrors that of its customer base, especially among its pro customers. “A good majority of our pro customers are multicultural, and [The World Cup] just gives us a way to really connect in a deeper, more meaningful way with those pro customers,” she said.

Hispanics make up around 30% of the construction workforce in the U.S, and U.S. Hispanic consumers surveyed by Nielsen in 2024 or 2025 were 87% more likely to say they had watched a World Cup qualifier match in the past 12 months, according to a 2025 Nielsen report. Hispanic individuals are also 39% more likely than the total population to be avid Major League Soccer fans, Nielsen found.

Molly Battin, svp and CMO of The Home Depot, told the Hispanic Marketing Council last month that the company expects “multicultural” customers — led by Latinos — to make up more than 40% of the home improvement category by 2040. “We see the Hispanic market and the Latino community as a huge growth opportunity for The Home Depot,” she said.

For Orange Apron, sports marketing in general has also been an opportunity to drive deeper partnerships with supplier partners through big cultural moments. The company has done College Game Day partnerships over the years as well as deals with MLS, the U.S. men’s national soccer team, March Madness and NCAA, Dominie said. “We’re talking about partnerships that extend beyond our traditional media, whether it be digital or linear, to real, grassroots fan engagement opportunities.”

Orange Apron’s involvement in the World Cup has included in-person events and in-store activations, primarily featuring the paint brand Behr and the power tools manufacturer Makita. Centering its activations around just a couple of brands has allowed Orange Apron to co-create more interactive and tailored experiences, Dominie said.

The Home Depot has hosted interactive houses called “Beckham’s Backyard” at official FIFA Fan Festivals that featured Behr and Makita, allowing them to have a presence at official FIFA events in cities such as Atlanta without being official FIFA sponsors. The activations are named after former soccer player and club owner David Beckham, who also has appeared in national commercials and digital content for The Home Depot during the World Cup.

The activations included a Behr-sponsored digital target-practice game where fans kicked soccer balls, as well as a Makita-hosted station where guests could decorate paper fans, according to Sports Business Journal.

The retailer also collaborated with soccer media network Men In Blazers on a bus that doubles as a studio for Men In Blazers. It has been traveling to World Cup host cities, with signage featuring Behr and Makita. In stores, The Home Depot offered a custom FIFA scarf to customers who bought certain Makita power tools. Outside of the advertising business, on the enterprise level, The Home Depot was doing in-store integrations around the World Cup with sweepstakes components and ticket giveaway opportunities.

“We really went into this knowing that we wanted an integrated, fully omnichannel experience that we were creating for our customers and in partnership with our brands,” Dominie said.

The Home Depot is also having a bus going around to different cities in the U.S. for watch parties where fans and pro customers can participate in events such as T-shirt giveaways and cornhole tournaments, also presented by Behr and Makita. “We want it to be more fun, because it’s a watch party, essentially, but still an opportunity for Behr to engage their top pros, engage the traditional DIY fan base, and talk about what makes Behr and Makita special and relevant — and do it in kind of a fun way, with giveaways and some engaging activities during those fan fests.”

Dominie said The Home Depot has not yet measured the success of the World Cup partnerships, as it is still ongoing, but plans to look at brand lift and purchase intent. She added, however, that the company has found co-branded sports sponsorship programs can increase purchase intent by as much as 40%.

“It’s truly a partnership where we align on common goals, and we co-create opportunities to create value for our customers and [clients’] customers, and create meaningful moments that are unique to what only we can do together,” Dominie said. “It goes beyond sponsorship, and it’s about partnership.”

Andrew Lipsman, a retail media industry analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce, said that because advertising has moved toward digital performance media, it can be easy to forget that good advertising works through cultural relevance and high-quality content reaching wide audiences — such as through experiential marketing and national TV advertising.

“When you can reach the right audiences … and show that there is that alignment around common events or common cultural moments, it creates brand affinity,” Lipsman said. “That brand affinity doesn’t have to translate into a sale at the store at that moment; it just makes you slightly more inclined to visit that store and slightly more inclined to purchase a brand over time.”

Ace Hardware has also found that a high share of its customers are interested in sports such as soccer and baseball, according to Tyler Lusebrink, head of brand partnerships at RedVest Media, Ace Hardware’s retail media division that launched last year.

“Our focus generally has been: How can we partner with our brand partners to really take advantage of capturing some of that engagement from customers during this big cultural moment?” Lusebrink said. Brands wanting to take advantage of the World Cup are executing full-funnel campaigns with “a heavy lean into off-site programmatic, broad awareness-type tactics that can engage with customers throughout their journey,” he added.

These aren’t necessarily campaigns with creative themed around the World Cup — Ace Hardware is not an official sponsor — but they may amplify national messaging that brands are already pushing to reach customers who may be watching the World Cup and related content. ACE Hardware has a media partnership with Epsilon to deploy assets across websites across the web.

“We see the World Cup in cultural moments like this as an opportunity for brands to engage with the customer directly in a high-intent mindset,” Lusebrink said. “They’re online, they’re doing research, they’re looking at game recaps and highlights, and brands know that they can get in front of consumers and engage with them to drive them into their brand.”