When sports marketing moves at the pace of the game, Coca-Cola can’t keep its campaigns or creativity bottled up.

At the beginning of this year’s NCAA men’s and women’s March Madness basketball tournaments, The Coca-Cola Company and its partners at Cartwright Creative released a one-minute spot for Coke Zero Sugar, “Free Throw Madness.”

The spot featured college fans from Tennessee, Duke (including alum and ESPN analyst Jay Williams), Connecticut, South Carolina (including graduate and 2023 WNBA No. 1 draft pick Aliyah Boston), Arizona State, Louisiana State and others placing curses on men’s and women’s free-throw shooters, contorting their faces into manic screams to the tune of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.”

The ad launched in early March, and Coca-Cola could’ve simply let it run through the tournament, ignoring the less relevant references as teams dropped out, the escalating women’s tournament ratings through the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 and Deloitte’s warning that brands could reap seven dollars of value for every dollar spent on women’s sports. However, the company didn’t do that.

Instead, Coca-Cola and Cartwright went to Los Angeles on April 1, shooting new footage for the schools the first ad missed—North Carolina State, Purdue, Alabama and Iowa (complete with a player with an oddly familiar dark ponytail). They cobbled together two new spots—one for the men’s tournament and one for the women’s—out of new and existing footage, dropping Williams and keeping Boston.

As one of the NCAA’s top-tier “Corporate Champion” sponsors, Coca-Cola had its ad run on TBS and ESPN in front of growing Final Four viewership for both men’s and women’s games and during finals in which the women’s viewership for Caitlin Clark’s Iowa and Dawn Staley’s champion South Carolina squad outpaced the men’s by four million.

ADWEEK spoke with Coca-Cola North America’s chief of marketing, Shakir Moin, about keeping up with modern sports fans, acknowledging the growing power of women’s sports and finding Coca-Cola’s often surreal place in sports fandom.

ADWEEK: In an era of sports marketing where all of your social media and much of your digital marketing can update with the game’s progress, not having an adaptable ad campaign seems like a wasted opportunity. How did this one come together?

Moin: The work behind this started more than 15 months back. 

The work started with fall football, and we continued to take the idea of March Madness. One of the things we realized is that we sometimes endanger our work by logo pasting: There’s an event, we are a partner of it and we are bringing this event to you. That doesn’t have a lot of relevance for an average person.

For about four months, we kept obsessing about this: We understand sports and we understand our brand, but what is the nexus where the two meet? Passionate fans have one thing in common: They sing, dance, cheer and enjoy themselves, and when they do that, they get thirsty. When they get thirsty, hopefully, they’re going to have a Coca-Cola.

The discussion I had with my team was that it has to be something where you cannot put a car, you cannot put a candy, you cannot put a phone: It has to be, first, a beverage and, then, with the values we execute, has to be just Coca-Cola. We found that space, which is “Fan Work is Thirsty Work.”

So what made you opt to illustrate the fan experience this way?

Understanding the culture of basketball, we found this magical space of spells. 

We asked, “How do we bring that to life?” That captures the essence of fan passion. Every spell is physical. It makes us thirsty, and that’s where Coca-Cola comes in. Then, you have the craft behind getting the music and the moments right. Our machinery obsesses about the execution of every single element. Where does the content show up? Why? What is that moment? 

This time, I’m particularly happy because as we got deeper into culture, we saw that the ultimate experience that we can bring when it comes to content is to show Sunday night, who’s going to win the Final Four and put the team up. So far, we don’t have that capability. But once it narrowed, we worked on the elements of logistics. How can we shoot the right stuff, make it available and edit it? It cannot look like a sloppy job just because we’re showing the Final Four teams in it. Thankfully, we were able to get that done for the first time in almost real time so that our message was going out at the same time those teams were playing.

The spots connected a lot of disparate elements—the active teams, the ominous music, the surrealist fan expressions, the face paint, the outfits, famous athletes, the pain of loss, the joy of victory—with two ends of a free throw. How did your creative team link it all together?

On every second Thursday, I have a routine with my creative teams called goosebumps. The four creative directors come in [and] we look at creativity: ours, outside, in the market, thought leaders. Everything comes into play, just to learn.

In last week’s creativity, we were talking about photography, and how to get the Coca-Cola photography right. I’ve been with the company for 28 years, and part of the longevity is understanding the brand deeply—its history, its context. What I’m sharing with them is that word “surreal”: That Coke is a real brand, but it is always surreal because it brings an element of not fantasy but a possibility. A moment that you would want to be in versus the moment you were in. 

Fan passion seemed to be another key element of this campaign, and Coca-Cola addressed it in both the men’s and women’s game. How did Coca-Cola and Cartwright assess the benefits of addressing those audiences separately and ensuring each spot could stand on its own?

Historically, I don’t think we ever used female basketball players in our campaigns. 

We hope that one day women’s basketball is going to be as big as men’s, and can we play a role in this? I obsess a lot on creativity, but one of the dangers that I see is that even with the best of intentions sometimes we don’t get the path right.

The focus on women was all about belief. It has to stand on its own, and the litmus test is that if the men didn’t exist, the women’s work will [still] be awesome. 

That in itself became a brief. On women, the details matter. The fact that [the Iowa player] had a ponytail matters a lot. That was what we were hoping was going to come through because then it is not elitist. It is not a specific group. It shows breaking the boundaries in many ways and interesting ways.

It started with this belief that one day, surely, women are going to be as big as men—maybe bigger. But why not start today?

Heading into Monday’s WNBA Draft, Ice Cube’s offer to Caitlin Clark to play in his Big3 league still stands at $5 million for eight games.

For Ice Cube and Big3 partner Jeff Kwatinetz—founder and CEO of production company/record label/management agency The Firm—the lucrative offer to join the Big3 next season isn’t a marketing move. Much like drawing Procter & Gamble, Merck and Capital One as sponsors for the upcoming Big3 season, the offer to Clark is a business decision based on rare opportunity.

“It’s really about being a fan: Being a fan of the game, being a fan of my heroes, like Dr. J, Iceman, Rick Barry and Gary Payton,” Ice Cube told ADWEEK. “And making sure if you’re gonna invite them to dinner, you better not have no fucking paper plates. Pull out the good stuff.”

And Clark requires the good stuff.

Clark sets the bar

The numbers around Clark speak for themselves.

ESPN’s record-breaking viewership during Clark’s March Madness run with Iowa averaged 18.9 million during the NCAA championship game and peaked at nearly 25 million—an average audience larger than any non-NFL sports broadcast beyond the Ohio State-Michigan football matchup.

Showcasing Clark’s star power, the WNBA recently released its schedule of games across broadcast and streaming partners ESPN, CBS Television Network/Paramount+, CBS Sports Network, ION, NBA TV and Prime Video—which just signed a multi-year rights extension with the league. Those broadcasts include 36 of the 40 scheduled games of Clark’s presumptive team, the Indiana Fever.

In fact, the E.W. Scripps Company’s upfront pitch deck already touts the fact that the company’s ION channel will air more Caitlin Clark Fever matchups (8) than any other outlet.

“With the energy and excitement already generated by what we anticipate will be a star-studded rookie class, and on the heels of a 2023 season that featured one of the greatest MVP races in WNBA history and our most-watched regular season in over two decades, the WNBA’s broadcast and streaming partners are offering a huge national platform,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

In addition, Clark is bringing a host of sponsors with her, including Gainbridge, Panini, Nike, Gatorade and State Farm—which is buying up Times Square for her on draft day. 

Leading up to the WNBA Draft, State Farm is dedicating a two-screen 3D installation to her at Duffy Square in Times Square—highlighting her records and congratulating her once she’s picked. During draft day, State Farm is also sending its Jake from State Farm character to the event with Turner Networks/Thursday Night Football/Bleacher Report journalist Taylor Rooks to congratulate Clark in person.

“For us, we couldn’t be more excited to see Caitlin going into the draft,” said Patty Morris, marketing executive at State Farm. “Next week is going to be a watershed moment in women’s sports as this draft class comes through.”

In an increasingly fragmented marketplace, that type of viewership and brand pull—or the Caitlin Clark Effect—makes a difference.

Ice-ing the competition

With the potential addition of Clark, the Big3’s 3-on-3 league would look to build on the 515,000 viewers it averaged for CBS last year, which topped same-day audiences for the NBA summer league and Major League Baseball, as well as Premier League Soccer and the WNBA.

Though it may seem a stretch for Clark to join Big3 for the uninitiated, the league is also no stranger to stars, serving as a home for former NBA players such as Cuttino Mobley, Jason Richardson, Joe Johnson and Nick Young. It also has a history of going after elite women’s players.

For instance, Kwatinetz noted that the Big3 reached out to former University of Connecticut and Minnesota Lynx standout Maya Moore after she took a hiatus from the WNBA to pursue criminal justice reform and, eventually, secure her now-husband Jonathan Irons’ release from prison and exoneration. Of course, Moore retired from basketball altogether.

In addition to players, the league values star coaches, with a roster including Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers George “Iceman” Gervin, “Dr. J” Julius Erving (whose eight-year tenure there is just shy of the 11 he spent with the Philadelphia 76ers) and Lisa Leslie.

Nancy Lieberman, another of the Big3’s star coaches, provides some of the most valuable insight into Clark’s potential double duty in the WNBA and Big3.

Split decisions

Fans have already seen the connection between Clark and Lieberman.

During each of her last three seasons at Iowa, Clark received the Nancy Lieberman award as the nation’s best point guard in women’s college basketball, a trophy that’s been handed to legends in the game, including recently retired WNBA player and Deep Blue agency partner Sue Bird, Phoenix Mercury and Team USA veteran Diana Taurasi and Nike ambassador and NBA All-Star three-point challenger Sabrina Ionescu.

Beyond the namesake hardware, Lieberman also split time among leagues during her career.

After winning multiple national championships during her collegiate career at Old Dominion, Lieberman played in the now-defunct Women’s Pro Basketball League (WBL) and Women’s American Basketball Association (WABA) before brief stints with the WNBA.

However, she also joined the Los Angeles Lakers summer league team under coach Pat Riley in 1980. (“I was his first point guard, not Magic [Johnson],” Lieberman noted.) She’s played several seasons in the men’s United States Basketball League (USBL) and played for coach Frank Layden on the Utah Jazz’s summer league team.

Named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996, Lieberman came to Big3 with the promise that she’d make the same amount as contemporaries like Dr. J and Gervin—and receive the same Hall of Fame treatment.

“[Ice Cube] knows what that next level is, and the expectation,” Lieberman said. “We’re not eating off paper plates. Every time we walk out there, we’re at a five-star restaurant … these are former NBA athletes who gave their lives to give their families generational wealth, and it’s important that they’re treated in this next step of their career with the same respect that they had.”

Now an announcer for both the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans—also recently coaching in the NCAA’s first women’s all-star game—Lieberman sees the $5 million offer to Clark as an illustration of how the Big3 values women at the top levels of its sport. She noted that, in business, leaders typically want to know if a prospect can make their company better, increase its impact on people and make everyone more money along the way. 

Why can’t Dawn Staley get the [University of] Kentucky coaching job that’s open now that [John Calipari] left? This is the difference between the Big3 and a lot of other people: They are receptive to greatness.

Nancy Lieberman

She’d like to see the same standard applied in basketball, where NCAA coaches Dawn Staley and Kim Mulkey, NBA G League Coach of the Year Lindsey Harding and former NBA assistant and two-time WNBA champion coach Becky Hammon still aren’t considered for the sport’s top jobs. 

“Why can’t Dawn Staley get the [University of] Kentucky coaching job that’s open now that [John Calipari] left?” Lieberman said. “This is the difference between the Big3 and a lot of other people: They are receptive to greatness … I am celebrated, not tolerated in the Big3, and that’s why I’m riding and dying with this group.”

No paper products allowed

Ice Cube told ADWEEK that Caitlin Clark is “a once-in-a-lifetime player” whose specific effects on Big3 would be “undeniable.”

Meanwhile, his colleagues in the Big3 said the league’s offer to her is consistent with how the mogul has pursued talent since the league formed in 2017, and that’s why the $5 million contract offer isn’t going anywhere.

“It didn’t matter to him necessarily if there was a woman or a man: He wanted the Hall of Fame recognition, but he wanted people that he knew could win,” said Nikki Ambrifi, the Big3’s vp of sales strategy. “He just wants the best coaches and the best players to play for his league.”

In the flush of obituaries following the death of O.J. Simpson on Wednesday, media outlets have found themselves looking back on one man—and many careers.

There’s Simpson the Hall of Fame football star and the actor who popped up in films like The Naked Gun. There’s Simpson the sportscaster, franchisee, real estate investor and—memorably—the face of Hertz rental cars for a whole generation.

And, of course, there was the man accused in 1994 (and later acquitted) of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, and who later served prison time for a 2007 kidnapping and armed robbery in Las Vegas.

Just as Simpson’s multifarious past complicates how sports fans regard him, it’s likely to do the same to the marketing community. Because while Simpson helped blaze the trail for retired athletes to become big-time brand endorsers, he was an early example of how perilous those deals can become when a star spokesperson gets into trouble.

Hertz signed Simpson in 1975. For nearly 20 years afterward, Americans watched TV spots featuring “O.J. Simpson flying through an airport to illustrate the company’s speed of service,” ADWEEK reported in a 1980 story.

Pro athletes had shilled for brands before, of course, but Simpson’s gig was the first to morph into a pop-culture phenomenon. The Washington Post would later term him “Rent-a-Star.”

Eager to keep a good thing going, Hertz extended Simpson’s contract to 1997. But not long after murder allegations against Simpson hit the news in June 1994, the car-rental giant was mashing the accelerator to get away from him.

“Obviously, Hertz has no plans to utilize Mr. Simpson in advertising,” a spokesperson told the Washington Post at the time.

Simpson arguably earned the six-figure paycheck that The New York Times reported Hertz paid him yearly. Shortly after his ads began airing, Hertz notched a 56% increase in public perception of it as the leading brand in its category, according to a 1977 Rolling Stone story. But cutting Simpson loose left a vacuum where a marketing strategy used to be—and did few favors for Hertz’s image.

It was a lesson that brands would learn over and over again.

Olympian Michael Phelps adorned boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes but disappeared in 2009 after photos surfaced showing the champion swimmer toking on a hash pipe. When reports of doping clouded cycling great Lance Armstrong in 2012, eight brands he’d endorsed tore up his contract in a single day.

Self-destructing celebrity endorsers are hardly limited to athletes, either. In 2022, Adidas cut loose Ye (Kanye West) in 2022 following the rapper’s antisemitic tirade—costing it a reported $540 million.

Endorsements from celebs—star athletes among them—have since become an indispensable part of the marketer’s toolbox. But Simpson will always be a textbook case of the risks brands run when spending their marketing dollars on celebrities.

Banking giant Citigroup has appointed veteran financial services executive Alex Craddock as chief marketing and content officer in a newly created title, the company said.

Craddock was most recently the CMO of BlackRock which, with some $10 trillion under management, is the largest global investment manager in the world. Craddock has also served as global CMO for HP’s Personal Systems Group and has held down several marketing posts over a 12-year tenure at Visa, most recently senior vice president, head of global brand and product marketing.

Craddock’s appointment comes at a knotty time for Citigroup. In September 2023, CEO Jane Fraser commenced an extensive reorganization that included stripping out a layer of senior management, closing down some operations and eliminating 5,000 jobs, all with the goal of “putting us on the front foot and improving our competitiveness,” Fraser said in a memo reported by Reuters. In January, Citigroup reported a $1.8 billion loss for Q4.

The top marketer’s chair at Citi has been empty since October 2021, when CMO Carla Zakhem-Hassan left for JPMorgan Chase, where she remains as CMO.

The job Craddock is assuming will be larger than the one Zakhem-Hassan left. According to an internal memo from chief client officer David Livingstone, “we created the Chief Marketing and Content Officer role to oversee Citi’s enterprise and business marketing and set the strategy for producing original content and thought leadership.”

Craddock’s résumé includes more than 25 years of experience in business development and international marketing. He holds a B.A. in European Business and French from Nottingham Trent University. He will report directly to Livingstone, a Credit Suisse veteran who joined Citigroup in 2016. Livingstone’s complete memo appears below.

_________

All,

I am pleased to announce that Citi’s new Chief Marketing and Content Officer will be Alex Craddock, a proven industry leader who most recently served as the Global Chief Marketing Officer of BlackRock. 

As part of the firm’s enhanced focus on clients, we created the Chief Marketing and Content Officer role to oversee Citi’s enterprise and business marketing and set the strategy for producing original content and thought leadership. These activities are central to how clients experience Citi. Bringing them together in the Client organisation improves their co-ordination and ensures our clients are at the heart of our marketing and content delivery strategies. 

Alex knows firsthand what our clients expect from Citi, given his strong record of leading marketing for one of our biggest clients, BlackRock. During a 30-year career, Alex also led global marketing for Hewlett Packard’s PC and mobile device business. Additionally, he spent 12 years at Visa Inc. where he held various executive marketing leadership roles, his last position being Global Head of Brand and Product Marketing.

Alex’s decision to join Citi is another example of our ability to attract the industry’s best talent to our firm. At BlackRock, he was responsible for developing and executing a global marketing strategy that accelerated the commercial growth of the company, enhancing BlackRock’s corporate brand and driving growth for its core products. I expect him quickly to put that experience to good use as we integrate our enterprise and business marketing, establish leadership with our high quality insights and content, and accelerate revenue growth through greater impact with clients.

Alex will join Citi next month and report to me. He will lead an integrated marketing and content organisation that includes our enterprise marketing and brand engagement team, the marketing teams for our Services, Commercial Banking, Wealth and U.S. Personal Banking businesses, the Client Access and Strategic Engagement team, as well as the Global Insights and Content team. 

Please join me in congratulating Alex and welcoming him to the firm.

David Livingstone

Over the past year, the ad industry has witnessed a deprioritizing of DEI initiatives through a series of events: CMOs are back to focusing on hard-hitting business goals, brands are hesitant to use LGBTQ+ marketing and the data shows women make up 37% of the industry employees, still down from 50% before the pandemic.

However, there’s another way to create a more inclusive world involving the creatives.

Enter: Design justice, a practice that rethinks design processes and focuses on people who they often marginalize. This approach calls for collaborative and creative practices to approach these communities’ deeper challenges.

On the latest episode of Yeah, That’s Probably An Ad, community editor Luz Corona and Europe brand editor Rebecca Stewart sit down with Karen Baker, founder and president of the agency Boathouse, sharing the purpose of design justice, examples of the concept in action and why marketers should feel inspired by Lego and Netflix.

Stream the new episode below, listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or find it on Spotify.

The E.W. Scripps Company wants to flip the script on how advertisers see it this upfront season, and it’s doing so with a little help from Caitlin Clark.

With upcoming opportunities around Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever and an ION rebrand, Brian Norris, the company’s chief revenue officer, told ADWEEK that he wants marketers to be clear on “what Scripps stands for,” as the company is “all in” on investing in content and tech across its divisions of Scripps Sports, Scripps Networks and Scripps News.

“I want marketers to know that we’re here to support their brands, and they can develop these authentic connections via the sports landscape,” Norris said. “They shouldn’t be afraid to support news and know what we bring to the table, which is going to be longer-form storytelling opportunities.”

Norris walked ADWEEK through the company’s pitch deck to marketers ahead of its presentation on April 9 at New World Stages, showcasing the opportunities through women’s sports, the importance of an ION rebrand to content offerings and how the company is offering progam-level transparency.

Heavy investment in women’s sports

Among the highlights, the pitch deck showcases how the first year of Friday night WNBA games on ION raised viewership for the league by 24%, with a return set for the season kickoff in May. Those numbers are in a position to increase even more in 2024, with the company featuring eight matchups with the Indiana Fever, the team set to add Caitlin Clark at the upcoming WNBA draft.

With the offering, the company boasts more Caitlin Clark games than any other WNBA broadcaster, according to Norris.

In addition to Friday night WNBA games, the company is showcasing its upcoming Saturday night NWSL doubleheaders, which are already underway in the first year of Scripps’ contract with the league. With the deal, ION is featuring 50 NWSL games—which Norris also noted is more than any other broadcaster—with live studio programming surrounding both sports nights.

“We have some incredible sponsorship partners like State Farm who have made commitments to Scripps in women’s sports, but we have plenty of other opportunities for brands to get in at the ground floor,” Norris said. “When we look at the sports landscape, these opportunities don’t come around all too often.”

Along with the sports investment comes an ION rebrand

The pitch deck notes that the majority of Scripps viewers watch live, with 95% of viewers watching live on linear TV and FAST viewing growing 93% in 2023.

Considering its live viewership, as well as its sports offerings, the company is rebranding ION as a sports, general entertainment and live events network.

In addition to its sports nights on Friday and Saturday, ION’s roster includes the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which airs across Scripps’ portfolio and has its 100th anniversary in 2025, as well as a bolstered lineup of drama offerings, with the newest seasons of Blue Bloods, NCIS, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, FBI and others joining the fray later in the year.

“It was important for us to connect audiences with those powerful procedurals and sports,” Norris said. “We took a look at what ION stood for, and that’s when we came up with this community and connection theme for this year.”

The rebrand includes a new on-air look, with the branding reflected on ION Mystery, the company’s home for thrillers and docuseries, and its ION Plus FAST channel. Scripps will roll out an upcoming yearlong marketing campaign to drive awareness.

Successful multicultural audience track-record

Scripps’ upfront pitch deck also showcases the company’s multicultural reach, including its 46% multicultural audience. The company explains it has three of the top six networks for delivering African American audiences—ION at No.2, Grit at No.6 and Bounce, which Norris said was the fastest growth network in the category, at No. 3.

Looking to increase that audience, Bounce is launching a new show called Mind Your Business on June 1 and bringing its hit series Johnson back for Season 4 on Aug. 3.

An emphasis on brand safety, even in an election year

While several news networks showcase polarizing election coverage, the pitch deck notes that Scripps News received a perfect 10 rating from NewsGuard, scoring it as one of the lowest risks for advertisers and brands to be exposed to misinformation.

“When you think about the news and the way that we cover news, it is very much context-driven and fact-based news reporting,” Norris said. “I want marketers to be able to accurately distinguish between the polarizing opinion-based talking heads of the news ecosystem and what we bring to the table.”

With that in mind, Scripps’ upfront pitch also devotes slides to brand safety and reaching targeted audiences.

According to Norris, the company can onboard any first-party data source and build third-party data sets to optimize against critical audiences, launching its data-driven linear product in 2023 and allowing clients to buy beyond traditional Nielsen age and gender demos across Scripps’ networks.

“We provide full transparency to our media buyers and brands, providing program-level data and targeting,” Norris said. “This ensures that your brand’s creative is running exactly where you’re comfortable.”

While people tend to drink cognac neat or on the rocks, Hennessy wants to shake things up with a playful and stylish campaign that shows the spirit’s versatility.

“Made for More” is the debut work for Hennessy by agency Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, which won the account from previous agency Droga5. The campaign shows viewers new ways of mixing and imbibing brandy cocktails, while introducing a lighter, fresher visual world for the legacy brand.

Directed by Andreas Nilsson in his trademark offbeat style, the five ads feature breakthrough British Nigerian actor Damson Idris and American singer and actress Teyana Taylor finding absurd ways to craft simple Hennessy cocktails.

Taylor blends pineapple juice to combine with Hennessy and bitters with a squeeze of lime shot at her from a tennis ball cannon.

Meanwhile, Idris sits on a massage chair to muddle together the ingredients of a Hennessy berry mojito. He also assembles the ingredients of a drink at an art gallery, swiping ginger ale from a mannequin and a lime wedge dangling from a woman’s hat.

“We wanted to treat the making of these drinks in rather strange places and ways like it was the most natural thing in the world,” W+K Amsterdam creative director Zeynep Orbay told ADWEEK. “There’s fun in never acknowledging the absurdity of a situation or explaining why something happens. The work, we felt, should almost feel like a cocktail in itself – a mashup of people, places and tones that all easily come together to communicate this sense of ‘more.’”

The campaign also emphasizes Hennessy’s status as a luxury brand, with tactics and visual cues that feel more reminiscent of fashion marketing.

The films will run across TV, cinema and online globally, accompanied by out-of-home ads shot by fashion photographer Micaiah Carter in cities across the U.S., Europe, Australia and South Africa. Social assets will share additional cocktail recipes, which are also available on Hennessy’s website.

Hennessy will also showcase the drinks at summer festivals, starting with the Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, N.C., April 6 to 7.

“We wanted to show just how easy it is to create drinks with more flavor, depth and complexity – while also showing up in a way that’s fun, stylish and tonally unexpected,” Orbay said.

CREDITS

Hennessy
Chief marketing officer: Julie Nollet
VP global marketing – Hennessy Premium: Cory Soutar
Global marketing manager: Elodie Koeberle
Brand manager: Lucile Perrin
Global communication manager: Fabien Sommer

Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam
President: Blake Harrop
Chief creative officer: Eric Quennoy, Mark Bernath
Creative director: Zeynep Orbay, Gustav von Platen
Art director: Anyaa Dev, Christian Baur
Copywriter: Allan Stevenson
Head of production: Jaime Tan
Executive producer: Tony Stearns
Producer: Stijn Wikkerink
Associate producer: Charlotte Igharo
Print producer: Caroline Hagoort
Strategy director: Odile Song
Head of comms planning: Elsa Stahura
Comms planner: Bliss Zhawi
Group account director: Erin Zito
Account director: Amandine Decourcelle
Account manager: Emily Saada
Studio director: Lizzie Murray
Studio producer: Maeva Richard, Jaime Siordia, Katie Finn, Joe Favre
Designer: Yaleesa Waelauruw
Motion designer: Kaye Cao, Sohyeon Nam, Serhii Serbin, Stelios Nikolaou
Studio artist: Noa Redero, Cindy Kouwenoord
Business affairs: Michael Graves

Production company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Director of photography: Lasse Frank
Producer: Peter Knowles
Executive producer: Rupert Reynolds-Maclean
Production designer: Alexis Ross
Stylist: PC Williams

Editing company: The Quarry
Editor: Ben Campbell

Audio post: String and Tins
Sound supervisor: Lawrence Kendrick
Additional sound design: Nigel Manington, Will Cohen
Foley: The Foley Barn
Audio producer: Eimear Ní Ghuaire

Music
Music supervision: King Lear, Mr Pape
Film: “Henessy & Massage”
Title: “Expo”
Artist: Anchorsong
Label: Tru Thoughts Recordings Ltd., Third Side Music
Publisher: Full Thought Publishing, CTM Outlander Music
Film: “Hennessy & Tennis”:
Title: “Sports”
Artist: Viagra Boys
Label: Year0001
Publisher: Kobalt Music, M. Ehrencrona, D. Fagerstroem
Film: “Hennessy & Board Game”
Title: “In Cerca Di Cibo: Nel Paese Delle Alpi Industriose”
Artist: Fiorenzo Carpi
Label: CAM Sugar
Publisher: Cloud 9 Music
Film: “Hennessy & Lawnmower”
Title: “Tchiki Tchiki Tchiki”
Artist: Make the Girl Dance (feat. Little Barrie)
Label: Roy Music
Publisher: Roy Music, BMG
Film: “Hennessy & Gallery”
Title: “Plum”
Artist: Omega Sapien (feat. Sega Bodega)
Label: Warp Records
Publisher: APM, Sony Music Publishing, B. Pub, Supernature

Post production: Selected Works
VFX supervisor: Wes
2D lead artist: Georgina Ford
2D artists: Eileen Chan, Dave Wishart
3D lead artist: Mickey O’Donoghue
3D artist: Paul Donnellan
Matte painting: Kirsty Cutler
Colorist: Hannibal Lang (BaconX)
Executive producer: Alex Fitzgerald
Senior producer: Kate Ryan

Photography production company: Widening Circles
Photographer: Micaiah Carter
Producer: Zein Zubi

Product Photography: Making Pictures
Producer Coco Wolf
Post and retouch: Picture House

Spatial design agency: StoreyStudio Ltd.
CD/founder: Robert Storey
Director: Charley Barclay
Project manager: Mackenzie Flannagan
Design director: Evie Sudlow
Project designer: Faysal Altunbozar
Senior designer: Tanya Eskander
Project designer: David Flook
W+K art director: Morgane Lambert

Measurement companies are looking to measure up ahead of the upfront season, with Nielsen making “big data” announcements and the Joint Industry Committee (JIC) certifying Comscore and VideoAmp.

To explain exactly what’s going on in measurement, ADWEEK went to great measures of our own, breaking down what the latest measurement updates mean as the NewFronts and TV upfronts approach.

What’s happening?

On Wednesday, following its monthslong data evaluation period, the JIC granted Comscore and VideoAmp certification for transactability as national currencies. Meanwhile, iSpot will maintain its conditional certification, with a final decision expected in the next certification window in June 2024.

Additionally, Nielsen is also making announcements. It held a press conference on Tuesday to reveal that its combination of panel data and big data measurement will be available to use as its official currency in September.

The JIC? Nielsen? Why are there so many measurement announcements?

It’s the upfronts. With advertisers looking to make their annual upfront commitments, measurement companies are looking to advance the push toward alternative currencies or, in Nielsen’s case, maintain market share.

OK, so what’s the deal with the JIC certifying Comscore and VideoAmp?

The JIC—formed by OpenAP, along with a working committee of media agencies, premium video programmers, streaming platforms and trade bodies—wants to create a baseline standard for buyers and sellers to transact. After granting conditional certification to iSpot, Comscore and VideoAmp late last year, the organization has now completed its evaluation against a set of minimum requirements needed for cross-platform currencies to be transactional.

Comscore and VideoAmp were determined to be transactable across traditional metrics and cross-platform exact spot metrics for advanced audiences and households, with certification status granted on a two-year term. The news could help buyers look to Comscore and VideoAmp as currencies in upfront negotiations.

But wait, isn’t the Media Rating Council already a regulatory body for measurement? Why do we need JIC certification?

The JIC and the Media Rating Council recently clarified their differences in a joint statement.

“While the JIC is focused on evaluating the transactional readiness of national, cross-platform, measurement solutions, the MRC goes much further in conducting intensive audits of measurement methodology. The JIC’s goal is for measurement companies to hold both JIC certification as well as MRC accreditation,” the statement explained.

Though still intensive, JIC certification is a slightly less rigorous evaluation, designed to be a complement to the MRC and speed up the process of creating currency standards.

It’s an important distinction.

Ahead of the JIC and MRC’s joint statement, Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao told ADWEEK that confusion over the groups’ differences was one of the reasons Nielsen opted not to be a part of the JIC’s evaluation process.

Oh, right. Nielsen. What’s happening with them again?

Nielsen recently announced it would incorporate big data from Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku, Vizio and Comcast into its new measurement system this fall.

For the combined metric, Nielsen’s big data, which comes from 45 million households and 75 million devices, will be brought together with Nielsen’s panel data of 40,000 households.

According to the company, the combination of big data and panel data will provide stability, scale and show all audiences.

So Nielsen isn’t sunsetting panel data and C3 and C7, the current industry standard for media buys?

Nope. Nielsen is using its panel data as a “truth set,” according to the company. This lets it take out the errors and biases of big data, providing person-level measurement.

In addition, Nielsen will continue using C3 and C7 as the currency metrics. The changes are more about the ingredients that go into the numbers.

And for those wondering, the company will also continue producing panel-only and individual commercial metrics as measurement data streams.

OK, got it. Yay! That’s everything you need to know about measurement, right?

Oh, sweet summer child…

With upfronts on the way, the measurement updates are just getting started.

Look out for more news coming from the NewFronts, as Comscore, which recently gained national accreditation from the MRC, and Nielsen are slated to present during IAB’s Main Stage on May 1 from Convene at 225 Liberty Street.

See the full NewFronts schedule here.

In the tumultuous summer of 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests proliferated in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, one portent of social change came from corporate America. One by one, companies promised to beef up their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, pledging upward of $50 billion to do it, according to figures from the Congressional Black Caucus.

Nearly four years down the road from those grand pronouncements, it’s clear that many companies have come up short. Data from workforce database Revelio Labs revealed that DEI positions actually declined by 5% in 2023. Forty-three percent of Black executives surveyed by CNBC last year said the number of Black employees in their companies has stayed the same, while 9% reported it has fallen. In a 2021 report, noted human-resources analyst Josh Bersin observed that, when it comes to diversity initiatives, “companies are just going through the motions and not holding themselves accountable.”

But while corporate backsliding on DEI efforts has been clearly documented, what’s less evident is exactly why those efforts haven’t hit the mark.

Experts have advanced a variety of causal factors ranging from labor pressures to a social backlash. But a recent report from management consulting firm MediaLink brings a new factor into the picture: the chief marketer.

The Marketers’ Forecast 2024, which surveyed 400 top marketing leaders, revealed that marketing leaders are increasingly facing “a demand for more accountability to the bottom line,” which appears to have nudged DEI efforts down on the priority list.

Marketing chiefs’ focus on operational efficiency, for example, rose 12% between 2022 and 2023, with 39% of respondents ranking it as a top priority. By contrast, DEI now ranks near the bottom of the priority list, well behind objectives including financial performance and growth and product innovation. In fact, only 18% of marketing leaders said DEI was of major importance to them.

“With only 18% of respondents citing diversity, equity [and] inclusion … as top priorities,” the study notes, “momentum is stalling.”

Marketing chiefs are clearly aware of the resulting optics. Nearly a third of respondents (30%) said they were concerned that their brand would be “called out” by their own employees for failing to prioritize DEI.

DEI enhances financial performance and growth. It enhances operational efficiency and product innovation.

Lola Bakare, CMO advisor

A MediaLink representative who declined to be quoted was quick to point out that the report’s findings don’t mean that chief marketers care little about diversity, but rather that a variety of social and economic pressures have made them less vocal about it.

Vocality aside, however, it seems that the manifold pressures brought to bear on CMOs have compromised the time they can devote to any objective.

“The role of the CMO has broadened to the point where there are so many things that seem to like come under their purview,” said Richard Swain, principal at branding agency DesignStudio, who’s had extensive experience in working with top brand marketing executives. “It’s almost like their heads are split in lots of different ways.”

But veteran CMO advisor Lola Bakare disagrees with the notion that CMOs’ increasing operational and financial responsibilities should be considered separately from DEI initiatives because, she argues, these objectives are inherently interrelated.

“If treated correctly, DEI enhances financial performance and growth. It enhances operational efficiency and product innovation,” she said. Prioritizing financial performance, she added, “involves how you incorporate more diversity, equity, inclusion and representation into what you make.”

Studies underscore her point. For example, the 2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report published by global management consulting firm DDI stated that “overall, companies with greater gender and racial/ethnic diversity tend to outperform their peers financially.” McKinsey & Company has reported that “top-quartile companies for racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.”

MediaLink’s findings suggest that many CMOs already know this correlation, even if they’re not giving diversity efforts priority treatment.

“These figures likely tell a more nuanced story,” the study notes. “Many marketers now consider DEI as a critical means to achieving growth.”

U.S. advertising spending is growing faster than analysts thought it would back in December, according to a forecast released by Interpublic Group’s investment arm, Magna.

Interpublic Group’s investment arm Magna expects total advertising spending will grow 9.2% to $369 billion—excluding political spending and tentpole events like the Olympics.

Back in December, Magna predicted 2024 ad spend would grow only by 8.4%.

Here are the most significant takeaways from Magna’s forecast.

Prime Video ads will cause streaming TV to surge

Premium long-form streaming channels will grow 13% this year, Magna predicts, meaning it would claim 22% of total national TV investments. 

And Amazon’s new Prime Video ads offering will drive much of that growth, propelling the category to $13 billion.

Retail and travel are hot, but entertainment and tech are not

Retail and travel categories are particular bright spots for marketers and should each grow by 9% this year, according to Magna. 

Unfortunately, entertainment and technology verticals continue to be slow-to-no-growth areas. Magna expects tech ad spending to only grow by 1%, while entertainment will decline by 4%.

Political ad spend is propping up traditional channels

Magna forecasts digital ad channels as a whole will grow 12%, to $261 billion. That’s 72% of the total ad spend. Within that sector, search and retail media will grow at a healthy 12% clip, and social media will increase 13%.

While traditional media owners will see ad revenues grow by 3.5%, that’s mostly due to cyclical factors like political advertising. Without political spending, Magna predicts traditional channels will decline by 3%.