Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here.
Zaxby’s Is Reigniting the Chicken Sandwich War
The chicken sandwich wars rage on, with Zaxby’s throwing down against the likes of Popeyes, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, Wendy’s and KFC. The Southern chicken chain announced its step into the fray this week with a quote tweet of Popeyes’ 2019 “… y’all good?” message that kicked off the conflict, with Zaxby’s adding “… y’all good?”. The new sandwich is competitive in size and flavored with a new sauce.
The battle rages on: Adweek spoke with Zaxby’s CMO about why the restaurant brought back the chicken wars.
Hollywood’s Great Streaming Overhaul Is Just Beginning
The biggest companies in television—Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia, and even Netflix—have all seen massive overhauls and restructures of their higher ranks over the past three months. These shifts are all toward common goals: bolstering the businesses to meet the streaming boom (both in terms of viewership and new players entering the market), cutting costs amid pandemic challenges, unifying across portfolios and keeping customers and advertisers happy.
But more change is ahead: Discover what each major shift means for these companies—and the future of streaming.
Speaking of new players: T-Mobile is pushing into TV and streaming with a new service, TVision, which aims to disrupt the “cableopoly” that “holds TV fans hostage.”
Wieden+Kennedy Moves New York Execs Into Global Leadership Roles
Wieden+Kennedy’s New York office has been on a roll lately, racking up win after win lately, including McDonald’s, Michelob Ultra, Kraft Heinz and Duracell, leading to four consecutive years of powerful revenue growth. Tapping this success, the company is elevating New York managing director Neal Arthur and executive creative director Karl Lieberman to global roles—chief operations officer and chief creative officer, respectively. Starting in 2021, the duo will work with president as global CCO Colleen DeCourcy.
Building on momentum: The goal is to leverage the New York’s office’s success, but not to duplicate its style.
Also in job moves:
- Marc Juris, the president and general manager of WE tv, is leaving AMC Networks after seven years. The move comes shortly after the company lost AMC Networks Entertainment Group president Sarah Barnett.
How Agencies Will Be Reshaped in 2021 as 50,000 Jobs Leave the Industry
Layoffs aren’t a new thing in 2020, but new research from Forrester shows that they might continue into 2021 for the agency world. The study estimates that a total of 35,000 jobs will be lost in 2020, and 17,000 more will follow next year, and that on average, agencies have laid off 11% of staff since March. The pandemic has, by necessity, accelerated the push toward digital solutions, which the study predicts will result in more than 10% of digital, creative and media agency tasks will be automated.
What does that mean for agencies? Teams will shrink, machine learning will take over—and transformation will begin.
Voice | Trump Wants to Go to the Moon. How Do You Market Outer Space?
Trump tweeted his desire to establish a permanent presence on the moon and a manned mission to Mars, which is no surprise (and is likely inevitable regardless of the election outcome), but of course the final frontier is certain to attract both consumer attention and marketers eager to capture it. Ben Lamm, co-founder and chairman of Hypergiant, wrote a voice piece examining the considerations for literally marketing in space.
https://www.adweek.com/agencies/zaxbys-declares-war-the-seismic-streaming-shift-thursdays-first-things-first/