In this issue of Sunday Strategy, we look at five stories to think about next week, including: AI Guidance Counselors, Strategic Optimism for Advertising, Crisis Nostalgia, Creativity’s Rising Cost and Coca-Cola Goes Pop to Probiotics.
In addition, we have ads from: State Farm, Orkin, Persil, Tesco and IKEA. If you’d rather listen to this week’s issue, check out our podcast episode below:
// Five Stories of the Week:
1.) AI Comes For Your (Old) Job.
Google Labs’ newest creative experience shows how AI can help explore personal potential in new ways. ‘Career Dreamer’ is an experience using Google Gemini and US Labor market data to help people quantify their careers and visualize what potential changes transferable experience and skills can unlock. With the increasing worry about AI’s impact on careers, Google’s move is a mixed, but well intentioned proposition in how AI can also enhance professional development.
2.) The Case for Strategic Optimism
As Patreon’s recent ‘State of Create’ report puts it, creatives are looking at a ‘Dark and Golden age’ – as opportunity and obstacles increase simultaneously. However, that viewpoint can also be applied to all of advertising. Setting up New Classic, I’ve been thinking about where advertising is going and the role strategy should play in it.
I believe there isn’t just a case for strategic optimism in how we build brands, ads and the industry going forward – it’s actually the most important thing to consider. The challenges we face are too great to simply hope and too numerous for creativity alone. Redefining what strategy means and how it can power optimism, countering the blind hope, cynicism or pessimism present now is the most powerful way forward. There isn’t just a case for strategic optimism in advertising, there’s a need.
3.) Why Do We Feel Nostalgic For Hard Times?
The world we currently find ourselves in today is chaotic, but is it enough to make us look fondly back on times like the Covid pandemic? While TikTok seems to be nostalgic for the days of lockdown, the phenomenon might be wider than just Covid. Instead, from the Great Depression through to wars, nostalgia for times of crisis we lived through may speak to a need for greater meaning, or a way to process that time. The Atlantic looks at the wider implications of crisis nostalgia.
4.) Priced Out of Creativity.
As fewer than one in ten arts workers in the UK have a working class background, the cost of creativity is rising. Reports by the Guardian and the Sutton Trust have shown that 30% of UK artistic directors were privately educated, as well as 36% of arts organization CEOs, 35% of BAFTA nominated actors and 58% of classical musicians vs. 7% of the UK population. Only pop-stars represent a similar educational background to the nation (8% are privately educated).
As creative careers become more of a luxury, we face a world where the voices we hear (in both wider arts and creative fields like advertising) are further away from the reality of everyday life. In addition to fuelling social conversation about ‘Nepo Babies’ as the face of this disparity, greater economic barriers to creative careers look to narrow the type of creativity we personally engage with. In the US, the national endowment for the arts has seen engagement with the arts (theatre, books, museums) skewing towards higher income families and certain states. The narrowing of creativity is a cycle that doesn’t just limit artists, but often the viewers as well.
5.) Coca-Cola ‘Pops’ the Probiotic Soda Market.
Coca-Cola announced the launch of ‘Simply Pop’, a probiotic soda taking aim at the market (and name) of competitors ‘Poppi’ and ‘Olipop’. Coming in 5 flavours, they will retail for $2.49 at launch in the next month. While still a niche part of the wider soft drink market (2% in the US), prebiotic sodas have captured a wider share of consumer interest by contrasting traditional sector perceptions with positive health claims.
Coca-Cola’s entry into this sector may signal a move that grows the market, however its use of a similar name to the two largest competitors may be a signal of intent to aggressively associate and steal share. While both existing pop brands have seen increased distribution, Coca-Cola’s scale and similar branding may allow it to bring the sector to more people physically, while building on any awareness or equity established by ‘Poppi’ and ‘Olipop’. Coke is seemingly banking that the label of traditional soda, used by its smaller competitors as a foil in the category, can be overcome through convenience and consumer indifference.
// Ads You Might Have Missed:
1.) ‘Severed’ – State Farm:
US insurance brand ‘State Farm’ has taken a novel approach in talking to young drivers about leaving their parent’s auto insurance plans – sending a customer and their mascot ‘Jake’ to the halls of Lumon from the TV show ‘Severance’.
The ad, one of the more unique of a litany of ‘Severance’ brand partnerships, sees a young driver ‘sever’ herself from her parent’s auto plan – much to her dismay. Borrowing Adam Scott’s character from the series, as well as the aesthetic and set – the ad takes the tricky topic of auto insurance coverage and makes it more palatable. Extending the campaign onto their website, the brand may not eliminate the trauma of taking on insurance costs for yourself, but at least it softens the blow with leveraged IP.
2.) ‘30 Years of Rewards’ – Tesco:
UK Grocery retailer Tesco’s ‘club card’ rewards program is thirty years old and to celebrate they’ve released an ad that tracks its history through the eyes of a couple that refused to sign up. Set to another enduring classic in Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’ (though it’s only 25 years old for those worrying), the ad demonstrates the different benefits of the program in a surreal trip through different eras of British culture. While anniversary ads are naturally a bit indulgent, this one feels like it has a chance of convincing the few clubcard hold outs to give it a shot for the next 30 years or so.
3.) ‘Every Stain Should Be Part of the Game’ – Persil:
With 60% of young girls reporting a fear of playing sports due to period leaks, Persil and Arsenal Women have partnered in a new campaign to destigmatize period blood in sports. The campaign, which tackles the double standard of stains and blood in sport through images of bloodied female athletes, is a natural progression of the brand’s long running ‘Dirt is Good’ platform. For product advertising that, even until 2017, famously preferred to use blue liquid over anything resembling blood – this campaign uses partnership and imagery in a way that shows how much progress is needed.
4.) ‘Late Night DMs’ – IKEA:
IKEA’s latest activity in Canada proves that brands and late night DMs can make an unlikely partnership. The brand has been promoting their mattress and bedroom line through a variety of cultural touchpoints, including some anti-hustle porn and thirst trap content late last year. However, for their latest effort, all they needed was a late night text. Sending users an Instagram DM between 10pm and 5 am simply saying ‘u up’, the message may have seemed like a low effort booty call – but was instead rewarding users who responded with free mattresses and discounts. For those that missed out, a wider promotion was rolled out afterwards – but the DM based campaign shows how hijacking what people culturally know doesn’t have to be ‘big budget’.
5.) ‘Chewed Art’ – Orkin:
US pest control brand Orkin has used abstract art as a way to speak about termite damage to homeowners. Whereas the pest control category is normally marketed on a hard sell of pests and damage, Orkin’s latest ‘Chewed Art’ campaign, inspired seemingly by art from other insects, showcases the signs of termite damage without the normal hard sell – positioning them as different art pieces. The refrain isn’t taken too far, but still shows how fear based appeals don’t have to be overtly scary.
// Sunday Snippets
// Marketing & Advertising //
// Soda brand Perfy introduces a limited edition ‘Pepperoni Pizza’ drink flavour [Food]
// In other drinks news, Coca-Cola announced the launch of ‘Simply Pop’, a probiotic soda taking aim at the market (and name) of competitors ‘Poppi’ and “Olipop’. No ‘Pepperoni Flavour’ announced yet [Food]
// To promote the ATP tennis tour coming to Kazakhstan, a sloped tennis court has given way to a new sport “Mountennis” [Sports]
// Analyzing Ferrari’s defiant growth in the luxury car market [Marketing]
// QR codes on toilet paper are encouraging Canadians to get a colorectal screening. As well as allowing QR code haters a unique treat. [Ads]
// Continuing their march through pop-culture, restaurant brand Chilis have created a rom-com for “National Margarita Day” [Ads]
// A look at the diverging fortunes of Boeing and Airbus [Marketing]
// Jane Fonda stars in a new campaign for sneaker brand Golden Goose [Ads]
// Inside the quest to make the perfect toothbrush [Marketing]
// Meta’s new ‘Horizon Worlds’ metaverse ad did not go down well [Ads]
// A Premium Shift for Frozen Food [Marketing]
// London agency DUDE creates a font based on graffiti painted onto its building – and donates it to charity [Agency]
// Technology & Media //
// Apple removes strongest data protection tool in the UK due to government pressure [Privacy]
// SNL’s 50th anniversary draws 15m viewers, the largest primetime telecast audience for them since 2020 [Media]
// Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange, has been hit by the largest crypto heist in history – losing $1.5bn [Crypto]
// AI takes a step towards designing completely new genomes [AI]
// New research shows an emerging propensity for AI models to cheat when losing at games [AI]
// Prophetic announces the ‘Halo’, an ultrasonic headband claimed to induce lucid dreaming [AI]
// Last year’s celebrated startup, Humane, has announced they are discontinuing support for their AI pins with limited refunds [AI]
// Niantec is apparently in talks to sell its gaming division, including Pokemon Go [Gaming]
// A new Eurobarometer survey shows diverging attitudes across Europe towards AI at work [AI]
// Rockstar Games eyes GTA 6 as a new ‘creator platform’ [Gaming]
// New polling shows the US public has an unfavorable view of Elon Musk, but it’s much worse for Mark Zuckerberg [Research]
// Life & Culture //
// Control of the James Bond franchise has been handed over to Amazon [Entertainment]
// The New York Yankees have changed their facial hair policy to allow players to have ‘well groomed’ beards (and the jokes won’t stop) [Sports]
// Rapper A$AP Rocky is edging closer to buying League Two football team Tranmere Rovers [Sports]
// Additionally, crypto investors and Facebook adjacent characters, the Winklevoss twins, have purchased amateur football team Real Bedford FC [Sports]
// The real star of the new Jurassic park film, according to social media its Jonthan Bailey’s ‘Slutty Little Glasses’ [Fashion]
// UK research shows that money, over attitudes, is at the heart of Gen Z’s nightlife decline [Culture]
// Gaming franchise ‘The Sims’ turns 25, reflecting back to a simpler time [Gaming]
// Odesza release a 23 minute remix of the Severance theme [Music]
// Who lives in a pop-up cocktail bar in Long Island? The Spongebob Squrepants experience. No word if Supreme’s new ‘Spongebob’ collaboration is on the dress code. [Culture]
// After the box office performance of ‘Brave New World’, how much trouble is the MCU in? [Entertainment]
// Music community Boiler Room has surveyed its members to release the “New Rules of Youth Culture” report [Research]
// A weird new putting technique is the next in a long line of counter-intuitive sports strategies. [Sports]
// Until Next Sunday
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