The Drum
To celebrate the Ad Club of New York's 120th anniversary, The Drum is inviting readers to share their favorite marketing moments from the past 120 years. Today's marketing moment was chosen by David DeMuth, co-CEO and president of Doner. Tootsie Pop's iconic 'How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?' campaign is his favorite marketing moment of all time.
Chain Store Age
According to the "Wall Street Journal," the lines were thin at three New York-area Target stores on Sunday morning when Marimekko launched. That's a dramatic contrast from last year, when shoppers lined up overnight at many Target stores so they could fill their carts with Lily Pulitzer-branded goods.
AppAdvice
Apple Music has a new advertisement out, and Cupertino's head of content Larry Jackson has revealed how the new spot demonstrates the marketing strategy behind the streaming service. Jackson explains how the new ad showcasing Taylor Swift lip syncing to Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" came to be and how it reflects Cupertino's vision for all of the Apple Music spots.
Campaign
Tech firm Hewlett Packard Enterprise has stopped advertising in the "Financial Times" after a letter from the firm's comms chief was criticized by one of the newspaper's columnists for containing a "threat" relating to its ad spend. The dispute dates back to a Jan. 31 column in which the columnist labelled an HP exec's statement in a speech that "you can always go faster than you think you can" as "nonsense."
Boston Globe
The new K-Cup, composed of polypropylene, gives Keurig an answer to critics who say the company has shown a flagrant disregard for the planet's well-being. The new K-Cups can sold to manufacturers that use recycled plastic. But the cups are unlikely to put an end to the attacks. The new cups are not compostable. They are not reusable. And Keurig will still be selling billions of pieces of plastic each year.
Adweek
Axe recently released its latest campaign, "Shower Thoughts." It was quickly accused of being stolen from a subreddit, called, you guessed it, "Shower Thoughts." "Our intent with the Shower Thoughts series is to highlight the great creativity and conversations already happening in pop culture," the company said in a statement. It is unclear how Axe will work with the original redditor behind the post.
The New York Times
Richard K. Ransom was tired of driving a vegetable truck around rural Ohio for his parents' wholesale produce business. So he started selling hand-cut cheeses at flower shows and boat shows. Soon he added summer sausage, then expanded to county fairs around the Midwest. He named his company Hickory Farms. It grew explosively in the early years, thanks to what was then a novelty: free samples.
Motor Authority
Bentley has teamed with British pop art icon Sir Peter Blake for a one-of-a-kind take on the company's Continental GT V8 S Convertible. The brightly-colored droptop will head to auction at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on June 24, where it will be sold to the highest bidder to benefit the Care2Save Charitable Trust. Sir Peter Blake designed the sleeve for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band record album.
Brand Channel
Facebook has created a platform for companies to develop the robots that mimic human conversation to run within its Messenger app, which now counts 900 million users worldwide. CNN, 1-800-Flowers, Spring and HP are among the brands launching on Bots for Messenger platform while Sephora and H&M launch bots on Kik messaging app.
Skyword
Nearly 18 months after it was first unveiled, Snapchat's advertising platform has become a big hit among brands. Snapchat has offered some tantalizing stats regarding the value of its video marketing solutions, but because Snapchat lacks effective analytics tools, it's impossible to offer specifics on how individual campaigns perform, and whether brands are getting strong ROI from their efforts.