• by Karl Greenberg , January 3, 2016

Under Armour’s “Book of Will” campaign promised to make you, yes you, into a cyborg with carbon fiber muscles, ectoplasmic super-blood and a supercomputer for a brain. Jamie Foxx, no less, articulated what all of that means, as Stephen Curry hit the hoops. In a series of videos, Foxx talks while athletes like Curry, "The Patron Saint of Underdogs," do their thing.

Who were the kings of CPG? Nielsen, in a May report on innovation popped the top on 12 packaged goods brands, it said was the top dogs in creating new, different products. There were the stalwarts: PepsiCo, which won three awards, one of which is for a beverage; L'Oreal Paris; and P&G, which won for Duracell, a brand it has spun off. There was also Müller Yogurt, Redd’s Apple Ale, Special K Flatbread Breakfast Sandwiches, and The Red Bull Editions. Nielsen assessed 3,522 initiatives to get the 12 winners.

And, not for nothing, Tony Hawk, king of skateboarding, drives a Mini. Specifically, a Countryman Park Lane edition Mini Cooper. He has done several events with Mini, including skateboarding over Mini cars that were heading out for the yearly Mini Takes the States event. But he had never been in an actual Mini ad. In this spot for the Countryman, by Sausalito, Calif.-based Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Hawk drives his kids out to the middle of nowhere, rolling up finally to an abandoned water park, skateboard paradise. 

Ford last year launched the 2015 Edge crossover with “Fight Song” by Columbia Records artist Rachel Platten. Appropriate tune for a hyper-competitive market. The "Be Unstoppable" campaign focused especially on alpha females, a key buying demo for crossovers. And also multi-cultural consumers, as the ads feature a South Asian businesswoman driving through an urban landscape. Voiceover says it all: “2,434,311 people and only one me. I’ll take those odds.” 

How good are those truck sales. Well, March sales volume last year wasn't massive ... except for anything on wheels with a high roof. And driving it all were those historically low gasoline prices. This story detailed how crossovers, SUVs, and pickups drove salubrious numbers for almost every automaker, except maybe Ford, which, ironically, was dealing with short supply of the new F-150. 

It’s a good bet that an article, any article, about wealthy Americans, especially wealthy, young, Americans, will be popular. What marketer won't dive into this one? Those who did learned that online shopping is big, but so are authenticity, quality, and memorable experiences. That insight data came from a report by the appropriately named Martini Media, “The Affluent Audience Online” with research performed by Ipsos MediaCT. 

And it's no surprise that Infiniti's campaign for the 2015 QX60 crossover was a popular read. "National Lampoon's Vacation"? Remember it? With Christie Brinkley back, but in the role of Chevy Chase's wife? It helps that the campaign was timed with the summer release of the remake. Okay, Chevy is not in the ad. It's Ethan Embry, who was in the 1997 film “Vegas Vacation.” 

Anything about Harley-Davidson, by definition, will be worth looking at; even people who don't ride will read it. In this piece, it didn’t hurt that its campaign for the Street 750 last year showed real riders hanging out in drainage viaducts, doing things you don’t usually associate with Harley: off-roading, wheelies, jumps, ice racing, and hill climbing. The message: not only are H-D riders different, but what they do on their bikes is not what you think. 

In April, a week after the New York International Auto Show, Marketing Daily caught up with Ford’s Stephen Odell, who had just switched jobs with Jim Farley, leaving his post as EVP and president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to become the automaker’s EVP of global marketing. In this Q&A, Odell talked about how running the U.S. market differs from elsewhere; the new F-150 pickup truck, upon which much of the company's fortunes rest; the Super Bowl absence; and the Mustang's new role as a global vehicle.

Finally, a column that attempts (purports) to unravel programmatic buying. The columnist didn't do the exegesis, though. Rather, Larry Shender, director of brand solutions at Turn, did the explaining. The takeaway: if you con't control the media, it controls you.