Jed Berger, CMO of Foot Locker, doesn't really hate marketing. As he tells Brand Insider this week, it is just that he likes a great idea and a great product more. Product development and product marketing are becoming more intimately connected. When the product comes with relevance, with a story, then the marketing can be more authentic and even more efficient. This evolution is clearest at Foot Locker, which will have dropped literally hundreds of new sneaker model tie-ins just in the second half of 2021. When product relevance is put at the center, then marketing moves more towards demand …

Because of the fires threatening Lake Tahoe this week, we have postponed our Retail Insider Summit. But as our planned agenda suggests, there is so much about the omnichannel marketing experience in retail poised for radical change. I find most fascinating the ways in which our expanded digital interactions with a brand will change not only how we shop but how the retail environment itself is built. This struck home with me when talking with Ideal Image's CEO David Prokupek in the Spring. As he discusses here, the virtual face to face consultations that the pandemic accelerated for his MedSpas …

As we ease back into hybrod and live events this season I recall fondly one of my favorite virtual sessions from this past year of online-only Brand Insider. General Mills' then-CMO Ivan Pollard was thoughtful about how the current buzzword "engagement" is nothing new. Decades ago, Betty Crocker taught us all we need to know.

Here at MediaPost, we have known of Vivid Seats for years. Its team has been invaluable to many of our Email, Search and Performance Insider Summits.

You've seen the Illy brand before. You just may not know it. But with a new and very stylish campaign titled "Welcome on the Road to Happiness," Illy is going direct to consumers with a high concept branding effort aimed at the super-premium coffee buyer.

As brands contemplate a post-cookie future, many rely on their own site dynamics and UX to render more, deeper first-party data. But as we discussed with Visible Wireless's Digital Marketing and Analytics Team Lead, Sarah Baker, this has implications for media buying and creative strategies. Typically, a DTC like Visible would optimize media towards performance. But as Baker explained at last week's Summit, Visible made a deliberate pivot away from that approach to shift more of the conversion work away from media and to its own site and more product-focused marketing.

Even a crusty, jaded critic of the advertising industry like me can be a sucker for a great ad concept like JewBelong out-of-home campaigns on New York streets.

Post-pandemic marketing campaigns continue to roll out messaging that allude to lockdown experiences while underscoring a positive future focus. Grounded in pandemic and post pandemic behavior research, Rexona/Unilever's Degree deodorant brand's Move Again effort is as you'd expect from the CPG giant, a massive multimedia rollout leveraging every imaginable channel. One of their new buzzwords is "un-missable," says Kath Swallow, Global Brand VP for Rexona at Unilever. But that doesn't mean relentless TV spots and billboard coverage. As she tells Brand Insider this week, it's as much about creating critical partnerships: from a famous drag celeb to video games. It …

If Millennials have a signature food, then surely avocados would be it. But herein lies the opportunity, says Mission Produce head of marketing and communications Denise Junqueiro. Mission is a farm-to-grocery avocado brand that is both b2b and increasingly b2c. By focusing on creative product development, especially around Millennial lifestyle needs, Mission is working a different lane of produce branding and trying to de-commoditize this trendy fruit. If like me, avocado minis or even the prospect of avocado baby food sounds even zanier than avocado toast, think again, Boomer.

Post-pandemic ad campaigns are trying to thread the needle - find ways of gently alluding to the past 15 months of lockdowns, grief and social unrest, while pointing towards brighter days. Clif's "Let's Move the World" messaging wraps such a light note of return-to-normal in purposeful branding as well as a an overall theme of adventure. As Senior Director, Clif Brand Portfolio, Liza Darnell explains, it is designed for open interpretation around evolving notions of adventure, movement and social impact. In many ways, "Let's Move the World" recalls the fleeting age of the big idea but executed across a wide …