Q Mixers can be found in thousands of outlets nationwide. It promises to upgrade the typical flat and overly sweet drink mixer with better ingredients and more fizz. But of course, mixers typically are last minute add-on, low-consideration purchase. The brand needs to be at the point of inspiration and sale, but it also has a specific story to tell. Which is one of the problems Nick Wooten, their CMO tries to solve in part with an evolved out of home ad strategy

Bonin Bough doesn't just want major advertisers to support Black-owned media. He wants them to support communities. Bough famously led digital at Pepsi then media at Mondelez. But in recent years as co-founder of Group Black he is incubating, financing and selling advertisers into a mushrooming portfolio of black-owned businesses. He will be appearing next week at MediaPost's Publishing Insider Summit in Bonita Springs. But this week on Brand Insider we dug into Bough's vision for bringing brands beyond media and into the lives of more diverse communities.

As polarization of the electorate seems to escalate, political campaigns engage in an existential question. Can media move minds...and votes anymore? At last month's Marketing Politics event in Washington D.C., Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's Campaign Manager Eric Hyers outlined how locally focused messaging, careful data analysis, and targeting helped drive a Blue candidate's re-election in a deep Red state. The win also demonstrated the simple power of a heartfelt, authentic campaign ad...that didn't even include the candidate.

As culture wars rage, polarization hardens, clustering congeals, it is a fair question whether there are any persuadable "swing voters" to target in the coming election. Rick Wilson, co-founder of the notorious Lincoln Project SuperPAC of Anti-Trump, disaffected Republicans thinks so. Modern programmatic nano-targeting can find and optimize to these audiences. But it requires explicit, in-your-face, even rude creative, he argues.