“You had kids at home when you were named CEO. How did you do it all and still get home in time for dinner?”

That’s one of the questions posed to fictional CEO David Sullivan-Smith during the fake podcast This Guy Means Business in a new ad for Chief, the women’s leadership network that recently achieved unicorn status.

• The ad encourages viewers to apply to join the network but also serves as the brand’s first-ever campaign for its real-life podcast, The New Rules of Business.
• The second season kicked off today and will feature nine episodes with guests including former Hearst CCO Joanna Coles and VC and former AmEx chairman and CEO Ken Chenault.

Zoom out: It’s a question women executives have received time and time again. The team at Chief wanted to address the frustration it can spark, but in a somewhat subtle way, said co-founder and chief brand officer Lindsay Kaplan.

“The norm in this world when we hear ‘business’ seems to be men in business,” Kaplan told Marketing Brew. “Women in business have their own special category, and we really wanted to shine a light on women in business in a very interesting way that got people thinking about the implicit bias that businesswomen face by turning it on its head and creating this alternate universe where men were suddenly cast as the boy boss, if you will.”

The ad also puts a spin on the traditional podcast-marketing playbook by plugging audio content with a video intended exclusively for LinkedIn—the only social platform where Chief has a presence.

IRL inspo

The idea for the ad—and some of the actual questions in the script—stemmed from Chief’s own network of 15,000 businesswomen, according to Sharon Yi, head of editorial and brand studio at Chief. Chief asked its members to reflect on biases they’d recently encountered at work, and their responses were “disheartening,” Yi told us.

• “‘Can you really go on this business trip when you have children at home?’ ‘Who’s going to take care of your daughter?’ ‘I’ll let you go now because you probably have to make dinner for your husband.’ ‘Does your husband work?’ These are really wild, very real questions today’s women leaders are experiencing,” Yi said.

Keep reading (and watch the ad) here.—AM

“No awards on a dead planet.”

That’s one of the messages protesters from Greenpeace shared during their protests at Cannes Lions this year. The goal was to direct attention to the climate crisis and call for an end to fossil-fuel advertising through different stunts, like crashing WPP’s beach.

• WPP CEO Mark Read said Greenpeace was “right” to highlight the climate crisis, but the holding company intends to continue working with fossil-fuel giants, although he recently told Campaign that it does not want to “work with any energy company that seeks to frustrate the Paris Agreement.” Its current roster includes clients like BP and Shell.

Big picture: Edina Ifticene, a campaigner for Greenpeace France, told Marketing Brew that Read’s response is exactly why legal action is necessary—and why Greenpeace is one of 40 organizations calling on the European Commission to ban advertisements from the fossil-fuel and transportation industries.

Shifting tides

While Read’s response didn’t exactly inspire hope, Ifticene said, “It’s a win already to have a response from [WPP] because it means that we had an impact somewhere and they felt questioned, they felt challenged, and they felt that they had to respond,” she said.

Over the course of the festival, Ifticene said she was also encouraged by the number of creatives from around the world who expressed support for the protests, telling her and her colleagues that they no longer wanted to work with companies that “destroy the planet.”

Read the full story here.—KH

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Erika Rodriguez is the founder and CEO of Nadi Marketing. As a marketing consultant, she specializes in helping eco-conscious small- and medium-sized businesses. Prior to starting Nadi Marketing, she worked on the local marketing teams of Lyft and Zipcar in San Diego.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Introducing The Mighty Bin, San Diego’s first zero-waste grocery store, to San Diegans. The store opened on April 9, 2022, with a grand-opening event. The event included a ceremony with the founder, Isabelle DeMillan, saying a few words about the inspiration behind The Mighty Bin, a compostable-tape “ribbon” cutting, local food vendors, and a chef cooking up a plant-based breakfast for attendees! It was an amazing event to celebrate this huge milestone for my client Isabelle, and introduce San Diegans to plastic-free, package-free, non-toxic, sustainable, and local groceries.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Patagonia’s “don’t buy this jacket” ad that ran in the New York Times on Black Friday. As every brand is determined to sell more on Black Friday, Patagonia is telling its audience the opposite and to think before they buy. This message is powerful on the busiest shopping day of the year.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: I work all over San Diego. You can find me at my apartment, at my coworking space, You Belong Here, at various local coffee shops, and at a few libraries. I’m fortunate to work from my laptop, and I love that I can work every day at a new location. If you are in San Diego, let’s cowork together!

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m most optimistic about live video on social media platforms. Raw video provides a human aspect to a brand, and people want to see behind the scenes, the packaging, and the impact you are creating. The marketing trend that I’m least interested to see is the “announcement-worthy” environmental claims. I don’t want to see brands make big environmental announcements when it’s relevant (i.e., Earth Day, World Oceans Day) when they don’t make progress announcements or any environmental posts during the rest of the year.  

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? The Smart Passive Income Podcast by Pat Flynn. I’ve been following Pat Flynn for years, and when I started my business during the pandemic, he was my go-to business resource. Also check out his YouTube series, The Income Stream, where he went live for 365 days during the pandemic, covering every business topic you can imagine.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Do it live: Instagram is testing the ability for broadcasters to go live from a—gasp—desktop device using streaming software, instead of having to use “a traditional phone camera.”

Filter it out: TikTok has rolled out an ad “inventory filter” that enables brands and advertisers to have more control over what content their ads show up next to.

Unmentionables: Twitter is now giving all users the ability to “unmention” themselves in conversations on the platform.

$marter $pending: Money with Katie is here to help you manifest your financial freedom with her weekly newsletter, which takes a spicy approach to smart spending habits, tax strategies, and investing. Subscribe for free.

Wanting to make a job upgrade? Look no further! Check out the Marketing Brew Job Board for new job openings!

Today’s featured openings:

• Marketing & Sales Enablement Specialist at INVIDI Technologies Corporation
• Director, Content Marketing at DistroKid
• Influencer Marketing Intern at American Giant

See more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Streaming ads are way too loud. Who’s going to fix it?
• Major brands are still running ads on ‘Stop the Steal’ sites
• What tools marketers use most, miss, and could do without

Gimme a break! The instantly recognizable jingle for Kit Kat chocolate bars rolled out in 1986. Which advertising agency was responsible for creating the tune for the Nestlé-owned chocolate brand?

1. DDB Needham
2. Grey Group
3. J Walter Thompson
4. Ogilvy

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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