A childhood spent on the South Side of Chicago gave director Rodney Lucas an appreciation for his culture that translates to his work.

“Black Chicago was like a neighborhood full of superheroes,” he told us. “I thought that my barber was a superstar. I thought he was a therapist. I thought he was a doctor. I thought he was a source of empowerment. I’d always seen my community as more than what their title would suggest.”

That perspective has had an impact on his approach to filmmaking. “The second I got a chance to highlight them on a national and international level, it became so obvious: I always say that I don’t have to leave Chicago to be inspired.”

Centering Black and other minority voices is a common theme in his films: In 2019, he directed Portrait of a Place: Southside Forever—A Motion Picture of Black Chicago, a documentary focused on the Black community in Chicago.

In addition to his documentary work, Lucas has directed advertisements for brands such as DoorDash and Nike, which often highlight Black figures and stories. He was the only Black director of a Super Bowl commercial in 2023: An NFL spot featuring several of the league’s athletes.

Last year, he signed with production company Little Minx for commercial and content representation. According to Lucas, being able to create ads for different brands, as opposed to working with one specific company, provides him more creative freedom.

“I come in as someone who is, for better or worse, a disrupter. I go in with a fresh set of eyes, not a part of the culture of that company. I haven’t been drinking the Kool-Aid,” he said.

Read the full piece here.—JS

Trying to figure out what makes your customers click? Of course you are—that kind of valuable info can make or break your next campaign.

MNTN pulls back the curtain for brands advertising on Connected TV. They’ve got all the attribution deets and context to help you track each customer touchpoint from start to conversion.

So how do they crack the code on performance TV attribution? With MNTN Verified Visits™. Here’s how it works:

• Verified Visits™ validates the source that drove site visits the moment a viewer sees your Connected TV.
• Seamless integration with Google Analytics lets you track Verified Visits™ conversions alongside your other performance channels.
• You’ll always know when MNTN made it happen. If another channel prompted the visit, they won’t take that credit—even if the viewer saw a MNTN-served ad beforehand.

Ready for the inside scoop? Start here.

Mastodon, Post, Bluesky…Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it feels like there’s been a steady stream of new apps promising to be the next Twitter, as safety and usability concerns mount on the platform.

So far, there hasn’t been a clear front-runner, as people have struggled with sign-up confusion and waitlists on the new apps. That is, potentially, until now: Last week, Meta released Threads, which was downloaded more than 30 million times in its first 16 hours, and appears to be the most rapidly downloaded app in history.

So what is Threads, and should you be on it?

Tell me about Threads: At first glance, it looks pretty similar to Twitter (though founder Jack Dorsey has commented that that’s pretty much been the case with every app trying to fill its shoes). Users log in with their Instagram accounts and can post up to 500 characters per Thread, plus images and videos.

Who’s on it? Probably more people than you think. The platform reportedly now has 100+ million users, according to Zuck himself, including Oprah, Kim Kardashian, and the Dalai Lama. Brand social media managers joked last week that clients were already clamoring for Thread strategies. Some users have complained that Threads may actually be too brand friendly, given companies’ presence in their feeds.

Threads doesn’t have ads (yet), but it’s working to bring Instagram’s branded content tools to the app, according to Axios, which would let brands do paid promotions with influencers. In the meantime, companies including Netflix, Rare Beauty, and Wendy’s have all started posting on the platform.

Is this the nail in the coffin for Twitter? Keep reading here.—KH

So rife are sports metaphors for sex that you probably can’t recall when you first encountered one.

Was it a hushed schoolyard discussion of what getting to each of the bases represented? Or Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto calling a date in a car like a baseball game—“Here he comes, he’s out! No, wait, safe, safe at second base.”—in Meat Loaf’s hit song “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”?

Now a new NYC store, Contact Sports, is taking the metaphor into extra innings, with a retail concept that has a sporting goods-store vibe, but where vibes themselves—and a variety of sex toys and other sexual wellness products—are what’s on offer.

The store, co-founded by married couple Chelsea and Justin Kerzner, is located in Manhattan’s upscale shopping district of SoHo.

Buzz is a given when talking about a store full of vibrators, and we made our way there to see what it was all about. Keep reading here.—AAN

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

Live, laugh, LinkedIn: An up-to-date guide on the platform’s algorithm.

Spell it out: Tips for creating explainer videos (including 10 examples).

Look at us: Find inspiration in logos that have stood the test of time.

Pull back the curtain: Figure out how (and when) your Connected TV customers travel from each touchpoint to the final conversion with MNTN Verified Visits™. Details here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Stat: $480 million. That’s how much presidential candidates spent on advertising during the first half of this year, according to analytics company AdImpact, nearly double what was spent during the same period in 2019.

Quote: “It was really yummy at first bite, and you can feel the thickness of the cheese…But the more I ate, the more cloying it got; it was too much for me”—A 31-year-old woman’s review of Burger King Thailand’s “real cheeseburger” 

Read: “Peak TV has peaked” (Variety)