Since “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back ribs” first entered the cultural zeitgeist in the 1990s, Chili’s now-iconic jingle has had a habit of popping up in unexpected places.

In 1999, the tune made a cameo in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and in the early aughts, NSYNC recorded their own version. Steve Carell even sang it on an episode of The Office. (Ask anyone who was on Vine in the 2010s, and they might associate the brand with this similarly iconic moment in pop-culture history.)

So it may be no wonder why, more than 20 years after NSYNC’s version was released, Chili’s revisited the jingle in order to help get “Chili’s back in the cultural conversation” after a few years out of the national advertising scene, CMO George Felix told Marketing Brew.

• Revamping a ’90s cultural touchstone was a natural fit, especially considering the enduring power of nostalgia in marketing, he said.

“We always knew we wanted to do something with the jingle, but you don’t just want to put the jingle back out,” he said. “You want to do something interesting.”

The new version of the jingle, revamped and recorded by the ’90s R&B icons Boyz II Men, is at the center of a new campaign that Felix said started driving conversation around the brand and began boosting sales within a week of its premiere.

Continue reading here.—AM

The future of marketing is here, and it’s time to wrap your head around it. We’re talkin’ about AI, of course. You’ve heard of it, but do you know how to harness its power to take your campaigns to the next level?

Scratching your chin? No worries. Salesforce’s new Trends in Generative AI for Marketing report breaks down how marketers are experimenting with AI so you can start boosting reach and crushing your goals.

Consult this report to get strategies for:

• saving time on mundane tasks
• building trust with human oversight
• growing skills for managing AI-powered tools

Step into the future of marketing.

The year TikTok officially debuted in the US in 2018, it had roughly 271 million monthly active users. Fast forward to 2023, and it now has more than 1 billion, according to Statista.

Not every new social media app has enjoyed that scale (we’re looking at you, Peach, BeReal, and Vsco)—but there are still plenty of apps working to stand out. This fall, a new app, Lapse, briefly topped the App Store after it required new users to invite friends before signing up.

Lapse allows users to take photos and share them, unedited, once they “develop,” like a digital version of a disposable camera. While it remains to be seen whether it will manage to outlive initial interest, the UK-based app is working on perfecting its current iteration, co-founder Dan Silvertown told Marketing Brew—and some marketers said they are keeping an eye on the app to see if it becomes a viable tool for their clients.

Second time’s the charm? Lapse, which first debuted in 2021, is in a reinvention phase. The first version, Silvertown said, encouraged people to take photos with their friends when they were all together, sharing the pictures with the whole group afterward. And while photos were snapped during group gatherings like parties or vacations, the structure “didn’t work so well day to day,” he said.

• The latest iteration of Lapse, which is the one currently available and which rolled out in August, was introduced to help sustain interest in the app, Silvertown told us.
• “This new version of Lapse takes the same idea and concept of shooting on a disposable camera, but rather than shooting in a collaborative way, the shooting actually happens in an individual way,” he said. “It can be used by someone to journal their day and capture their memories.”

Marketers compared the growth of Lapse to another recent photo-based social app, BeReal, on which users are prompted to snap a photo of themselves once a day. Molly Esselstrom, a senior content writer at digital marketing shop Savy Agency, is monitoring the growth of Lapse and assessing the platform’s legitimacy and appropriateness for certain clients, she said.

Keep reading here.—JS

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

Lex Josephs is vice president and general manager of Sam’s Club Member Access Platform. Prior to her current role, she held sales and partnerships roles at companies including Walmart, NBCUniversal, Pinterest, and Hulu.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? My favorite ad campaigns are P&G’s “Thank You, Mom” and Google’s “Parisian Love.” They resonate with me both as a marketer and a mother, and I think their strength lies in how they tug at the heartstrings and speak to human relationships rather than overtly promote a product or service.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: While I attended the University of Michigan and interned in New York City, I was also hostessing, waitressing, and busing tables at night. Later in my career, I was simultaneously growing my family while working and pursuing an MBA. It was a lot to juggle all at once. That’s why I feel strongly about helping others understand the various levers they can pull and utilize each day, which has been crucial to my leadership approach.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m excited about the connectivity between digital activity and physical sales. With real-time data, advertisers can see exactly which ads are driving revenue for both online and offline sales. This gives advertisers unmatched visibility and boosts efficiency at a time when they need to make fewer resources go further.

A trend I approach thoughtfully is the over-reliance on data analytics and metrics without considering the human aspect. While data-driven insights are valuable, it’s crucial to remember that behind every data point is a real person with emotions and preferences. The recent rise of made-for-advertising sites is a concerning example of marketers prioritizing ROI and profit over their audience and their experience, which runs counter to our philosophy at Sam’s Club. Balancing data with a member-centric approach ensures an authentic connection with our audience and helps us ensure we put people over profit, always.

Read more here.

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

Card game: These card-like prompts from TikTok are designed to help gin up creative content ideas for businesses.

The ’gram: A collection of Instagram trends to inform your social media strategy next year.

Inspo: Speaking of next year, here are some predictions on the creative and graphic design trends of 2024.

Visionary vibes: AI’s changing the game for marketers, and Salesforce has their finger on the pulse. Their new Trends in Generative AI for Marketing report can help you step into the future. Read it here.*

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Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Pinterest and grocer Aldi are partnering on a UK-based Christmas campaign.
• Amazon’s proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the maker of Roomba vacuums, is facing pushback from regulators in the EU.
• Jeff Shell, the former CEO of NBCUniversal, is in talks to join RedBird Capital Partners to lead the private-equity firm’s sports and entertainment investments business, per the WSJ.