At IPG shop FCB New York, employees are strongly encouraged to be in the office Tuesday through Thursday. And at 4pm on the dot every Thursday, after much of the week’s work has been squared away, they all come together over snacks, soft drinks, and wine for a little something the agency calls “TTT.”

What is TTT, you ask? It stands for “That Thursday Thing,” a nearly five-year-old tradition, and the agency’s weekly creative salon and team-wide meeting. At That Thursday Thing, agency employees—creatives and others—discuss everything from world events and company news to advertising and art that inspires them. According to agency CEO Emma Armstrong and CCO Michael Aimette, it’s become a critical weekly ritual that builds creativity, teamwork, and communication.

“I’ve worked at lots of agencies where you don’t really know what’s happening outside of your world,” Aimette told Marketing Brew. “People have blinders on oftentimes. They don’t know what another group might be working on, a pitch that you may not be involved in. People feel really invested in the agency because they’re able to talk about it and understand exactly what everyone is going through at the agency.”

We asked Armstrong and Aimette to walk us through TTT and tell us why they do it.

Keep reading here.—JS

When you’re building a business or charting your own path in your career, it can be difficult to discern when roadblocks are challenges to push you further…or redirections that are begging you to go down a different path.

In this episode of BOSSY, Tara and Katie break down the most masterful business comebacks, accelerating out of stagnant career slumps, and when it’s time to rebrand “quitting” to “pivoting.”

There’s TikTok famous, then there’s famous famous. Judging by their Super Bowl campaigns this year, brands have realized the benefits of both.

This year, we saw celebrity/influencer pairing strategies that included:

• CeraVe creating intrigue for its Michael Cera ad by putting him in social videos with creators Haley Kalil and Bobbi Althoff,
• T-Mobile placing broadcast ad star Jason Momoa in videos with influencer chef Wishbone Kitchen to create game-day pasta,
• E.l.f. working with creator Benny Drama to help tease its ad with Meghan Trainor and other celebrities,
• Nerds featuring creator Addison Rae in its teaser and at the end of its 30-second broadcast ad to “introduce” its brand mascot,
• Dunkin’ recruiting creator Charli D’Amelio to promote its broadcast ad with Ben Affleck and the rest of Boston’s finest celebs.

While we’ve seen influencers like D’Amelio in Super Bowl campaigns before, putting them side-by-side with celebrity spokespeople seems to be a newer phenomenon.

“This is really the first year that we’re starting to see that much of a marrying between the two,” Emily Brown, senior manager of strategy at influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy, told Marketing Brew.

In addition to helping integrate Super Bowl campaigns across platforms, Brown said combining influencers and celebs can maximize cross-generational reach and bring more relatability to a campaign. Plus, having an influencer promote a campaign on social is one more way to draw buzz ahead of game day, she added.

Continue reading here.—KH

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

Super Bowl wind-down: Sunday was the height of Super Bowl ad buzz, and our feeds were full of questions and comments around the religious ads in the game, why Temu repeatedly told us to “shop like a billionaire,” and where to get the Dunkin’ tracksuits. Other things we saw:

• Cetaphil ran into some pushback on its Taylor Swift-inspired ad from a creator who claimed the ad was based on content she created with her stepdad.
• The person running President Biden’s social accounts posted a reference to a “Dark Brandon” meme about Democrats rigging the Chiefs’ win, and sparked conversation around whether certain jokes belong on government accounts.
• Paramount’s decision to air an alternate broadcast of the Super Bowl on Nickelodeon seemed to pay off, based on the number of Dora and SpongeBob posts alone.
• And, of course, the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce content was abundant.

Regardless of where you and your fellow marketers watched, we hope you weren’t bringing this vibe to the function.

Bring back the color wheel: If you thought calling blue nails “blueberry milk nails” was bad, now we’ve got Vogue rebranding brunettes as having “chocolate syrup hair.” Please, we, as a people, are begging for it to stop.

Taco talk: Taco Bell hosted an Apple-style “Live Más Live” event in which it debuted its new menu items for the year. And people were hyped about it…for the most part. Who’s excited for the Mountain Dew Baja Blast pie?

More FOOH: Much like H&M seems to be doing, Poppi is also leaning into fake out-of-home social posts. The brand also got attention this week for its Super Bowl ad from surprised viewers—as well as from possible buyers, it seems.

Late-stage capitalism check-in: You know it’s bleak when a joke about ad-supported healthcare has people saying, “Well…”—KH

Catch the first wave of generative AI. Most marketers have already added generative AI to their strategy. But are they using it safely, securely, and effectively? Salesforce surveyed over 1,000 marketers to find out. Their report reveals insights about how marketers are experimenting with AI, building their skills, and working on trust issues. Check it out.

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

Marketplace: A step-by-step guide to creating and scaling a Facebook business page.

Listen up: If you’re on the hunt for something new to listen to, here are nearly two dozen podcast recommendations for marketers, creators, and social media gurus.

Here for a long time: Tips on building long-term relationships with creators.

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times covered cleaning product The Pink Stuff’s rise to popularity via TikTok, and how the viral brand is thinking about long-term marketing strategies.
• The Atlantic wrote about Temu’s Super Bowl ad blitz and how the brand is building brand awareness in the US.
• TechCrunch looked at the Biden campaign’s decision to join TikTok over the weekend and kick off its content strategy by engaging with a right-wing conspiracy theory.