INFLUENCERS

What’s an Influencer to Sweetgreen?

After we all departed our #SadDesks in favor of sad home offices back in March, sweetgreen obviously had some major pivoting to do. So last week, it launched a personalized, sweetgreen app-only experience called Collections. 

Collections rolled out with a full digital campaign employing many different strategies…the most interesting of which being influencer marketing. 

#SadDeskSalad #Inspo 

Among these Collections for a new world comes sweetgreen’s “Eat Like a Chef” collection, which gives an under-the-hood look at what notable culinary minds order from sweetgreen. 

But those notable chefs are more than just people with good taste…they’re bona fide influencers selected to best target every subgroup of sweetgreen’s audience. 

Nancy Silverton of Mozza in LA has 156,000 Instagram followers, making her a “macro influencer” with lots of reach without pricey household name celebrity status. 

Michael Solomonov of Zahav in Philly has 68,200 Instagram followers. That puts him in the “mid-tier” influencer category. These influencers are often selected when a brand wants to become more accessible. 

Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese in NYC has 41,500 Instagram followers, so I can safely say he’s a full-blown micro influencer. That could mean he’s not only a cost-effective choice for sweetgreen, but could also provide targeted reach for SG customers. 

Zoom out: sweetgreen’s “Eat Like a Chef” collection lets its target audience go behind the scenes with these chefs (who all happen to run restaurants in major cities with sweetgreen locations aplenty). Everything from chefs’ go-to sweetgreen orders to how much dressing they like gets communicated via videos like this one, which creates an in-the-know, UGC feel.  

My takeaway: The restaurant masters sweetgreen tapped as influencers aren’t mainstream celebrities, and that’s intentional. Choosing micro and macro influencers as the faces of this campaign makes sweetgreen’s latest initiative feel more intimate and local than it would’ve been with, say, Gordon Ramsay as a mega influencer.

TV

Everything Marketers Need to Know About the NFL’s Return

Against the odds (or maybe in spite of them?) the NFL season kickoff aired on NBC this past Thursday evening. 

You might be picturing TV advertisers popping bottles from home in celebration of the multibillion-dollar game’s official return, but in reality, it’s not that simple:

• Thursday’s season opener between the Houston Texans and the Kansas City Chiefs saw a 12.3% drop in viewership compared to last year’s kickoff game, per Deadline. 
• The buildup of sports seasons delayed at the start of the pandemic might partially explain the lower-than-usual viewership. The NBA and NHL playoffs, typically springtime events, were happening the same evening.

Still, it’s not as bad as it sounds. Dan Lovenger, EVP Sales and Partnerships for NBC Sports, recently told Deadline that the network is “ahead of where we were last year in terms of upfront and scatter for the NFL”—meaning that advertisers are still hungry for NFL ad inventory. 

Bottom line: Just because the first game of the season wasn’t exactly a touchdown definitely doesn’t mean the NFL is over for advertisers.

SPONSORED BY SAILTHRU

Grab the Holidays by the Antlers

Regardless of your feelings about when one should begin listening to holiday jamz—a topic that has caused eggnog-throwing fights in the Morning Brew office—all you wild and crazy marketers need to get a jump on #holidays2020 right now.

Sailthru is here to lend a mittened hand and some holiday cheer with their 2020 Holiday Marketing Playbook.

In this rosy-cheeked marketing cookie, you’ll learn about:

• Adapting to changes in consumer behavior.
• The importance of personalization.
• Crafting triggered messaging.

With best-in-class examples from little toy shops like Target, Tory Burch, Best Buy, and Sephora, Sailthru’s Holiday Playbook is a must-read for marketers looking to bulk up their bag during the upcoming unprecedented retail season.

Download the playbook.

AGENCIES

R/GA Says R/Goodbye

Things on R/GA’s home front seem shakier than its strong Twitter presence suggests. 

Six key leaders departed the agency (sorry, “innovation consultancy”) last week to form their own…innovation consultancy, per Adweek.

• Global chief innovation officer Saneel Radia, global head of brand Mike Rigby, and vice chairman, global chief strategy officer Barry Wacksman left the agency last week.
• Then, in a second gust of departures, global head of operations Colby Dennison, VP of business transformation Philip Rackin, and R/GA New York VP/head of strategy Rachel Mercer exited in favor of the yet-to-be-created shop. 
• Insiders told Ad Age that without these six execs, R/GA’s business transformation group has been essentially wiped out. 
• Wacksman’s exit is perhaps the most significant, as he’s called R/GA home since 1999—which, for the marketing world, is about 700 years. 

Although IPG currently owns R/GA, the getaways are reportedly negotiating with rival WPP Group to back their future shop. 

Why this matters: R/GA has a ton of influence on the agency world as a whole (see: its 165,800 followers on Twitter, the second-highest of any IPG or WPP agency), so it’s possible that both WPP and IPG could feel seismic shifts as a result of this exodus.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Oracle was reportedly chosen as the “trusted tech partner” for U.S. TikTok, rather than a buyer.
• Amazon opened Twitch’s ad inventory to programmatic buyers. 
• Apple’s iOS 14 update could have major impacts on Instagram ad targeting.
• Nielsen confirmed it’s shutting down its place-based audience measurement service.
• The Washington Post and Financial Times announced a joint digital subscription.

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FRENCH PRESS

Marketing tips to make you fancy

Copywriters: Ann Hadley created her own mini case study on the power of copywriting. Spoiler alert: She added the words “pumpkin spice” to her copy and it became frighteningly powerful. 

Mistakes: SEJ shared eight v silly SEO mistakes that even the pros make sometimes. 

Colors: Pantone’s Color of the Year is genuinely one of my favorite things in the world, so I found this insight into how Pantone predicts the state of branding once every 365 days fascinating. 

Emails: This aesthetically pleasing infographic outlines 10 dos and don’ts for a successful email marketing campaign. 

CMO SENTIMENTS

Sign up here for Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman’s CMO Series on LinkedIn, in which he chats with the most important CMOs in the marketing industry. Then read on to get to know these marketing leaders a little better. 

Last week, Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman asked Tim Mahoney, the former CMO of Volkswagen, Subaru, and Chevrolet, the following illuminating questions: 

Alex Lieberman: What’s one brand not in the automotive industry that you think is genius at marketing? 

Tim Mahoney: Genius is a pretty high standard—[but] I’m a big fan of Target. 

AL: What was your one superpower as a marketer? 

TM: I think building teams.  

AL: How do you take your coffee? 

TM: Depends on the time of day, so cappuccino in the morning and normally espresso in the afternoon.

There you have it, folks—if you want to be a CMO in the car world, you know what kind of coffee to drink. Watch the full interview here.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Marketing Brew stories from the last few editions.

• BABE Wine’s latest campaign is a master class on branding for millennial women
• Facebook will limit how many ads a Page can run at once
• Ukonwa Ojo of MAC Cosmetics is the new CMO of Prime Video and Amazon Studios