MARKETING

Celebrate Juneteenth responsibly

Last year, many companies started closing their doors for Juneteenth, a holiday that acknowledges the end of slavery in the US. So far, the list includes companies like Nike, Target, and Twitter, as well as creative agencies like Wieden+Kennedy, Mother, and MullenLowe.

While Juneteenth isn’t a commercialized holiday, neither was Pride, which has become a corporate branding-palooza since its start 51 years ago. So much so that it’s spurred New York City’s Queer Liberation March, an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist march that attracted 45,000 people in 2019.

• Even US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is tweeting about Pride, despite the fact that the march began as a protest led by the oppressed and unrepresented. 

“Pride wasn’t always shirtless gay guys dancing on floats sponsored by multinational corporations,” Michael Hagos, a creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, told Marketing Brew. Hagos is the creator of Queer Brick, a stunt that called out the “rainbow-washing” of modern Pride celebrations, and raised ~$25,000 for the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ+ youth. 

Will Juneteenth become co-opted in the same way Pride has been? So far, marketing efforts haven’t been...great.

• Old Navy suspended a Juneteenth campaign after asking Black influencers to purchase the brand’s Juneteenth T-shirts, plus lowballing them on rates, according to Fashion United. 
• The NHL’s San Jose Sharks recently deleted a Twitter post that depicted its mascot breaking the literal shackles of slavery.
• A Ford spot that’s been running since last week, made up of what looks like stock footage, also attempts to honor the holiday. 

Jordan Muse, head of account leadership at The Martin Agency, told us he’s “prepared to cringe” at Juneteenth-related marketing. 

“I think there will be some missteps for sure,” he said, noting that the agency’s working with a brand on a Juneteenth campaign, although he declined to name the client. He also said the agency had told a client to skip mentioning the holiday because it “doesn’t connect with the brand’s values and behaviors.”

Even with a day off work, Juneteenth is more nuanced than other holidays. While some may use the day to celebrate, others may choose instead to treat it as a solemn day to reflect.

“It’s beautiful that corporations are raising awareness and acknowledging Juneteenth. My hope is that, while doing this, the proper work is being done internally to address, resolve and dismantle racist structures, unconscious biases and harmful stereotypes which are often perpetuated in corporate environments and actively keep Black people from progress beyond mid-level positions,” Brii Williams, a social media strategist at MullenLowe, told Marketing Brew.

It’s a delicate balance for a brand to raise awareness for a societal issue, earn credibility, and reap the rewards. Notably, consumers aren’t impressed with the promises made in the wake of last summer.

“We need more awareness...but brands are jumping on Juneteenth just because they see the opportunity,” Corean Canty, chief operating officer at We Are Rosie, a marketing and networking organization, told us. Ultimately, she thinks it comes down to whether or not a brand’s strategy is authentic. 

“Are you actually connecting with that audience before you even develop the campaign? Who's sitting at the table? Who's making the decision?” Canty asked.—RB

SPONSORED BY IMPACT

Forget ROI, What About Doing GOOD?

PX 2021 is the marketing industry’s annual partnership summit. And one of the questions driving this year’s big-ticket event is, how can the industry find and support partners who are doing good business by doing good ethical work?

In fact, PX 2021 has an entire keynote dedicated to prioritizing GOOD over ROI. The keynote will include discussion on:

• How partners are creating positive change by building sustainable goods
• How to lead with ethicality
• How to stand for a purpose and add value to your community

This inspiring keynote will take place on June 23 at 12:30pm ET. Register for the session here.

AD TECH

Three takeaways from our event with Check My Ads

ICYMI, Marketing Brew hosted a virtual event on Wednesday with the cofounders of Check My Ads, a consultancy that helps advertisers navigate the chaos (and danger) of the ad tech world. 

• Morning Brew’s B2B Executive Editor, Josh Sternberg, chatted with cofounders Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin about where ads lost in the ad tech pipes actually land. Often, they end up alongside misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories.
• That’s where Check My Ads comes in. Jammi and Atkin’s consultancy works with marketers, providing them brand safety training to help them steer their ads away from such content.

Watch the recording of the full event here, or read on for our three favorite quotes from the thirty minute conversation. 

• “We have yet to work with a brand that hasn’t been on some kind of disinformation [site].”—Atkin, on just how common it is for ads to get funneled into the worst places on the internet without marketers knowing it.
• “Google, Criteo, OpenX, [and] Taboola are some of the biggest funders, monetizers of hate speech and disinformation. That’s something we have seen in our own work with clients, and it’s also something that I see as a disinformation researcher.”—Jammi, on which ad tech companies she and other anti-disinformation professionals believe to be the worst offenders.
• “You cannot automate your way to brand safety.”—Atkin, on why all marketers should, quite literally, check their ads.—PB

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Facebook will start testing ads inside its Oculus VR headsets; the first ad will appear in a shooter game.
• IPG’s Magna inks deal with ReachTV, a Black-owned media company that operates thousands of screens at airports.
• NBC is reportedly asking for $6 million per 30-second Super Bowl 2022 spot.
• Victoria’s Secret is saying goodbye to its “Angel” models. Its new ambassadors include Megan Rapinoe and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
• Wendy’s and “Rick and Morty” are teaming up again, ahead of the show’s fifth season.

SPONSORED BY MORNING CONSULT

Trust or bust. The expectations consumers have for your brand to deliver on its promises are immense. (No pressure or anything.) Morning Consult surveyed 330,000 global consumers across 15 markets, and you know what they found? Nine out of 10 consumers say their usage of a brand would be damaged if they lost trust in it. Learn how brands can build trust—and maintain it—in the full report here.

FRENCH PRESS

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

Twitter: This infographic from Twitter offers a deep dive into rising engagement around sports content on the platform.  

Data: If your social strategy feels a little too sentiment-based lately, check out this guide to making that strat a little more data-driven.

WFH: LinkedIn published a new report that outlines which remote marketing jobs are on the rise.

Top marketing chef: The recent CEO and current CMO of Yum! Brands applied these three marketing ingredients to lead Taco Bell and KFC to double digit growth. You can do the same—no PhD required. Get your copy of R.E.D Marketing today.*

METRICS AND MEDIA

Stat: Disney said 40% of its upfront ad dollars went to digital and streaming platforms, per Reuters.

Quote: “The metaverse will be bigger than Facebook, more immersive than YouTube and more profitable than Amazon. It’s an exciting but early time to be working in this area.”—AB InBev global head of technology and innovation Lindsey McInerney to Digiday, on using NFTs in marketing. 

Read: This absolute bombshell of an Emerging Tech Brew story by Hayden Field about how Airbnb failed its anti-discrimination team. 

ICYMI

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

• Media buyers are using this tool to avoid misinformation
• What makes a good loyalty program?
• Nearly half of all ads on fake news sites come from Google, study finds