AGENCIES

Inside track

You’ve heard of the Great Resignation—the pandemic-era term that loosely describes the cohort of professionals who, lucky enough to work, have found themselves reevaluating their current gigs over the past year, and are looking for something new.

Within marketing, a similar exodus is taking hold; according to a recent survey of more than 400 marketers by We Are Rosie, a firm that connects freelancers with ad agencies and brands, 63% are planning a job change this year. 

Some are senior and mid-level employees leaving Madison Avenue for life in-house, whether at a brand’s internal agency or its marketing department. Going in-house isn’t a new trend, per se, but the pandemic has accelerated the decision for many in the industry as they find themselves drawn to the perks that the other side can offer.

• Take Spice Walker, a senior strategist who left creative and media agency 360i to join AB InBev’s in-house agency, DraftLine, in June 2020, because “going into the beer industry was the safest move I could make,” she told Marketing Brew. “In-house was always at the back of my mind; the pandemic and the opportunity presented propelled it.”
• Husani Oakley made the jump to Netflix this summer after serving as chief technology officer at ad agency Deutsch New York. At Netflix, he'll lead creative practices and the company's social content strategy. He told Marketing Brew the pandemic pushed him to make the move.
• “We never knew that the past year and a half was possible. Now, anything's possible. Why not take a leap that perhaps two years ago would have made me uncomfortable?” Oakley said. “I used to have seven clients—now I have 200 million,” he added, referring to the streamer’s subscriber base. “Everyone’s going in-house.”

Zoom out: As Jay Haines, founder of Grace Blue, an executive search firm that recruits for both agencies and brands, puts it, these professionals want to be “closer to the commercial reality of a company as opposed to the execution of a communications plan. It’s a real trend.”

Pay, perks, and potential: Read more here about why agency folks want a change of scenery.—RB

ADVERTISING

Think of the children

Google is the latest tech company to announce changes it claims will better protect kids online. On Tuesday, it listed these changes in a blog post. Some directly affect advertising: 

• In addition to “expanding safeguards to prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teens,” Google said it plans to block ad targeting based on age, gender, or interests for those under 18. 
• YouTube Kids, owned by Google, intends to remove “overly commercial content,” like videos that directly encourage kids to spend money, from the platform. 

Déjà vu: If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Facebook took similar steps last month. Unlike Google, Facebook is letting advertisers target kids under 18 based on factors like age and gender, but not on things like interests or activity on other apps and websites. 

Under pressure: As The New York Times pointed out this week, “There is growing bipartisan support in Washington to press technology companies to do more to protect children.” 

For instance, US House Rep. Kathy Castor introduced a bill that would ban “companies from providing targeted advertisements to children and teenagers” last month. And a House subcommittee started investigating YouTube Kids in April, describing its content as “inappropriate, low education, [and] highly commercial.”—MS

SPONSORED BY KLAVIYO

Don’t Creep Customers Out

When companies first started their relationship with cookies (not the oatmeal raisin kind), things were great. The web felt more personal and connected, but then things got...kinda weird. As businesses kept buying and selling data, tracking consumers started to feel a bit more like stalking them. 

Klaviyo's guide to moving on can help you move from stalking to talking to your consumers by using Customer-First Data™, not the third-party type. 

As regulations continue to crack down on third-party data, you can learn how to prepare for the future with three customer case studies on how brands are navigating data privacy changes.

Lose the stalk-factor, embrace the talk-factor, and get your relationship with consumers back on track. 

Check out Klaviyo’s guide today. 

SPONSORSHIPS

Black beauty: More than just a book about a horse

For the next month, The Cut is focusing its beauty section on Black makeup artists, founders, stories, and more. Dubbed “Black Beauty Matters,” the takeover will highlight Black folks’ contributions to the makeup and skincare industry—and Sephora is the exclusive sponsor.

• “Many of the trends we all participate in today, including acrylic nails, glitter, contouring and many more have roots in Black culture. This is not widely known or celebrated,” Sephora SVP of marketing and brand Abigail Jacobs told The Drum.
• Last year, Sephora was the first major brand to take the 15 Percent Pledge, a proposal-turned-nonprofit started by Aurora James that asks retailers to commit 15% of shelf space to Black-owned businesses.

The deets: The Cut is taking the lead on editorial content, with Editor in Chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner hosting a four-episode, Sephora-sponsored podcast series called “In Her Shoes.” Branded content will promote a 60-second ad created by R/GA called Black Beauty is Beauty, as well as shoppable articles featuring Black-owned brands from Sephora. 

Why it matters

Sephora’s sponsorship stems from its desire to reverse some alarming search trends the retailer noticed this year. 

• Jacobs told Marketing Brew that the team saw a “huge increase” in searches for Black-owned beauty brands during 2020’s Black Lives Matter movement.
• But recently, the brand noticed those searches decreasing in volume while studying search traffic on Google Analytics.

Jacobs told us it isn't just searches that have fallen. “We know that right after the social reckoning, we saw that there were a number of brands that began to feature more Black models or Black faces in their advertising. And that has waned as well.” Jacobs added that the “Black Beauty Matters” content in The Cut is intended to drive interest through knowledge.—PB

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Hard Mountain Dew could become the new Four Loko. PepsiCo and Boston Beer are working together on the alcoholic soda, which won’t include sugar or caffeine. 
• Salesforce is entering the streaming wars with a B2B service, in case that space needed to be more crowded, or you needed to be even less clear on what Salesforce actually does. 
• Warner Bros. and AMC have agreed to make movies theater-exclusive for their first 45 days. 
• Lululemon’s largest campaign to date will run during NFL games in select markets. 

SPONSORED BY VALASSIS, A VERICAST BUSINESS

The world changed, and so did the people. Valassis, a Vericast business, conducted a robust study on how human behavior has and hasn’t changed in the past two momentous years. The 2021 Consumer Intel Report gives you the details, from the impulse to buy and build comfortable homes to how shopping expectations have changed, including increased demand for social responsibility. Read it here.

FRENCH PRESS

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

Small biz: Find out how an eco-friendly candle brand found success on social media. 

YouTube: Dive deep on YouTube Shorts—what they are, their early adopters, and more. 

Leadership: This piece offers some tips for avoiding The Great Resignation™ on your team, such as how to give feedback.

Deep dive: Which consumer shopping habits have endured through the pandemic, and which have changed? That kind of data is essential to the growth of your biz. Get all the insights here in Morning Consult’s latest deep dive into consumer trust.*

METRICS AND MEDIA

Stat: Kraft Heinz is “planning to spend $100 million more on marketing than it did in 2019, and giving 80% of its brands a bit of a renovation during the next 18 months,” per Ad Age. 

Quote: “One of the hottest commodities in the minor leagues right now isn’t a fireballing pitcher or a phenom slugger. Instead, a garbage-can-flying raccoon astronaut named Sprocket has captivated baseball’s lower levels.”—Marcus Gilmer for The NYT on minor league baseball mascots.

Read: Fast Company’s look at why pot shops are looking less Apple, more Margaritaville.

ICYMI

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

• How swimwear brand Andie is mixing influencer marketing and out-of-home advertising
• Coke Zero Sugar plugs its new recipe in latest campaign
• The perks and challenges of taking creative capabilities in-house