It’s almost here, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…an actual in-person marketing conference in NYC. Advertising Week New York starts on Monday, October 18, and we’ll be on the ground at the event (and even moderating some panels).

Before the week begins, we wanted to give you a heads-up on what to expect this year:

• It’s a hybrid event. So you can listen to panels from your laptop at home or IRL in Hudson Yards, NYC.
• There are some big names speaking. As in Matthew McConaughey and Al Roker big. Marketing nerds will probably be more excited to hear from Peloton SVP and head of global marketing and communications Dara Treseder and NYU marketing prof Scott Galloway, though.

Zoom out: Ahead of next week, we chatted with some of the event’s speakers about their panels and which topics they expect to be top of mind this year.

Diversity and inclusion

Every panelist we spoke with said they expect diversity, equity, and inclusion (or DEI&I) to be woven into the majority of this year’s talks.

Belinda Smith, Americas CEO of media agency m/Six, told Marketing Brew the number of DE&I panels happening at this year’s Advertising Week—14, to be exact—is significant.

• “There’s been a lot of intentional curation of this content,” Smith said, adding that she’s happy to see some of this year’s DE&I panels covering the Asian community.
• After summer 2020’s racial reckoning and all the corporate DE&I pledges that came next, she anticipates DE&I panelists doing less sugar-coating and being more real about what it’s like to be a minority in this industry.

“There’s a shift about how we’re discussing this and how truthful we’re being, how we’re willing to be a bit braver in holding people accountable,” Smith continued.

On measurement

Additionally, the panelists we spoke to expect measurement to be a major topic of discussion in light of the third-party cookie’s ghosting us all soon, not to mention Apple’s privacy crusade. But Vox Chief Revenue Officer Ryan Pauley doesn’t think we should count our chickens before our eggs hatch here.

• “I expect to hear a sense that there is a need for a transparent and trustworthy set of measurement tools that are third-party verifiable. I also expect that there won’t be that many definitive solutions that exist today, unfortunately,” Pauley said.
• “We’re going to hear a lot about how important [accurate measurement] is, and we’re not going to hear a lot about what specific solutions are available today,” Pauley continued.

Read the full article here.—PB

Advertisers are going to start finding a larger audience across Facebook’s apps.

The company announced in a blog post Monday that, unless someone links their accounts together, it will consider an individual user’s Instagram and Facebook accounts as two separate people—at least from an advertiser’s perspective.

• Previously, Facebook counted someone with a Facebook and Instagram account as one person using identifiers like email, even if these accounts weren’t officially linked up.

Why the change? Facebook can tell which direction the wind is blowing.

“This update aligns with trends of offering people more control over how their information is used for ads and is consistent with evolving advertising, privacy, and regulatory environments,” wrote Facebook’s VP of product marketing, Graham Mudd.

Though he said pre-campaign audience estimates will look larger, “we do not believe this will have a substantial impact on reported campaign reach.”

• Facebook said it’s been telling advertisers that changes were coming since June.

Refresh: It’s been quite a few weeks for advertisers on the Book.

In September, the company acknowledged that Apple’s privacy updates were more disruptive than advertisers initially expected, leaving marketers “blind” to Facebook’s campaign metrics.

Weeks later, whistleblower Frances Haugen disclosed internal documents and accused Facebook of misleading advertisers, specifically its “shrinking user base” and how it counts the number of people using its platform.—RB

The Wieden+Kennedy cofounder died on Sunday at the age of 82.

• If you don’t know Kennedy from the agency he founded, you might recognize his name from some of the famous campaigns he worked on, such as Nike’s first “Just Do It” commercial and others for Honda and Travel Oregon.
• Kennedy’s most recent work for the American Indian College Fund rolled out with a soft launch this week (in the form of a website and full-page New York Times ad) in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Some history: Born in 1939, Kennedy cut his teeth in ad land as a designer and art director for agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Leo Burnett, and McCann-Erickson. In 1982, he teamed up with a writer named Dan Wieden to create Wieden+Kennedy, and the rest is history. It’s now one of the largest independent creative agencies.

What’s in a name: The agency has temporarily changed its name to Kennedy+Wieden in his honor. “David Kennedy’s heart and soul and neural pathways are etched deep inside Wieden+Kennedy. It’s who we are, it’s what we do and it’s why we do it,” Wieden once said.

Kennedy is survived by his wife of 58 years, Kathleen, as well as his four children.—PB

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

Happy Holidays: Bring out the mistletoe. This checklist should help kickstart any holiday campaign.

Social media: Your team is gonna tweet, so you should probably have some guidelines in place. This template (and examples) can help.

Publishing: Read this case study from Digiday about how Group Nine Media has changed its ad sales approach over the past couple of years.

Spice it up: With insights that turn up the heat and strategies that actually work, Chili Piper’s podcast, Demand Gen Chat, breaks down how today’s marketing leaders are driving revenue. Learn what they’re raving about in the latest episode.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content}

Quote: “We are at risk of losing our most sneaker-obsessed consumer...High heat, hype is ‘killing the culture’ and consumers are migrating towards New Balance and smaller, independent brands”—slides from a presentation recently given by Nike on its SNKRS app, which has been a source of frustration for users because of its limited releases, per Complex

Stat: 111 million. That’s how many accounts have tuned into Netflix’s Squid Game, its biggest launch yet.

Story: Did Coke make a commercial that’s “as bad as the Kendall Jenner ad with Pepsi?” Some think so. Read The Drum’s look at Coke’s botched attempt to reach the gaming community.

Brand purpose is a mandate for today’s organizations, but which companies are really getting it right?

On Wednesday, October 27, at 1:30pm ET, Wieden+Kennedy’s Dr. Marcus Collins joins Marketing Brew’s The CTA to tell us +  highlight the priorities to keep in mind when tackling brand purpose. Click here to RSVP.

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

• This year’s ANA Masters of Marketing conference, recapped
• Brands get weird for Halloween
• A group of creatives is pressuring agencies to give up fossil-fuel clients