TONY OF ALL MEDIA

"Eat More Chicken" pleads the forlorn, sandwich board-wielding heifer in those familiar Chick-fil-A ads. Soon eating more of any kind of meat could be a problem if Tyson Foods' warning is correct. "The food supply chain is breaking," the meat producing giant cautioned in alarming, full-page ads in the Sunday editions of The Washington Post, The New York Times and the company's hometown paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, as the Post reports . Tyson, which has been forced to shut down 13 plants amid the pandemic, argued in the ads that its facilities must stay open to protect the free flow of food (meaning, meat) to American households, even as it defends itself against not properly protecting its workforce from the coronavirus. The ad called on the government to help find ways "to allow our team members to work in safety without fear, panic or worry" — in an advertisement conspicuous for its tone of fear, panic and worry. D.C. labor lawyer Jo...

We could all use a little "WHASSUP?!" right now. This week, Budweiser brought back its iconic TV campaign from the 90s, reframing it for the age of coronavirus, as Ad Age reports . The spot — which was shot using Zoom and was the brainchild of Bud agency VaynerMedia — features retired hoops stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, the WNBA's Candace Parker, DJ D-Nice and Wade's wife, actress Gabrielle Union, resurrecting the classic "WHASSUP?!" line, à la the original commercial from 1999 that became a fin de siècle pop culture phenomenon. As every advertiser knows, nostalgia has a way of making consumers feel all warm and fuzzy, and never more than during challenging moments. Spot-on in tone and timing, this little shot of sentimentality and silliness — albeit with an important message in these crazy times — is just what we needed.

The shutdown of the ad world caused by the coronavirus pandemic hasn't stopped one agency holding company from creating a top executive-level post. Publicis Groupe today promoted Justin Billingsley, its president over Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH), to the newly created role of global chief marketing officer, where his responsibilities will include product development and marketing, client transformation, new and organic growth, and internal and external public relations and communications. The company said his immediate priority would be partnering with Publicis's global account leads and with clients directly "to ensure they are recovery ready, for today and tomorrow's 'next normal.' " Billingsley will continue his role as chairman of Publicis Emil and Publicis One Touch, the bespoke agency networks for Mercedes-Benz and Nivea, respectively. Under Billingsley's leadership, DACH won both those accounts. Prior to joining Publicis a deca...

In a recent Mojichat branded activation, gamers earned $3,000 apiece — more than 10 times the typical earnings per stream. Mojichat believes it has cracked the code when it comes to placing non-intrusive ads in the most popular streaming games. Celebrity gamers with huge audiences have steered clear of branded messages because they lose as much as 20 percent of their viewers when they stop gameplay to run a video ad, as the app's founder and CEO Jeremy Greene pointed out. "That has not only limited their monetization opportunities but also left advertisers without access to the lucrative streaming market." Greene says Mojichat removes those barriers — with lucrative results for gamers. Here's how it works. The company's new ad program targets the hundreds of millions of livestream gaming fans with brand images and links integrated into the custom avatars and in-game chats of streamers, according to the company, with all ads sold through its own agency, ...

And you thought department stores and shopping malls were bad off before the coronavirus hit. As one person put it so succinctly in this New York Times piece , they're pretty much toast now. I happened to drive by one of the largest shopping centers in the Boston area, South Shore Mall, this past weekend and was struck by the sight of the massive, empty parking lot (except for the spaces in front of the still-operating Target). This is a mall with several mid-level (Macy's, Sears) and upscale (Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor) stores that were already bereft of foot traffic even in the best of times. As I gazed from the highway high above over at the sobering vista of a sea of thousands of available parking spaces, I wondered: What exactly is the owner of this hunk of suburban real estate wreckage going to do once all the stores inside shut for good? Like other mall operators, will they convert it into a mixed-use space featuring a smattering of retail plus, perhaps, a comm...

Bonnaroo attendees last summer participate in a morning event at the ASICS-branded Third Eye Dome, a massive wellness activation produced by Live Nation Live events have been put on hold for the time being, but the largest entertainment company in the world, Live Nation, has its eye on a post-lockdown future. In other words, live is still alive. The sneaker brand ASICS, which staged successful activations at three of Live Nation's most popular music festivals last summer, is moving forward as well, even as the retail sector tanks and as the athletic shoe market in particular copies with a 75 percent decline in sales because of the pandemic. Even though the Tokyo Summer Olympics were pushed back a year, ASICS still plans to roll out multiple Olympics-themed sneaker styles, as well as several other new designs, this year. For the case study on ASICS' work with Live Nation and more on what these resilient, forward-thinking companies are doing to survive the coronavirus crisis ...

The old Land O'Lakes label, featuring the Native American character Mia The label of Land O'Lakes dairy products featuring the familiar Native American "maiden" is one of the most iconic product images ever. It also represents the worst of cultural appropriation, perpetuates the myth of friendly relations between Native Americans and early European settlers, and even trivializes genocide, critics have charged. And so, the character — whose name is Mia — has officially gone the way of the Frito Bandito, Sambo's and every other racist brand mascot down through the history of American capitalism. As Modern Farmer noted , Land O'Lakes retired the old label (which had been around since 1928) very quietly — but that didn't stop the ferocious roar of complaints that followed, angrily denouncing the redesign as political correctness gone too far. A few choice comments on Modern Farmer's story (many of which I have edited only to make them passably l...

Cruel intentions? Sometimes even when our hearts are in the right place, our brains are slow to follow. Take Reese Witherspoon's Draper James fashion label and its brainless, coronavirus-inspired giveaway of dresses to schoolteachers. Noble idea, it would seem, but one that has ended up as one of the worst marketing flops in the age of the pandemic, helping reinforce the perception that certain companies and public figures are milking the crisis for their own benefit, which has ushered in hashtags like #covidwashing and #celebritycovidwashing. In short, Reese Witherspoon can't do math. If you want the gory details, check out Vanessa Friedman's juicy  blow-by-blow in the Times. Those quoted in the story and readers who commented on it seem to acknowledge that the company apparently didn't mean any harm when it put on a raffle that turned out to be more popular than anybody expected and that ended up disappointing everybody who didn't win — which was prett...

Turns out all those Amazon deliveries and all that toilet paper hoarding wasn't enough to save the economy. The U.S. government's own data, just out this morning, reveals that retail sales are the worst they've been since it started tracking them, the Times reports . Retail declined 8.7 percent in the month of March compared to February — with the situation likely having worsened since then, as most states didn't move to shut down nonessential businesses till mid-March into April. And you can blame this for the whole mess: The sector may well bounce back after the worst of the pandemic is over and retailers begin to slowly reopen. What likely will never recover are the millions of lost jobs in an industry that was already in the toilet before anybody heard of coronavirus. A  report  earlier this month predicted that 15,000 store locations may never open, with chains like Macy's, Gap and Kohl's poised for collapse altogether. Macy's last week h...

If you're one of the dozen or so people still employed in the magazine business in these end times, I sure hope you're not working at Condé Nast. As first reported by the Post's Keith Kelly, the publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ said that due to the coronavirus pandemic, a temporary pay cut would go into effect from May through September, affecting 10-20 percent of employees who make at least $100,000 a year. CEO Roger Lynch said he would slash his own salary by 50 percent. The company also told employees to brace for possible layoffs. That's in stark contrast to Hearst, whose CEO Steve Swartz vowed last week that there would be no layoffs at the company that publishes Cosmo, Esquire and Men's Health. I'm told that the pandemic pretty much annihilated any morale that was left at Condé, which has been in freefall ever since the dual mortal wounds of Si Newhouse no longer running the show and the collapse of the ad market for print. Not on...

Here, Kayleigh McEnany (left) and ousted anchor/conspiracy peddler Trish Regan can be seen putting their biology degrees from MIT and experience as chief epidemiologists at the CDC to work, dismissing the severity of the coronavirus just before it wrecked America. "It will never come here," proclaimed McEnany, who, shortly thereafter, was rewarded with the job of White House press secretary.

It's a majority — but a slim one. According to a poll just out from the Pew Research Center, 54% of Americans approve of the job the media are doing covering the coronavirus pandemic. That stat was the basis of the  headline in The Hill. But to me, here's the real news, and it's not good: the remaining 46% of survey respondents think we're doing a poor or only fair job. This is no small survey, taking into account the opinions of 11,000 adults in March, as mass business closures, self-quarantining and social distancing were in full swing and as cable news  ratings surged. With so many of us consuming news content right now, what does it mean, then, that nearly half the public think we suck at our jobs? It's a given that some of the content, especially on the part of the cable nets and the tabloids, has been alarmist and sensationalistic. (Want to raise your blood pressure? Just try perusing  these headlines.) And we can certainly argue about the wisd...

Not surprisingly, viewership of video content of all kinds — streaming and linear TV, daytime and primetime, news and entertainment — is enjoying a surge unlike it's seen in years with everyone being shut-ins and all. Just as predictably, young consumers are opting to pass the time with online video programming instead of traditional TV. And when they're not on social media or watching YouTube they are, of course, playing video games. According to a survey of more than 1,700 teenagers from Brainly, social distancing and self quarantining have Generation Z flocking to digital content channels, with 60% of respondents consuming more video content now than before the pandemic, most of it on YouTube (40%), followed by Netflix and Hulu (24%). When it comes to social media use during the coronavirus crisis, GenZ continues to turn mostly to Instagram (59%) to stay entertained and informed and to keep up with friends, followed by Snapchat (50%). Facebook lags far behind, comm...

Brands doing good? More like brands that treat people like crap In this space, I've been documenting the many cases of brands doing good during the pandemic — from Google donating ad space to small businesses to KFC and Chipotle passing out free food to healthcare workers. There seems to be no shortage of companies that have put lending a hand during the crisis ahead of financial gain. And then there's Town Sports International. Unlike fitness chains such as Equinox and Planet Fitness, Town Sports has continued to charge members of its gyms — including New York Sports Club and Boston Sports Club — monthly dues despite being shut because of coronavirus. The situation has understandably caused an uproar among members, who say their complaints to the club have fallen on deaf ears. And now the attorneys general of three states and D.C. are getting involved. New York Attorney General Letitia James said she considers the club's actions criminal and threatened its ow...

Purdue Chicken chairman and pitchman Jim Perdue in an ad thanking those on the front lines of the food industry, including farmers, factory workers and truck drivers The large majority of advertisers have adjusted their creative since mid-March, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, according to a new survey by the Association of National Advertisers. Of those surveyed, 90 percent of brands had made some kind of change in their advertising content, ranging from directly addressing the pandemic and its effect on communities to stressing more emotional versus straight sales messaging to backing off lifestyle imagery like large social gatherings. Nearly half (46%) said their changes were substantial. Most advertisers surveyed (55%) noted that in-house teams had directed their adjustments. A sizable number (39%) suggested making changes to content was challenging, giving reasons that included closed-down studios and limited access to talent and cr...

With agency holding companies saying thanks but no thanks to the idea of moving the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to October from its regularly scheduled June slot due to coronavirus, the show is currently looking at its options — one of which is doing the whole thing virtually — according to Ad Age. WPP and Omnicom had already pulled out of the festival, while IPG, Publicis and Droga5 are said to be "assessing the situation." A trove of marketing and tech events, including SXSW in Austin, have been either canceled or rescheduled because of the pandemic. Google's Cloud Next and Microsoft's Build are a couple of meetings going virtual this year, while others — including Facebook's F8 developer conference — have been axed altogether. But for agencies and their creatives vying for the industry's most coveted award, as well as the companies that do business with them and the press that cover it all, the absence of Cannes would be...

Turns out it's not so much "Corona is finished" as "Who finished all the Corona?" You will recall that 5WPR survey from a couple of weeks ago, indicating that 38 percent of consumers said they would no longer buy the beer brand because of a negative association with the coronavirus pandemic? Well, Ad Age got its hands on the latest Nielsen data, revealing that Corona sales are actually up by 50%. "Apparently, Corona Beer is proving popular at Zoom happy hours," the website reports. Spurred by the panic buying of the last few weeks, Nielsen also pointed to massive sales increases for Kimberly-Clark, home of Scott, Cottonelle, Viva and Kleenex paper products (up 160%); Reckitt Benckiser, whose brands include Lysol and Mucinex (148%); Clorox (125%); Procter & Gamble, makers of Charmin, Bounty and Pampers (109%); and Colgate-Palmolive, parent of Colgate and Tom's of Maine toothpaste, Softsoap and Murphy's Oil Soap (90%). The CEO of Co...