Volume 011: Raucous Sundays, female CEOs and Supreme destruction.
1. The most raucous Sunday in sports.
Tl;dr: And you thought I was going to talk about the Superbowl.
I know advertising folks like to talk Super Bowl ads as if there wasn’t even a football game happening, but since I’m not an ad person I get to talk Waste Management Phoenix Open instead.
Why? Three reasons:
It’s the most attended event in world golf. While around 65,000 people packed the Hard Rock Arena on Sunday night, almost 700,000 made their way to the Stadium Course in Scottsdale over the week. (Unlike football, golf tournaments really do happen over four days rather than just feeling like it.)
It really is the most raucous Sunday in sports. Every year they build (and then remove) a 20,000 seat stadium to fully enclose the par three 16th, where contrary to every expectation you might have of golf, fans are encouraged to get very, very loud (aided by the liberal application of booze). This year’s TV coverage even had a real-time decibel meter.
Most importantly, the Phoenix Open is the largest zero-waste event in the world. Every year, they remove over 5 million pounds of tournament waste for recycling and composting, collect and reuse thousands of gallons of water to relieve pressure on municipal supplies, and power the event using 100% renewable energy.
I don’t talk about sponsorships often, but it strikes me that if you’re Waste Management, then turning the most attended event in world golf into an example of what you’re capable of makes a whole bunch of sense, and it sure beats the usual slap-our-name-on-a-billboard approach. Well done.
2. H&M gains first female CEO, IBM loses theirs. Victoria’s Secret just mires itself in sleaze.
Tl;dr: Still a long way to go for full representation at the highest ranks.
It seems like an encapsulation of our times that exactly as H&M announces its first female CEO and IBM the retirement of theirs, that news of an abusive and misogynistic culture at Victoria’s Secret also comes to light.
What’s so sad is that none of these things should even be a story. Female CEO’s should be so common that having one doesn’t even warrant being written about (there are currently only 33 Fortune 500 firms with female CEOs) and sleazy creeps like Ed Razek just shouldn’t be tolerated.
Aside from being a woman, what’s fascinating about Helena Helmersson leading H&M is that she hasn’t come through the usual legal or financial path; instead, she was previously in charge of sustainability. This is particularly interesting when we consider environmental issues are a major customer concern relative to fast-fashion and a big reason why rental businesses like Le Tote are doing so well.
Although H&M is probably back on track financially, there will be plenty of troubles ahead. I’m curious and hopeful to see how a female sustainability advocate at the helm will tackle these uniquely.
3. Supreme destruction is clickbait for our kids.
Tl;dr: Taking the scissors to your hoodie is trending on YouTube.
YouTube fame is a strange cultural phenomenon, and I probably wouldn't pay much attention if I didn’t have a 12-year-old child. But since I do, I find myself both incredibly worried and deeply fascinated in almost equal measure by the bizarre things people do on the platform.
I also have a soft spot for Supreme. My wife’s business used to be in SoHo, directly above their store, and every limited edition collection or collaboration meant a line of kids down the street and around the block for days before the drop. You’d end up on first name terms as they patiently waited in the frigid cold of February and the stifling humidity of August.
So, while it isn’t surprising, it is sad to see that destroying Supreme gear for clicks has become a thing on YouTube. Inspired by iPhone in a blender videos, a desperate rush for views has led people to conclude that destroying their Supreme shirts and hoodies drives traffic. While it’s a perverse testament to the power of the Supreme brand, and an example of how ingenious people will be to get what they want, it’s also sad to watch human behavior training an algorithm that in turn is training our kids.
4. What does the data say? It says make better ads.
tl;dr: All the focus on data hides a deeper problem. The ads.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone that a huge problem with advertising today isn’t our ability to target consumers to within an inch of their lives, but that how we’re doing it is turning them off completely.
Last week, I stumbled across this article by Kantar, which stated that ad saturation and over-targeting put the entire advertising industry at risk. I couldn’t agree more. To summarize the report: everyone hates being followed around the internet by terrible ads, will do almost anything to avoid it, and distrust advertising more than ever as a result. This tracks pretty much exactly with other reports stating that advertising has become so short-termist that you can no longer link creativity and effectiveness.
So what does it take to be smaht? Well, universally, it seems to boil down to three things: 1. Make better ads that flex the creative muscle. 2. Balance activation based micro-targeting with reach-based brand-building. And 3. Quit spending so much time and effort doing things just because your data means you can, and instead focus on doing the things that are more likely to actually work.