Adweek October 10, 2022

An unflinching investigation from former U.S. deputy attorney general Sally Yates into the National Women’s Soccer League found that “abuse and misconduct—verbal and emotional abuse, and sexual misconduct—had become systemic.” Despite being a relatively new league (the NWSL was founded in 2012), it has experienced unprecedented growth, and brand partnerships have come with it. Adweek reached out to 19 sponsors in the days following the report; 10 responded. And many that did respond to Adweek punted responsibility back to the NWSL. Delta said the report raises concerns that “warrant both reflection and action.” Nationwide is “deeply disturbed” and waiting to fully review the report. Nike will continue working with NWSL leadership “while using our voice to advocate for positive change.” Alaska Airlines said, “Our priority is supporting the players and ensuring any…

In the 1970s, Burger King told customers they could “Have It Your Way.” That sentiment is back, in an empowering way. “You Rule” is the theme of BK’s first campaign from indie agency O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul (OKRP), which was chosen as its creative agency of record for the U.S. market in April. “’You Rule’ is about life, it’s about how you live it, it’s about acknowledging that the consumer, the hero, is a winner and deserves to be treated as such and deserves to feel like that,” said OKRP CEO Tom O’Keefe.…

As half of Wieden+Kennedy, Dan Wieden coined perhaps the most recognizable tagline ever: Nike’s “Just do it.” He died at age 77 on Sept. 30. His career began in PR, until commercial freelancing led him to discover a knack for the industry. He met David Kennedy at a small Portland agency; the duo opened Wieden+Kennedy in 1982. Wieden constantly pushed his crews to take chances, as on Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, along with work for Coca-Cola, AB InBev, Booking.com, Delta Air Lines, ESPN, Honda, Mondelēz, P&G and Verizon. Among Wieden’s awards were a lifetime achievement Clio, a Cannes Lion of St. Mark and being named to the Advertising Hall of Fame.…

Mick McConnell’s marketing career began with a stack of rejection letters from some of the top architectural firms in New York. The now-North America CEO of agency Superunion had the misfortune of graduating from architecture school into an early 1990s recession and found that few firms were hiring. So he was willing to do the job that was needed. McConnell landed a marketing role at the Kansas City, Mo., office of engineering and architecture giant Ellerbe Becket, which became a blessing in disguise. “I got hooked right away into marketing and pitches and that kind of realm,” he said. The position ended up being the start of a wide-ranging and singular career at the junction of marketing, architecture and design. A subsequent job at another architecture firm led McConnell back to New York…

Autumn is in full swing, and while the weather might be crisp outside, we’re turning the temperature up with our annual Hot List issue. Even before I settled into my new role overseeing the magazine, I had been focused on this week’s issue for many months. That’s because the Hot List has long been one of my top projects to work on each year, and I always relish the opportunity to celebrate the year’s standouts in TV, media and digital/tech. Our team—including media editor Lucinda Southern—has assembled another rich list of honorees for 2022, filled with the most talked about brands, people and platforms from the last year. We’ve got everything from innovative stalwarts like The New York Times to disruptive upstarts like BeReal, as well as a couple of recent cover…

Type in a prompt like “email,” and several entirely original stock images of computers and messaging will be created instantaneously. A few more clicks and inputs will generate a host of text snippets suggested for ad copy. That’s how a new tool from a startup called Omneky lets brands—usually growth-hungry apps and ecommerce sites—pair artificial intelligence-generated photorealistic images with passable machine-made copy and post the results directly to social and video platforms. The platform, which taps a popular open-source AI art generator called Stable Diffusion, is one of the first to tailor this cutting-edge technology specifically to brands in this way, but it likely won’t be the last. As AI-powered image generation technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past year, its output has transformed from garbled abstractions to sometimes-realistic…