Adweek November 1, 2021

Mark Zuckerberg is now the CEO of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook. As a social media company, “we build technology to bring people together,” Zuckerberg said, noting that while Facebook is one of the most-used products in the world, it doesn’t represent everything Meta does. “All of our products, including our apps, now share a new vision: To help bring the metaverse to life. And now we have a name that reflects the breadth of what we do.” Reaction to the rumors swirling around about the name change was mostly pessimistic, with Gartner’s Chris Ross calling it “a classic lipstick-on-the-pig scenario,” and The Social Element’s Ashley Cooksley telling Adweek, “It’s presumably more about distancing the parent company from the Facebook product, so that any toxicity in Facebook stays within…

The third quarter was very good to WPP, which posted revenue growth of 14.7%. Chief executive Mark Read credited the jump to several sources, but there was a clear standout: WPP’s public relations services saw year-over-year organic growth of 16%, as well as 12.6% compared with 2019. “In previous times, public relations has often been the first part of our business to be cut. That wasn’t the case during Covid. But scope in their services has continued to increase,” Read explained. “It shouldn’t be any surprise with topics of purpose, reputation, employee activism, political polarization and racial challenges—people’s issues that companies are increasingly expected to wrestle with and have a point of view on,” he added. “And I think that, as a result, there’s been a lot of demand from clients for…

As a hairstylist, Carolyn Aronson knew her clients’ frustration with not finding a multipurpose product with simple ingredients. So in 2006, she hung up her stylist apron and founded It’s a 10 Haircare and its signature Miracle Leave-In product, and built a multinational brand that has gone all the way to the Super Bowl. Aronson’s love for hair started early. At age 8, she began changing her own hairstyle for fun. “This change was instantly empowering,” she said, “and I felt how hair could make someone feel better about themselves.” She started working at age 13 in a doctor’s office, graduated high school early and enrolled in beauty school. To build up her clientele, she “mailed out thousands of free service coupons” and booked extra appointments on nights and weekends. Aronson spent…

If you’ve given even a cursory look into the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, you can quickly get lost in the wash of near-meaningless analogies. The Ethereum network uses as much energy annually as the country of Chile, and selling a nonfungible token uses as much energy as a European Union resident’s electricity consumption for one-and-a-half months. Mining Bitcoin uses more electricity than entire countries like Argentina. Marketers and publishers have found enticing ways of using NFTs—forms of digital tokens minted on blockchain platforms like Ethereum—to drive new revenue streams and connect with communities. The marketing industry’s contribution is small, but executives hungrily eye the opportunities. And while media hype might have cooled, the transaction volume of NFTs shows no signs of dissipating. The weekly trade volume of NFTs in September reached new…

It would be a dramatic understatement to say cannabis commerce platform Dutchie’s valuation has been growing by leaps and bounds. As recently as August 2020, its estimated worth was $200 million. By March 2021, it was $1.7 billion. A revised estimate for this fall puts it at $3.7 billion. Those eye-popping numbers, coming on the heels of funding rounds totaling $550 million in 2021 alone, show how much faith the investor community has in this particular Oregon-based startup, which recently announced a sweeping rebrand and its first tagline: “Grow together.” But they also say something more. The cash infusions highlight the current rush to get a piece of the cannatech companies that are fueling a legal weed industry expected to hit $100 billion in U.S. sales by 2030, per investment banker Cowen.…

About 20 years ago, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane used data and statistics to help his low-revenue team keep pace with wealthier competitors, making for a stronger roster. The resulting success inspired Michael Lewis’ bestselling book Moneyball, which in turn led to Brad Pitt portraying Beane in the film adaptation. Beane’s analytics methods, which used combinations of stats to find low-priced athletes whose performance exceeded their costly superstar peers, helped level the playing field in professional sports. Now sports marketing is having its Moneyball moment with the help of massive pools of data that show which athlete endorsers are giving brands the biggest bang for their buck. For example, software companies like EDO synthesize social media and search data to show why ads featuring track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson outperform…