Adweek December 6, 2021

When it comes to addressing climate change, PR agencies aren’t simply crafting responses about efforts to “go green.” A new study out of Brown University found that many of the largest communications firms are actively working on behalf of clients to reshape the terms of the debate as consumers increasingly demand action to curb greenhouse gases and other environmental degradation. The PR industry consists of “players on par with, if not bigger than, Sierra Club or Exxon,” said lead researcher Robert Brulle. “If you want to understand climate politics and you ignore the PR world, you’re not going to understand climate politics.” The analysis of more than 200 organizations involved in U.S. climate change politics identified which agencies worked with them. These PR firms were found to have a pivotal role in environmental…

McDonald’s snagged Mariah Carey, Travis Scott and BTS, Popeyes got Megan Thee Stallion, Tim Hortons worked with Justin Bieber, and Dunkin’ landed Charli D’Amelio. But smaller fast food player A&W is flipping the script, launching “Anti-Celebrity Meals” starring its employees. Besides gaining pop culture cachet, the campaign from agency Coomer serves as a splashy help-wanted ad amid a labor shortage. “We really liked the angle of celebrating our own actual team members,” said Liz Bazner, senior director of marketing at A&W.…

This year’s Agencies of the Year issue features The Martin Agency’s chief creative officer Danny Robinson (front, left) and CEO Kristen Cavallo (front, right), and Tag Team’s Cecil Glenn (back, left) and Steve Gibson (back, right). The rap duo stars in Adweek’s No. 1 Ad of the Year, “Scoop! There It Is!,” that The Martin Agency created for Geico. From the truck the brand used to tout the ad-inspired ice cream flavor, Tag Team is serving The Martin Agency execs a double scoop of ice cream to signify the IPG agency’s back-to-back U.S. Agency of the Year wins.…

Christa Pitts didn’t know a career in sales would give her the entrepreneurial foundation to run a global company beloved by families. Pitts—along with her twin sister, Chanda Bell, and their mother, Carol Aebersold—heads up The Lumistella Company, which makes The Elf on the Shelf brand of books, toys, entertainment and immersive experiences that has become a holiday tradition worldwide. Getting there, however, was no Christmas miracle. After college, her first job was at Aramark, selling uniforms to companies, which she continued to do for several smaller manufacturers before taking a friend’s suggestion to try out for a hosting gig on shopping channel QVC. She beat out more than 13,000 other candidates for the spot. “It was a shocking yet glorious moment, and a great opportunity for me to learn,” Pitts said, describing…

As Kristen Cavallo and I flashed our vaccine cards and pulled down our masks at Bryant Park Grill a few blocks away from Madison Avenue in New York last month, I couldn’t help but marvel at how things change. Four years ago, I was editing our coverage of the #MeToo movement, which led to shake-ups across the advertising industry, and Cavallo was stepping into her first days on the job as CEO of The Martin Agency, charged with turning it in a new direction. We discussed what it means to be a purpose-fueled organization, how ad agencies can win by banding together and what it took to lead Martin to two consecutive Agency of the Year awards. If you map that journey out, it’s a pretty incredible trajectory. In this issue, you’ll…

Discovery and its streaming service Discovery+ are known for their wealth of unscripted series. For the holidays, though, the company’s streamer is trying out something new: its first-ever step into scripted fare with Candy Coated Christmas, a holiday movie featuring Ree Drummond of Food Network’s Pioneer Woman fame. “We’re doing a bit of an experiment, a toe dip into the scripted space just around the holidays,” explained Lisa Holme, group svp of content and commercial strategy at Discovery+. “We believe that we can satisfy our consumers—and keep them from leaving us—by letting them watch the kind of content we know that they like within our platform.” Candy Coated Christmas is just one example of how holiday movies are becoming a fast-growing and increasingly essential genre in streaming services’ libraries. For years, cable…