Happy October! Our mood this month is strictly 🍂☕️🧦🎃💫🤎, with a little bit of 😳 because we can't believe it's Q4 (+ BFCM is 50 days away!).
With that being said, there's a ton to catch up on. This week we're covering how Adidas capitalized on the Sambas comeback, The Heinz Company officially becoming Swifties and we're giving you an inside look into our convo with the Internet's Creative Director, Katarina Terentieva.
So let's get you up to speed — here's everything you need to know now within the marketing + creative space.
Consider this newsletter a resource for marketers, by marketers. Enjoy!
Sambas Made a Comeback – Here’s How Adidas is Capitalizing
Social is an endless scroll. Where to stop? Here we analyze relevant moments, cultural trends and the marketing geniuses behind it all.
The Adidas Sambas are nothing new — launching in the 1950s, these classic sneakers have been beloved by many, but over the last couple of years, they've taken center stage as the 'it-girl' sneaker, spotted on celebrities like Hailey Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Kaia Gerber — a new essential for the 'model off duty' look. With this explosion in popularity, Adidas has had an opportunity to seize this moment — and they've taken it. Here are just a few ways that Adidas has capitalized on the Samba comeback.
Elevating the Samba With Epic Collabs
Though Adidas has always been known for epic collaborations, with the Samba boom, Samba collaborations have taken over. One of note was a collaboration with Sporty & Rich, which reinvented the popular shoe in a retro-chic style for summer 2023. Loved by influencers and celebs alike, this collaboration could be seen all over social feeds and FYPs everywhere.
Spotlighting Similar Styles
With the popularity of Sambas, Adidas has taken the opportunity to highlight other Adidas Originals styles reminiscent of the Samba — notably the Gazelle and the Superstar. The @adidasoriginals Instagram page now highlights the three shoes, with short films diving into the history of each — and the content is resonating — all three styles are now being seen all over social, fashion blogs and editorial pieces.
Tapping Into Community With Big Campaigns
As a key part of highlighting multiple Adidas Originals styles, Adidas is focusing on their community with their 1,000 Stories campaign. This campaign encourages Adidas Originals fans to share their Originals story, and highlights celebrities' and athletes' stories as well — ultimately communicating that Adidas Originals — Sambas, Gazelles, Superstars and more — are for everyone. Always have been, always will be.
The lesson in all of this? Trends come and go, but brands aren't powerless in harnessing them — Adidas has, powerfully.
How to Create Brand Consistency Across Channels with Katarina Terentieva
If you’re a marketer on TikTok, you know Katarina Terentieva. Known fondly as ‘The Internet’s Creative Director’, Katarina is a force to be reckoned with — not only is she an accomplished content creator, she is also the Co-Founder and CCO of creative agency Louder and is in the process of launching her own DTC brand! Our Brand Marketing Lead, Maria Beer, had the pleasure of chatting with Katarina to get her take on creative direction and consistency when it comes to multi-channel campaigns, and even got some tips + tricks for holiday. Here’s a glimpse into their conversation.
MB: Let's start at the beginning — when working on creative direction for a multi-channel campaign, what’s your step 1? Walk me through your process:
KT: In my work, I’m most often working with startups — so my step one is to understand the founder. Why did they start the company? How do their values tie into the brand? It’s important that I understand what drives the brand in their own words, not the sales-driven language that's on their website and socials. This step is dually helpful in the sense that it also gives me insight into what their pain points are. Today, not only do people want to feel emotionally connected to a brand, but they want to feel connected to the people behind the brand. Understanding the founder and their vision is the first step towards pulling back that curtain.
The other key initial step is understanding the target audience — as helpful as it is to understand the founder, the campaigns we work on are audience-first — our goal is to create resonance and impact with their target consumers. There's a lot of in-depth research and Q&A that goes into figuring out who those customers are beyond demographics — in order to really sell to people in a way that they enjoy being sold to, you have to understand how they behave. We want a client’s target audience to see this campaign and think, ‘this was made just for me’.
A great example of understanding the target consumer is a cereal brand called Off Limits who collaborated with Chamberlain Coffee to create cold brew-infused cereal. They wanted to make a cereal for adults — what do adults want to be in the morning? Caffeinated! So, they decided to infuse their cereal with cold brew so that the milk that's left at the bottom became a cold brew latte — a genius move made for a specific person to think, ‘wow, this was made for me.’
MB: Such good advice! I'm curious, does your creative approach differ from channel to channel? Do you have questions you ask specific to each channel or are you leaning on that foundation of audience-first across each?
KT: It always comes back to audience, however, with different channels the target audience will differ — sometimes drastically, so it’s important to be wary of that. Different channels also lend themselves to different strategies. A great example of audience consideration specific to a certain channel was Poppi’s #Soda’sBack campaign — they featured influencers’ and customers’ UGC and social comments on billboards and put them in Atlanta, GA. Really bold move of them as Atlanta is home to Coca-Cola — but it definitely got attention! In this example, their target audience went beyond their typical consumer — targeting Coca-Cola executives and media that would find this move buzzworthy.
MB: Such a good example — we featured that campaign in a previous newsletter edition! Speaking of audience experience, I'd love to know, when working on creative direction for a multi-channel campaign, what do you think is more important: creative cohesion across channels or creative differentiation across channels? Any tips on cohesive cross-channel creative?
KT: Absolutely! Cohesive creative and messaging is so important. A lack of cohesion drives confusion, and negatively affects the consumer's end desire to buy a product. It can also water down a brand's identity and how they're trying to build brand equity in the market.
Though it's incredibly important, it’s not easy. When working on a team it’s key to have a lot of internal sync between everybody who's touched a project to zoom out and ask, ‘do our deliverables align with the concept?’ If the answer is ‘no’, ditch it, re-cut it, or come up with a different concept. In terms of tips to maintain cohesion across a campaign, ensuring that every piece contributes to solving the same problem and is speaking to the same audience is integral.
An example of this is a campaign I worked on with an environmental organization called Lonely Whale. They wanted to create a really cool experiential campaign that would resonate with Gen-Z at Art Basel in Miami — with the core purpose of raising awareness around the negative environmental impacts of thin film plastic. We ended up coming up with the idea of a ‘filmless film festival’ — a large experiential event involving celebrity endorsements, educational components, media buy-ins and sponsors — but the key was ensuring that it all tied back to the original purpose and concept. If an idea didn’t tie back, it was thrown out. Ultimately, this was a lot of filtering by our team, but it was so pivotal for a cohesive experience.
MB: That sounds like an amazing project! We've been talking about multi-channel campaigns, the holiday season may have more than any other, and the Breef Community is in full holiday planning mode — any holiday marketing tips — how to stand out with creative or general insight?
KT: Ooooh holiday marketing. Two things I’d say:
First, for creative, push beyond the stereotypical — there are, of course, so many holiday cliches we see across campaign creative, working to interpret holiday in a way that isn’t standard is key. One campaign I saw recently that I thought pushed past the ‘holiday standard’ really well was Dunkin’s collaboration with Ice Spice and Ben Affleck — a really interesting way to sell a very popular holiday flavor; Pumpkin Spice. They took a celebrity who has a primarily Gen-Z audience and then handed the reigns of creativity to Ben Affleck allowing him to run with the script, creating a bridge between two generations — who both love the same brand.
Second, holiday is a great time to test products that you feel are a risk to launch at any other point of the year — with consumers shopping for gifts, they're more likely to experiment with the types of products that they buy. We see this a lot in the beauty industry, e.g. limited edition sets that come out during the holiday. This approach is super smart, especially if your audience has been asking for something that you're wary about releasing as a part of your permanent product suite. Packaging a product into a limited edition set for a specific period of time allows you to tap into the POV of your consumer before a full launch.
3 E-Comm Plays Going into Holiday
The news cycle is never-ending. Marketing is ever-evolving. Here we’ll keep you in the know on timely topics and key learnings that can *elevate* your marketing game.
With holiday campaign planning in full swing, it's eComm's time to shine. Though of course, eCommerce is always important, this time of year the number of online shoppers grows exponentially — and so do the number of *ways* to shop online. Here are 3 eComm plays we're seeing going into this holiday season.
Target Introduces an Influencer Storefront
In recent weeks, Target announced that they are rolling out influencer-curated online shops to their website. Reminiscent of Amazon Storefronts, Target Storefronts allow shoppers to browse collections from their favorite creators seamlessly, with easy ways to save inspo and / or purchase items ASAP.
Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are Coming...Like Next Week
Amazon Prime is encouraging Prime members to get a jump start on their holiday shopping this month. Though Amazon Prime Days happened in July, Amazon recently announced Prime Big Deal Days, happening next week, Oct 10 - 11. This event is not only inspiring shoppers to get a jump on their shopping ahead of the holiday season, it's encouraging non-Prime members to join Prime ahead of the busiest shopping season of all.
TikTok Shop Goes Into Its First Holiday Season
After launching this summer, TikTok Shop — an eComm solution for driving sales on TikTok — is going into its first holiday season with new integrations and campaigns. One integration of note is TikTok for Shopify, which allows users to auto-sync information and data seamlessly from Shopify to TikTok Shop and vice versa. Along with this integration, TikTok Shop is hosting a series of BFCM campaigns to support driving users' sales.
Our two cents? With the holiday season just heating up, the eComm plays will keep on coming — and we can't wait to see how they all play out. But for now? Happy shopping! 🛍
Marketing Wins we <3
Who doesn’t love a marketing win? Below are recent marketing moments we couldn’t help but share — and their main takeaways.
Heinz 'Swiftly' Joins Taylor Nation With Product Inspired by Viral Photo
After a photo went viral of Taylor Swift eating a chicken tender with what the internet deemed as "a side of ketchup and seemingly ranch", Heinz didn't miss a beat, creating a product inspired by this viral moment. The result? Another viral moment, this time with the focus on Heinz.
💡 Takeaway: Reactive marketing packs a punch. We've said it once, we'll say it again, adjusting plans and timelines is challenging, but jumping on a pop culture moment that makes sense for your brand can be priceless.
Peet's Coffee Celebrates National Coffee Day With Their Disloyalty Program
This year for National Coffee Day Peet's Coffee took an unconventional approach to bolstering their loyalty program. For one day only, Peet's accepted rewards points from rivals like Starbucks and Dunkin' for a free Peet's coffee.
💡 Takeaway: Unexpected moves grab attention. Peet's is currently fighting to not lose market share to competitors — incorporating those same competitors into a campaign? Bold move.
The NFL Turns Their Attention to Gen-AlphaThe NFL is looking to capture the attention of everyone — at every stage of life. Last week, an alternate version of the Falcons vs. Jaguars game aired on Disney streaming platforms, featuring athletes rendered in real-time as Toy Story-style figurines.
💡 Takeaway: Zooming out has big value. Though it's easy to get caught up in the short term, playing the long game is key to long-term success.
Marketing Jargon
In marketing, it feels like there's a new term being thrown around every day. We've got you! Here are a few you should have on your radar (and mention in your next meeting).
Genre-bending: Any piece of media or art that exists across genres, or combines elements of multiple genres — defying traditionally established genre distinctions. A popular trend in podcasting right now, the podcasts that are topping the charts tend to naturally genre-bend, something audio advertisers should take note of.
Haute-spitality: The trend of luxury fashion brands making their mark in the food and hospitality spaces through activations, pop-ups and partnerships. The goal? Engaging with younger consumers by creating photo opportunities that will go viral on social platforms. Examples include Chanel's Lucky Chance Diner pop-up in NYC, The Prada Cafe in London, and the Dior Spa on the French Riviera.
Brand Equity: The value that comes from the perception of a brand name rather than the value of a product or service itself — i.e. the social value of a brand name.
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That wraps issue no. 9 of The Breef POV! Keep an eye on your inbox for the next edition. In the meantime, browse more on The Breefing Room.
