Marketing ‘Word Of The Year,’ This Time It’s Personal

“Personalization” is 2019’s word of the year, according to results of an annual survey of the members of the Association of National Advertisers. The selection signals a shift in marketing’s Holy
Grail from a brand-centric to a consumer-centric orientation, supplanting 2018’s winning term “brand purpose.”

Serta Brings Mattress Comfort to New Sneaker

Serta is giving consumers a chance to experience the feeling of a mattress on the soles of their feet. The mattress and bedding company has partnered with hip-hop artist and producer DJ Clark Kent to release a limited-edition sneaker called the iC1. The cool blue and white sneaker, which has a foam insole, was created…

General Mills’ 150-Year-Old Brand Is Tackling a ‘Billion Acts of Good’

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.–General Mills has been around for more than a century, but its relatively new mission is still less than a year old. At the annual Brandweek summit, I caught up with Brad Hiranaga, the company’s chief brand officer of North America to find out what’s top of mind for him as he takes…

Facebook’s Head of AI Says the Field Will Soon ‘Hit the Wall’

Jerome Pesenti is encouraged by progress in artificial intelligence, but sees the limits of the current approach to deep learning.

Apple’s Snowbrawl; Agency of the Decade: Wednesday’s First Things First

Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s new daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here. Apple Flexes the iPhone 11 by Using It to…

Virtual MVPDs Were Supposed to Help Save the TV Industry—What Went Wrong?

In mid-November, Hulu + Live TV became the latest live TV streaming service to hike its prices. Hulu’s live television offering, which came onto the market at $40 a month in 2017 and jumped to $45 in January, now costs consumers another $10 more every month, an increase that Hulu said was necessary to keep…