S T U D I O 1 2 : The Shining Dew Parody

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First Things First

January 16, 2020

By Kathryn Lundstrom

Mountain Dew's Super Bowl Ad Will Parody The Shining

In a teaser released yesterday, it appears that the soda brand will be parodying Stephen King's The Shining by referencing the horror flick's typewriter scene. The 10-second clip shows hands on a typewriter repeatedly typing: "New MTN DEW zero sugar. As good as the original, maybe even better?"

Mountain Dew is working with TBWA\Chiat\Day New York on this year's campaign, marking the agency's first Super Bowl spot for the brand after winning the account last year. The win ended Mountain Dew's 46-year relationship with BBDO New York.

Also new in Super Bowl teasers: MC Hammer can't touch his keys with Cheetos dust on his fingers; Jonathan Van Ness is freaking out about boring pretzels and Pop-Tarts is saving the day.

NBCUniversal Takes Wraps Off Peacock, Shares Ad Strategy for Streaming Service

NBCUniversal finally shared details about its upcoming streaming service, Peacock, at an investor day yesterday afternoon at its 30 Rock headquarters in New York. The service will officially debut nationally on July 15—following a soft launch to Xfinity Flex and X1 customers on April 15—and will have three different tiers: Peacock Free, which is (you guessed it) free, will feature 7,500 hours of movies and TV content; Peacock Premium ($4.99 per month, but free for Xfinity and Cox subscribers) will include original shows, 15,000 hours of movies and TV content, and other perks; subscribers can purchase an ad-free version for an additional $5 per month.

Ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino said the company has set several new ad formats for Peacock and has already signed "hundreds of millions" in ad sales commitments from a slate of launch partners sponsors, including State Farm, Target, Unilever, Apartments.com and Eli Lilly.

Here's What Allbirds Has Learned About Ecommerce in China So Far

DTC footwear brand Allbirds debuted in Japan earlier this month, about nine months after it started selling in China through Alibaba's online B2C marketplace Tmall.

International president Erick Haskell spoke at the National Retail Federation's conference in New York this week about some of the lessons Allbirds has learned since its launch in China, where brand awareness was "extremely low, to be quite frank." One of the most surprising things about Tmall, he said, is that it's a largely mobile platform: 95% of the business Allbirds does in China is mobile, versus about 55% in the United States.

In addition, 80% of consumers on the platform leave feedback, which has allowed Allbirds to respond quickly. "When we launched in China, we got immediate feedback from Tmall consumers about the fit of the shoe, which was something we had … not heard in rest of world, so we made changes to react to the needs in the China market," Haskell said.

(To learn more about the practical skills required to excel in a disruptive marketplace, check out the free interactive courses available through Adweek's Institute for Brand Marketing in collaboration with IBM Watson Advertising.)

Why Lowe's and Target Brought Their Technology Teams In-House

While off-the-shelf technology works for smaller brands, retailers the size of Lowe's and Target sometimes struggle to find solutions that fit. And, when they outsource their tech needs, the result is often dreaded silos in which staff can't collaborate.

Speaking at the National Retail Federation's event this week in New York City, chief information officers from both companies cited rough Cyber Mondays as factors in the decision to bring tech in house, but that the transition did require a culture change. For Target, the 2013 data breach had shattered the tech team's confidence, said Mike McNamara, evp and CIO at the retailer. Insourcing was a way to turn things around through streamlining and focusing on what's most useful to consumers. Lowe's evp and CIO Seemantini Godbole said that for smaller retailers, it might be better to just bring top priority services in house—but to make sure to invest in top talent.

Best of the Rest: Today's Top News and Insights

Arby's Put Its Hat on Rival Mascots in a Fashion-Forward Power Move

While Burger King is out trolling every clown in town and Wendy's is eviscerating any rival who sets foot on Twitter, Arby's has found a slightly less combative way to have some fun with its competitors.

For National Hat Day (truly a holiday honored by all) Wednesday, Arby's posted a series of images on Instagram featuring fast-food mascots wearing its iconic brown hat, a stunt developed by Publicis agency Moxie. The caption read: "Let's be honest, our hat makes everyone look good."

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Join Adweek editors, marketers and futurists to explore how this rapidly evolving and increasingly adopted technology is leveraged by marketers and impacts the daily lives of consumers. Secure you pass to Adweek's Elevate: AI, March 19th, in New York City.

How Agencies Are Boosting Company Culture and Employee Morale

"In recent years, we've experienced rapid growth and added a great deal of new, young talent with different sensibilities and desires. Recognizing it as an opportunity, we've formed a 'culture task force' with team leaders who are representative of these newer attitudes and developed a scope of work not unlike that which we would recommend to clients.

Guided by the results of a robust quantitative staff survey, the process is designed to be inclusive and comprehensive. The response rate was fantastic. The findings are insightful, and as the agency is brought up to speed on the results and collaborated on the implications, the team will begin to assess how our process and way of working supports our values and builds culture. From there, our team will re-examine our employee programs and develop a new roster of programs that's in sync with the new or evolved cultural platform."

—Lori Bartle, president, Mering

"We invest a lot of time and focus on building high-performing teams. We practice transparency. We implemented a productivity hack in 'No Meeting Wednesdays' where we give permission to our employees to use the first half of the day as they see fit. We monitor employee engagement and overall, we try to be responsive to our employees needs. We are always looking at ways to surprise and delight our staff."

—Heidi Taglio, associate partner and head of talent, Eleven

"Our team events are structured to be cross-company rather than siloed within a certain department. Events include quarterly philanthropy efforts, social events, and various sustainability and wellness events where the entire company takes part.

As a team, our philanthropic activities span a variety of organizations including the Ronald McDonald House preparing meals for families of sick children, Lowcountry Orphan Relief sorting donations and packing care kits for recently displaced children, Pet Helpers, Keep Charleston Beautiful, the SC Department of Resources, Habitat for Humanity and more."

—Caitlin Roark, HR director, Levelwing