Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is essentially the Superbowl of the holidays for brands and it also happens to be the WORLD’s LARGEST PARADE. It’s the perfect combo of family-friendly fun and an opportunity to promote the heck out of a brand just in time for the holiday season. And it makes sense why brands clamor to play a role or advertise in the parade….approximately 3.5 million ATTEND the parade in NYC (well not in 2020, but let’s forget that year)., and approx 50 million people tune in to watch the parade between watching it live on NBC and streaming it post-event. Even though the viewership numbers are significantly lower than the Superbowl, this event is much more valuable for many brands because it hits kids and families, a prime, critical demo for pre-holiday. 

In 2019, NBC network generated an estimated $49.2 million in ad revenue from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But did you know that the first-ever Macy's Parade was dreamed up as one big PR stunt?

The Roaring Twenties was super prosperous for the U.S., and it was also prosperous for New York City’s iconic department store—Macy’s. After going public in 1922, R. H. Macy & Co. started to acquire competitors and open more regional locations. Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan’s Herald Square was exploding with growth, raking in the dough - so much so that it decided to expand in 1924 to cover an ENTIRE CITY BLOCK, from Broadway to 7th Ave along 34th Street. This was now the World’s Largest Store featuring 1 million square feet of retail space. Macy’s wanted to celebrate and promote the opening in a huge way, specifically to kickoff the busy shopping season. 

So - Macy’s decided to throw New York a parade on Thanksgiving morning. Despite the name and the timing, it was actually meant to promote Christmas rather than Thanksgiving. Macy’s hoped that customers would start getting excited, inspiring them to get into the holiday spirit and that means - spending money and shopping at Macy’s. 
So, on November 27, 1924 at 9 a.m. the first-ever Macy’s Christmas Parade started.

It was a success but only earned a two-sentence write-up in the newspaper. Still, that didn't deter Macy's from proclaiming a huge success and promising to keep it going annually. Today, the parade is iconic for many American families but, does it still serve the right purpose for Macy's?

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.    

EventMarketer.com's article about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

The New York Times article from 2017 by Cristina Caron titled Macy’s Used to Set the Balloons Free, and Other Thanksgiving Day Parade Facts

https://macysthanksgiving.fandom.com/ had great info and historical data. 

History.com article about the First Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by Christopher Klein 

AdAge’s article titled Why Brands Still Care About The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by Adrianne Pasquarelli  

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

If you were a kid or teen in the 90s, you know all about Got Milk? and the iconic Milk Mustache ads. I will never forget flipping through the pages of my Seventeen or YM Magazine and seeing one celebrity or another smiling at me with a perfectly placed milk mustache on above their lip and the iconic words GOT MILK? on the page. Everyone who was anyone was featured in the campaign - Britney Spears, Kate Moss, Tyra Banks, Dennis Rodman, and SO MANY OTHERS. They also played off pop culture in a big way - when Austin Powers was all the rage - Austin Powers (aka Mike Meyers playing Austin Powers) starred in a campaign, same with The Simpsons. 

in 1993, the California Milk Processor Board was looking for new, creative strategies to boost milk sales. In the mid-’90s, there was a rush of new juices, fruit drinks, iced teams, coffee drinks, soft drinks to the market and because of that, Californians were drinking less milk every year. Actually, milk consumption per capita in California had dropped 6 percent between 1987 and 1992. Prior to 1993, the advertising for milk in California was paid for by the National Dairy Board and the California Milk Advisory Board - and together the two organizations were spending $13 million per year to promote statewide consumption of milk. Sounds like a lot for one drink in one state, but it’s not compared to the other big beverage titans like Pepsi Co and Coco-Cola who would spend $100 million in 1992 to advertise just ONE of its brands. Dairy farmers just couldn’t compete with those big dollars, so the California Department of Food and Agriculture decided to jump in to save the day. They formed a new group called the California Milk Processor Board and they were the ones who smartly realized they needed some outside help to make milk cool again. 

With a new $23 million annual budget, the California Milk Processor Board called on the San Francisco-based agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

From here, Got Milk? started as a California campaign and within a few years, the entire U.S. was seeing the ads when the national group, the Milk Processor Education Program, licensed the campaign and took it national. For two decades, Got Milk? dominated  -- more than 70 commercials ran on TV in California alone and over 350 milk mustache ads ran nationally in print and on TV.  

So, did it work? And, what does it look like NOW in 2021? Tune in for the details!

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.    

Fast Company's 2018 article about the 25th anniversary of the Got Milk? campaign by Matthew Daddona

CNN's article by Alicia Wallace from August 2020 about the new Got Milk? campaigns. 

AEF.com had a great and super detailed case study on Got Milk

Media Post's article by Laurie Sullivan from August 2021 about the new 2021 California milk campaign

The Got Milk? entry on Wikipedia is a great resource

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

Tostitos has dreamed up and executed some pretty creative campaigns to make sure that when we walk down the chip aisle, we think of Tostitos for tortilla chips. From breathalyzer chip bags that will call you an Uber, to a spicy telenovela series… you can't predict what Tostitos will do next!

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.    

Ad Week’s article titled “Tostitos Created Ridiculousy Amusing Telenovela to Promote It’s New Spicy Chips” By Kristina Monllos APRIL 13, 2016

The New York Times has a great article from 2011 by Stuart Elliott titled “For Dipping? Sure, but for Reconnecting, Too”

The Drive had a great article from January 2017 by Will Sabel Courtney titled “Tostitos’s Smart "Party Bag" Can Call an Uber for You If You’re Drunk” 

Ad Age’s article by Alexandra Jardine from earlier this year titled “See Dan Levy And Kate Mckinnon Compete To Describe Tostitos Habanero's Spiciness” was great.

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

White Claw is an anomaly in the marketing world. It's not often that in less than five years, a new brand can completely dominate a market category in the liquor space. But White Claw has done just that. In less than five years since the brand launched, White Claw has captured 54% of the hard seltzer market.

In the United States, the Alcoholic Beverage Industry is estimated at $222 billion. Ready-to-drink beverages account for $6.5 billion of the market share. While growth in this segment has been steady, growth specifically for hard seltzer has been estimated at 200% between 2018 and 2019 (according to Nielsen data). The demand for the Ready to drink beverage market is forecasted to grow at 4.8% by 2023[1]. For hard seltzer, the product alone is expected to grow to $2.5 billion by 2021.

White Claw was initially considered a "girlie" beverage, but as of today and thanks to comedian Trevor Wallace who created a viral video for White Claw a few years ago, the seltzer brand now has a pretty even 50/50 split between male and female consumers.

White Claw, like Jeep, has become a “lifestyle brand” by creating experiences around the product itself and prioritizing shared moments with friends instead of materialistic goods.

Hard Seltzer has embraced this idea by combining affluent experiences like windsurfing, boating, hiking, etc. with the product itself without spending too much money. White Claw receives 171,000,000 search volume in Google, 12 times the search volume of “SpikedSeltzer” (307,000 results) and “hard seltzer” (13,400,000 results) combined. The brand has really always benefited from earned media, with much of it coming from fans who run social media accounts like “whiteclawmeme” and “whiteclawchronicles.”

Listen to the full episode to hear all of the fun stuff that White Claw consumers have done to take the brand viral!

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.    

AdAge - Natty Light Deploys Comedian Trevor Wallace Stunt Aimed at White Claw

AdRoll - Unrolling: The White Claw Brand

PRNewswire - White Claw Hard Seltzer Launches Irst Global Campaign - "Let's White Claw"

No Good - White Claw Marketing Strategy: How the Hard Seltzer Brand Manufactured Viral Growth

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

October is During Breast Cancer Awareness month! What is the primary goal of the month? To RAISE AWARENESS - to educate women on the importance of getting mammograms and early detection, and to raise funds to help support life-saving research and life-changing support. It first started in 1985 as a partnership between the American Cancer Society and the pharma division of Imperial Chemical Industries, and it was kicked off by Betty Ford, because she was a breast cancer survivor. She was actually diagnosed when her husband, Gerald Ford, was president of the United States. Prior to the mid-80s, breast cancer was essentially a taboo topic that women were not supposed to publicly discuss. . Her openness about her diagnosis was so positive for the nation because the number of women who started getting breast exams increased a TON.

In 1989, Evelyn Lauder, senior corporate vice president of the Estée Lauder Companies, was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was the first to turn breast cancer awareness into a brand staple, with many other corporations following in her footsteps. She then went out to launch the nonprofit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) and has raised millions of dollars for breast cancer research and drastically increased awareness for the disease. Estee Lauder is still a huge player in raising funds for breast cancer research today and is credited with really starting the movement of brands getting on board to support breast cancer awareness. In fact - the brand has raised $99 million to support research. That is AMAZING.

Actually, it was Estee Lauder who first made the pink ribbon something for brands to use to show their support. However, the brand didn’t create it.  The concept of the pink ribbon was created by a woman named ​​Charlotte Haley, who had battled breast cancer and started the pink ribbon movement in her own dining room. In 1991, she began hand-making the peach breast cancer ribbons and added them to a postcard that read: “The National Cancer Institute’s annual budget is $1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention. Help us wake up legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.”

She created this movement as strictly grassroots, handing the cards out at the local supermarket and writing prominent women, everyone from former First Ladies to Dear Abby. Her message spread by word of mouth. Haley distributed thousands of these cards.

The peach-colored ribbon of Haley aroused interest from Alexandra Penney, editor in chief of Self magazine, who was working on Self magazine‘s 1992 National Breast Cancer Awareness Month issue. She saw the initiative to adapt to Haley’s idea by working with her. But Haley rejected the offer saying that Self’s initiative was too commercial.

Unable to use Haley’s peach ribbon for legal reasons, Self magazine and Estee Lauder were both interested in promoting breast cancer awareness with a ribbon as a symbol decided to change the color and look slightly, and to go pink.

So in 1992, Estee Lauder came out with the pink ribbon that is now the most iconic symbol of breast cancer awareness and one of the most recognizable symbols or logos today. And during this month, you see that little pink ribbon EVERYWHERE. It’s on ads, in commercials, on product packing, on t-shirts. Brands like Ford, NFL, Avon, Campbells, Ralph Lauren, Panera, General Mills, Mike’s Hard Lemonaid, Sephora, KFC, and thousands of others. 

When brands partner with or to support a nonprofit, it’s called “cause marketing”. It’s a benefit for the nonprofit - they typically get a % of sales donated and if it’s a big enough brand, some awareness. And of course, the campaigns or product promotions are also designed to turn a profit for the company. Give back while profiting. And, that’s not a bad thing - because businesses have to make profits, and nonprofits need funding. Win-Win. Here’s where it gets a little tricky: many brands simply throw a pink ribbon on a product, or create a promotion where they donate pennies to the cause just to amplify their own sales - but they don’t openly communicate the amount they are donating. If a brand can make a HUGE deal out of supporting breast cancer awareness month and can run a fancy ad campaign and drive exposure for their brand but they only donate peanuts that’s so wrong. 

We round up some of the best examples of cause marketing to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month we can find.

Please tell your friends about this podcast and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Oh, and don't forget: go get your mammogram or check yourself! Early detection can save your life!

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

There are a TON of great resources including info on many of the companies who donate to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation which you can find at BCRF.org.

Estee Lauder has a ton of information on the impact they have made at EsteeLauder.com.

There was a great article on Pinkwashing from BitchMedia.com by Jill Moffett, titled Unraveling the Ribbon: Breast Cancer Awareness Month isn't just about pink.

From Vox.com I read Breast cancer awareness products profit off survivors’ suffering

And I also rented the documentary called Pink Ribbons Inc. which was pretty eye-opening.

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.    

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked.

In this episode, Melissa and Lex dive into how Nike created the slogan: Just Do It. Those 3 words might be the three most iconic words in advertising. You hear it, and you immediately see the swoosh and think Nike. It appears on bags, billboards, t-shirts, coffee mugs. It feels like that slogan must have been a part of the brand since Nike’s inception, that’s how much a part of the brand it feels like it is. But the truth is, it wasn’t. 

Just Do It was created by an agency we’ve talked about before, Wieden + Kennedy, by Dan Widen himself, in 1987.

In the first 10 years of Just Do it, so from 1988 when it launched to 1998, Nike increased its share of the North American domestic sport-shoe business from 18% to 43%..... From $877 million to $9.2 billion in worldwide sales).  Today, almost 35 years after Just Do It became its tagline, Nike spends a little more than $3 billion per year in advertising around the world. Nike is THE WORLD’S LEADING athletic apparel brand. Nike is currently doing about $42 billion in annual revenue, and it continues to grow. 

The coolest thing is that “Just Do It” is still as relevant today, in 2021, as it was when it was created in the late 1980s. This episode dives into the super weird backstory of Dan Widen's inspiration for the iconic marketing tagline and explores some of Nike's campaigns through the years that utilize the Just Do It message.

Please tell your friends about this podcast and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review!

Listen Now:

Resources:

Check out some of the great articles we sourced to gather all the facts for this episode.

Creative Review’s article titled the History of Nike’s Just Do It Slogan. 

AdWeek had a great article from the 25th Anniversary of The Just Do It slogan by David Gianatasio

Marketing Week had a great article about the Top 10 Nike Just Do It Ads by Seb Joseph. 

Just Do It on Wikipedia

The Evolution of Nike from UnionRoom.com

And, I highly recommend the documentary on Amazon Prime TV called Art & Copy. 

Follow Will It Stick on Instagram and check out our website.