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Hello and welcome. You're listening to
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Marketing Matters on the Wharton podcast
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network. This is our weekly podcast
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where we analyze the latest in
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marketing, advertising, customer
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behavior, branding, new product
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launches, retail specialties. I'm
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Barbara Khan, the Patty and JH Baker
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Professor of Marketing, and my co-host,
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Professor Americus Reed, is out of town
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today, so I'm doing it by myself, which
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is sad. However, I am welcoming a
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terrific guest, a person we've had
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before, and who knows quite a lot about
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everything that's happening in
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marketing. So, it's very exciting to
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have him here. So, I'd like to say hello
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to Peter Adams, who's the
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dive. Hello, Peter.
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>> Hi, Barbara. Thanks so much for having
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me on and I'm happy to be on the show
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now that it's in a podcast format.
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>> Yeah, it should be fun. Um, we we put it
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out to our huge Wharton Network and all
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Wharton Network friends. So, we have a
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very intelligent, interested audience
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who are very concerned about the latest
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things in marketing. And that's what's
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great to talk to you about because you
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often talk about marketing trends and
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you talk about how marketers are
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adapting to um or adapting to economic
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shifts to AI to changing consumer
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behavior and all those kind of topics.
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And of course, you also talk about
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state-of-the-art new marketing
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campaigns, the holiday campaigns that
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every marketing reporter seems to have
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to do at this time of year. Uh what's
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happening in holiday marketing? But
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before we get to that, I know that you
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recently went to um a conference
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sponsored I think by or it was called
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advertising week conference or something
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like that. I forget exactly what it's
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called. War something like that.
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>> Uh advertising week in New York. Yes.
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>> Oh, okay. That's a pretty descriptive
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name. So, advertising week in New York.
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And you get like some pretty high up
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marketers discussing some of the latest
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trends. And so I thought maybe we'd
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start there. Um and you can maybe tell
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us some of the things that you've talked
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about in thinking about what's going on
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in marketing.
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>> Yeah. So for advertising week um you
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know it was an interesting time for the
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conference to happen. Uh obviously
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there's quite a bit of uncertainty
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affecting uh multiple aspects of the
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industry right now with uh tariffs with
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the conference landing right as holidays
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are ramping up and then you know on an
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individual company basis there's quite a
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bit of consolidation uh advertising week
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draws a lot of folks from the ad agency
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world and is actually in the same office
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space as some of the IPG agencies which
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are getting acquired by um Omnicom. So
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uh a little bit of a harried conference
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this year. I think people are a little
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jumpy uh but also very well attended
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which I think speaks to the fact that
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people are looking for uh kind of
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guidance and how
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>> and networking for the next job.
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>> Sure. Definitely. I mean I mean you've
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seen um just in the past few months the
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number of layoffs uh some of them
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affecting marketing uh pretty intensely.
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Um, so yeah, definitely
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uh a lot of interesting off-site
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happening to complement the main sort of
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agenda that's put on by advertising week
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itself. Um, and yeah, many of the
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typical topics you would expect as well.
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Uh, AI, uh, creator and influencer
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marketing. I moderated a panel that was
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about uh local marketing strategies but
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ended up actually intersecting with a
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couple of those topics as well because
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that is another area uh that is being uh
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disrupted and evolving very quickly
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right now.
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>> So there's a couple big themes that
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maybe we can dig into a little bit that
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I saw in some of your writing. One of
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them was this interesting idea, you
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know, on the vanishing middle class. So
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and I've seen a little as some some
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changes on that too. It seems like the
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rich are getting richer and the poorer
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are getting poorer and there's nothing
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in the middle and obviously a lot of
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marketing is being generated to those,
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you know, 1% rich people. So, you're
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seeing a lot of emphasis on new luxury
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and things like that. Um, but how does
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that affect in general? Not everybody's
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going to be able to focus on the 1%. So,
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how does what's what's the big effect of
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this vanishing middle class? Yeah, I
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mean it's it's for for years or for
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decades, uh marketing, broad-based
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marketing has focused on, you know, the
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middle class folks, uh people who can be
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regular repeat purchasers. You think of
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categories like packaged goods, stuff
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like that. Um even stuff like more
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premium food and beverage brands. This
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has always been a big opportunity, but
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as you pointed out, there's been um some
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research that was put together by War.
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Uh also other companies like McKenzie
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have sort of identified some of these
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patterns where uh it's just an
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increasingly bifurcated bifurcated
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market. That's a fun thing to say out
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loud. Um but yeah, there's there's
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incredibly welloff people uh who have,
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you know, continued to prop up the
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economy. If you look at the share of how
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consumer spending hasn't maybe tapered
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off as much as some people expected it
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to given tariffs and things like that, a
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decent amount of it is propelled by um
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you know very welloff upper middle class
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uh and higher uh consumers. But yeah,
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then there's the other end of the
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spectrum and um it affects marketing
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strategies because marketers now need to
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factor
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value and affordability into their
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messaging more even if they aren't
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necessarily budget brands. They have to
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acknowledge that things that used to be
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maybe regular or repeat purchases are
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are maybe a little bit of an extra ask.
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I mean, you think about categories like
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groceries. That's where a lot of people
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express the most frustration with prices
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rising. Um, but it also changes what
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these researchers call kind of consumer
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milestones. I mean, fewer people are
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buying a house or having kids.
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Conventionally, those events happening
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is a big spending trigger for brands.
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They go, "This is now an opportunity for
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us." But if those people are no longer
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doing that, and they're no longer doing
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that in greater numbers with young
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consumers, that poses a real problem.
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Yeah, the housing market is particularly
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interesting. People have a little bit of
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golden handcuffs because they a lot of
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them bought property or starter houses
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when the loans were really cheap and
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they're locked in. They can't get that
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loan again. And so they're kind of
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locked in and I think that's stagnating
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the housing market a little too. Then of
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course on the other end there's these
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people who have just way too much money.
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And so some of the industry that's
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developing around that ultra luxury is
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is an interesting kind of marketing
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situation. And I I'm looking a little
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bit about that and like branded
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residences and use of of luxury brand
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names on condominiums like MercedesBenz
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or Aston Martin condos and this idea
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that's really catering to the super
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wealthy but that's a very very small
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percentage of the overall population. So
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not clearly not what's driving most
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marketing. Um, and so I guess you know
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along the lines of what you're saying is
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if you if the marketers are going after
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not the ultra wealthy but every you know
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the other the other part and they're
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focusing on value.
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What's your take on what that does to
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loyalty? Um, you know, I mean, a lot of
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what we're talking about when we talk
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about marketing in our marketing classes
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now is the importance of customer
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lifetime value and building picking the
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right customers and then, you know, like
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subscription models and retaining
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customers and things like that. But if
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you're really focusing on price and
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value, that's almost the antithesis of
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loyalty in some sense, unless they're
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making some of this value contingent on
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relationship.
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>> Yeah. it it the I mean I think the
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loyalty question is it gets challenged a
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lot. Um I I think depending on the
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category marketers now have the benefit
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of having a lot more granular data. Um
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you think about um places like retail
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and um even restaurant uh QSR brands,
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you know, they've they've had loyalty as
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part of a playbook for a while, but
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especially now with some of these
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factors we're talking about knowing when
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people are buying them, what's pushing
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them to buy, and being able to leverage
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that um to not only inform
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their own marketing strategies, but in
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the case of retail, now monetizing those
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capabilities to sell to other brands
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that are also struggling with the same
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problems. retail media networks.
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>> Yeah, exactly. Um, but the loyalty
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thing, I I read an interesting report
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from this agency called Razerfish the
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other day and it goes back to that sort
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of milestone um question we were talking
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about uh just now. Uh there's a really
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interesting insight there in there. I
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forget the specific share of consumers,
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but the consumers were basically saying,
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I would rather receive these sort of
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bespoke promotions that recognize
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frustrating points in life. like if I
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take a redeye flight, I want early
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check-in at a hotel. And I would prefer
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that over getting an upgrade to the
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suite on my honeymoon. So again, you
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think of honeymoon, that is a
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traditional consumer milestone, things
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that marketers maybe try to usually
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add a little more white glove service
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around, but more people are kind of
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saying, you know, there's so many
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aspects of day-to-day life that are
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frustrating. If you can alleviate that
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in any way, that fosters loyalty. Um,
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and yeah, I know, you know, pricing and
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value and promotions are seen as sort of
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lowhanging fruit in the loyalty space
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right now, but I do think there are a
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lot of loyalty strategies kind of being
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driven on deal right now. Um, yeah.
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>> Yeah. My problem is whenever you do it
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on deal that just I don't know but you
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know I don't think of it I think of that
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as a fight to the bottom and typically
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you want to build it more on what you
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were saying earlier understanding what
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the customer is buying looking at data
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and then maybe alleviating pain points
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as you suggested or maybe finding new
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opportunities to delight whichever way
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but still it is contingent on
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understanding the data and that brings
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us to another big issue that you wrote
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about and I'm sure was discussed a lot
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is how AI is changing both customer
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behavior and marketing response and to
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your initial point like jobs and things
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like that. So I mean maybe you can speak
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to each one of those buckets. First one
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that I'm interested in is I don't know
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how much they talked about from the
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customer point of view, but not only are
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marketers using AI to look at the data
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to build the models that you're talking
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about and to identify some of those
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opportunities, you know, to customize to
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a customer, but a customer is now
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looking to AI to tell them what to buy.
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And was there any conversation on how
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that's changing customer decision making
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this focus on you know chachi bt to help
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you make a decision on what to buy
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>> to the extent that everyone is obsessed
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with the sort of the agentic question um
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right now you know definitely is a word
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that was top of mind during a lot of the
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AI talks at advertising week and
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continues to be as people start to think
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ahead to the holidays in 2026. I mean,
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you know, Amazon and their earnings
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boasting about how much their assistant
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is being used. Um, you know, it only
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went national, I think, within the past,
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you know, year or so. Uh, but, you know,
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they've got the muscle to kind of push
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people towards features like that. And
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Walmart, you know, the biggest retailer
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in the traditional sense, also working
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with, you know, the chat GBTs of the
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world to develop similar capabilities.
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Um, and yeah, I mean I think for
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marketers thinking in the long term, you
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know, it's a potentially exciting
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channel. Um, but you know, for right now
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it's, you know, sort of the large
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companies with the capabilities to
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invest in this stuff will probably have
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the first mover advantage. Um, and for
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others who don't have the
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sophistication,
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um, you know, it it'll potentially sort
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of, uh, be a disadvantage in some ways.
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you know, Amazon has already eaten up so
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much share of e-commerce and things like
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that by just being the most
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technologically sophisticated and
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convenient. You know, do they further
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grab more share if they've got the best
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shopping assistant or what have you.
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>> Yeah. I mean, your answer to the
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question, you you flipped the question
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to what I asked, but in answering your
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question, you probably answered it also.
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I was thinking about how it changed the
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um actually the mindset of the consumer.
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But what you're suggesting is these
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agents really exist for some of the big
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players. And so clearly they're going to
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be programmed to give the big players
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more advantage. So uh perhaps what's
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happening is the more you depend on
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these agents, the more
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you kind of narrow the playing field
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because only the big guys are having
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them. I guess that's what you were
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saying. Um I was just wondering like if
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it changes how I make decisions. Do
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people just listen to what the agents
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say and do that and then so there so
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that who has the agents really are is
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going to frame where purchases are being
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made? I guess that's what your answer
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was. And do you believe that? I think
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consumers I mean you know there's still
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areas where AI falls short but purely
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anecdotally know that um yeah people
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when they're struggling to think of
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something like a holiday gift idea will
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prompt chap GBT like this person likes X
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and Y what's a sort of you know a
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potentially surprising or thoughtful
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gift I could get them that that that's
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how people plan uh you know everything
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from vacations now and yeah holidays for
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sure. Um I'm not sure you know like the
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the adoption of these uh individual
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chatouts kind of at the consumer level
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is quite high and um continues to be
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very engaged and you know just speaking
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from personal experience right now every
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year my family does a secret Santa uh
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drawing through a platform that also
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doubles as serving gift recommendations.
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And I noticed for the first time this
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year it has an AI thing. So if you're
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drawing up a wish list for your secret
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Santa, it'll you can plug some prompts
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in and it'll recommend them to you. So
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um it's definitely informing Yeah.
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consumer shopping behavior.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. And so therefore, the people
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who control those agents and control
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those platforms are obviously doing it
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in their own best interest. And so
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you're going to see the big get bigger
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in that kind of thing because the
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smaller ones can't afford it. Um, so the
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other thing that people are talking
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about with AI and it sounds like, you
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know, was a topic there was how much
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it's replacing jobs or how much at these
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advertising um, agencies or whatever
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these marketing situations, a lot of the
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work that used to be done by people is
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now being done by AI. Was that a concern
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or
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>> I I mean I think that the idea that AI
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is wholesale replacing roles at agencies
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is
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um you know maybe a little overstated
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sometimes. Uh there's no doubt that you
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know agencies are investing very heavily
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in this but I read an interesting
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article the other day that was talking
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about this AI washing. Um obviously the
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economy is not in a very good spot right
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now. ad agencies in particular, the
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publicly traded holding companies have
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not been a in a good spot for a long
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time. I mean, they're financially mostly
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financially pretty distressed companies
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that are now looking to break apart and
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sell stuff off. Um, you know, I think if
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they can sell their layoff story as, you
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know, AI is replacing jobs, it looks
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better for them um in public. But the
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the thing that's more interesting for me
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with the agencies is how it's starting
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to switch up how they approach their
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services models. Um, so WPP, the largest
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ad agency, um, last month introduced
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this new offering where basically,
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uh, the their clients don't even need to
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hire an agency anymore. They can
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basically just make use of WPP's AI
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technology for their campaigns. So, um,
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they've gotten a lot of questions. Does
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this cannibalize agency work? You're
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basically saying, you don't need to hire
00:16:08
people anymore. You can just borrow our
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tech. Um, and it'll be interesting to
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see if sort of their competitors also
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adopt this. Um, cuz it's the type of
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thing that, yeah, definitely disrupts
00:16:19
sort of the traditional agency model,
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but might also be kind of necessary as
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this is what clients are sort of
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demanding and they value the ability to
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have technology partners who can help
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them execute their marketing.
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>> Yeah. Well, that'll be interesting.
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Well, given that we have you now and it
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is Christmas, I see that you have
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written on a number of these new holiday
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stories and what's happening. So, we
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might as well dig in and see if there's
00:16:45
anything interesting. Let me This one
00:16:47
isn't a holiday story, but I'm since you
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wrote about it, let me just ask. Pepsi
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has been changing all their logos. I
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mean, every year there's a new logo
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change for them. Last year was Mountain
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Dew. This year they overdid their
00:17:00
corporate branding. Did you have a
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takeaway on like how important that is
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or like you know I know they think it's
00:17:08
important they spend a lot of a lot of
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time on it but did did what was your
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reaction to the importance of
00:17:14
overhauling this and
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what you know I don't know what what did
00:17:20
you take of that when you wrote that
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article?
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>> Yeah I mean they're a business that's
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under quite a lot of pressure right now.
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um they have an activist uh investor
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campaign that they're sort of contending
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with that's pushing them to shed some
00:17:34
lower performing aspects of the
00:17:35
business. And you know it's right there
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in the name PepsiCo. Pepsi for a long
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time was you know kind of the big focus.
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They're a food and beverage company but
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Pepsi is the flagship and at least when
00:17:46
it comes to traditional full sugar Pepsi
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is a brand that has been in pretty
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serious decline in recent years. has
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dropped in just a few years from being
00:17:53
the number two soda in the US to number
00:17:56
four. Um, and the PepsiCo corporate
00:17:59
branding for a long time sort of
00:18:01
mirrored the Pepsi branding. It was
00:18:03
similar color schemes and sort of visual
00:18:05
motifs, but this new overhaul
00:18:08
um moves Azure. It is the most dramatic
00:18:12
change away from that yet. So, um, what
00:18:15
they're trying to do is highlight we're
00:18:17
not just Pepsi. We own 500 brands and we
00:18:20
own cool new growing brands. I mean,
00:18:23
they recently acquired Ciiete, uh, the
00:18:26
Mexican food company. Uh, they bought
00:18:28
Poppy, which is obviously their big
00:18:30
response to this prebiotic cola
00:18:32
disruption. Um, so this overhaul is sort
00:18:36
of, yeah, positioning them as more than
00:18:37
just Pepsi and being a kind of
00:18:39
well-rounded food and beverage business.
00:18:42
Uh, and yeah, the the visual identity
00:18:43
looks nothing like what they've done
00:18:44
before.
00:18:45
>> Nothing. Yeah, I'm just looking at it
00:18:46
now. I mean, I know we're not showing
00:18:48
it, but it is radically different from
00:18:50
the past where it really did focus on
00:18:52
Pepsi and and what that meant. And now
00:18:55
it's, you know, the red and blue is
00:18:57
gone. It's more like uh natural colors,
00:19:00
organic kind of feel, definitely to food
00:19:02
and well, we'll see how that happens.
00:19:05
And now Todd Kaplan used to be at Pepsi,
00:19:08
but then he moved to Craft, I think.
00:19:11
>> And I think you wrote an article about
00:19:13
that, too. Did you write something about
00:19:15
Craft? I thought I saw something on
00:19:16
that.
00:19:17
>> Yeah, he he had a big presence at
00:19:19
advertising week. Um, and was
00:19:21
>> he's a cool guy. We had him on the
00:19:22
podcast and like I don't know why he
00:19:24
left Pepsi. I don't know what but he had
00:19:27
been at Pepsi for a really long time and
00:19:28
I I guess he left a few years ago for
00:19:31
the opportunity at Craft. So yeah, what
00:19:33
was your take from what he's been doing?
00:19:36
Uh well so his talk at advertising week
00:19:38
touched on a thing that I think is
00:19:39
affecting a lot of legacy marketers
00:19:42
right now is um he has always been a big
00:19:44
champion or I shouldn't say always but
00:19:46
in recent years has been a very big
00:19:48
champion of this idea of um you know
00:19:51
thinking past traditional media
00:19:53
strategies toward earned media. Um you
00:19:56
know how do you get your brands being
00:19:58
talked about in culture in ways that
00:20:00
extend beyond paid advertising. And so
00:20:03
basically in his first you know year
00:20:04
plus at craft he has been um just sort
00:20:08
of peppering uh the industry with like
00:20:11
these little and large activations that
00:20:14
are very kind of culturally oriented. Um
00:20:17
Hines Mustard did a collaboration with
00:20:19
Mustard the DJ behind the Kendrick Lamar
00:20:21
songs. Um, and so he spoke at
00:20:24
advertising week just sort of about how
00:20:27
to identify those moments and kind of
00:20:29
keep pace with the sort of churn of
00:20:32
mostly social mediadriven content. You
00:20:34
know, these memes emerge overnight and
00:20:37
it presents brands a small window of
00:20:39
opportunity to kind of go viral and
00:20:41
attach themselves to those. Um, but you
00:20:43
know, how do you identify them? How do
00:20:45
you make the most of them and make sure
00:20:46
they're the right fit for your brand?
00:20:47
Was a lot of what he was talking about.
00:20:48
And this is a change we see taking hold
00:20:51
all across the board of this kind of
00:20:53
pivot away from traditional kind of paid
00:20:56
national advertising to this very
00:20:58
socially uh organic contentoriented
00:21:01
approach. Um and it's led to some
00:21:03
interesting results for sure. I mean
00:21:05
Craft Hinds has um you know managed to
00:21:07
keep its brands a little more on the
00:21:08
pulse of culture. Uh but you know the
00:21:10
larger business obviously um you know is
00:21:13
struggling with what a lot of other kind
00:21:14
of large packaged foods companies are
00:21:16
right now. Yeah, that's an interesting
00:21:18
thing. Um because it it's a different
00:21:20
tool set than than people have. And it
00:21:22
sounds like he's somebody who has the
00:21:24
traditional one and is in the new world
00:21:26
because now you're looking for these
00:21:27
cultural moments. You got to do them
00:21:29
fast because they they change. So you
00:21:31
don't have a lot of time to test
00:21:33
everything. And if you don't do it
00:21:35
through the lens of your brand, you can
00:21:37
get into trouble. I mean the famous one
00:21:39
a couple years ago was Bud Light and
00:21:41
Target and all of them. they responded
00:21:43
to something that would seemed perhaps
00:21:46
in the on the drawing board to be a
00:21:48
no-brainer and then they release it and
00:21:50
they get this really negative response
00:21:52
and see a huge effect on sales like it's
00:21:54
not small effects on this and yet if
00:21:57
you're doing that kind of marketing
00:21:58
where you're looking for the cultural
00:22:00
moment or the opportunity
00:22:02
I could imagine it's it's tough to know
00:22:06
at really quickly whether or not it's
00:22:08
the right move for your brand to discuss
00:22:10
it. Uh, so you I guess you have to have
00:22:13
some kind of blueprint as to what is in
00:22:16
the brand's DNA and what isn't and
00:22:18
things like that. Did he talk about
00:22:19
something along those lines like how to
00:22:21
know it and how to know it fast?
00:22:23
>> Yeah, I mean I think I I think you've
00:22:26
kind of you know I don't know how much
00:22:29
you know a specific criteria is employed
00:22:31
but I think yeah very much understanding
00:22:33
the sort of brand values and where they
00:22:35
come from. Does this make sense with our
00:22:37
narrative? Um, and you know, this is a
00:22:40
case where, you know, we just talked a
00:22:41
little bit about how agencies are being
00:22:43
disrupted, but this is a case where kind
00:22:44
of like partners can help. Um, there was
00:22:47
a separate talk I went to that was with
00:22:49
PepsiCo and their CMO was saying or
00:22:52
their beverages CMO was saying, um, you
00:22:55
know, we've got some of the most
00:22:56
experienced marketers, the most talented
00:22:59
marketers, but we don't get the
00:23:00
algorithms like our agency does. So
00:23:02
they've developed this new partnership
00:23:04
model where they've put their social
00:23:06
agency much closer to their internal
00:23:08
teams to kind of keep a pulse on these
00:23:10
things that we're talking about, making
00:23:12
sure they're aligned with the brand
00:23:14
values and things like that, but also
00:23:15
that they can be reactive in the way
00:23:18
that we're talking about. So it's
00:23:20
definitely causing a lot of these
00:23:21
traditional large marketing
00:23:22
organizations to kind of switch up how
00:23:24
they think about everything from
00:23:26
agencies to CMO roles and things like
00:23:28
that as well. You know, you think about
00:23:30
like these companies that are great and
00:23:32
then all of a sudden they make a misstep
00:23:34
like a Dolingo or something like that
00:23:36
was like that everybody thought they
00:23:38
were terrific and then I forgot what it
00:23:39
was but they made some misstep. And so I
00:23:42
would imagine part of what you're doing
00:23:43
with this is not only learning to figure
00:23:46
out which ones you respond to and which
00:23:49
ones you don't and then when you do, how
00:23:50
you make sure it's through the brand's
00:23:52
lens, but you got to also figure what do
00:23:54
you do when you made a mistake? How fast
00:23:57
do you get out of it? you know, because
00:23:59
it is a very fast window. So, if you
00:24:02
make the mistake quickly and maybe own
00:24:04
it quickly, it might go you might not
00:24:06
have to deal with it for too long.
00:24:10
Yeah. I mean, it's like anything else. I
00:24:11
I think the decision-m needs to be um
00:24:14
fast, but unfortunately,
00:24:17
you know, we were just talking about the
00:24:19
cultural relevance brands can find in
00:24:22
responding quickly to social stuff. I
00:24:23
mean, social stuff can also quickly bury
00:24:26
brands. I mean, uh, good example of this
00:24:29
recently was Cracker Barrel, uh,
00:24:32
>> made a fairly innocuous update to their
00:24:36
logo. There's been a good deal of
00:24:38
reporting, including in the Wall Street
00:24:39
Journal about how basically, you know,
00:24:41
even bots sort of seized on this as a
00:24:43
contentious topic, and they're still
00:24:44
trying to kind of claw their way out of
00:24:47
something that I I've never really
00:24:49
understood why that was such a flash
00:24:51
point. I mean, you can say what you want
00:24:52
about the logo, but I didn't think it
00:24:54
should be as controversial as it ended
00:24:55
up being. So, um, yeah, I think staying
00:24:57
really reactive and being able to pivot
00:25:00
quickly is super important. Not waiting
00:25:02
weeks on it, not going through, you
00:25:04
know, multiple different agencies and
00:25:06
crisis PR firms, you know, you got to
00:25:08
kind of maybe go with your gut a little
00:25:09
bit more on some of this stuff. Um, you
00:25:12
know, the Duolinga case is one of these
00:25:13
things where I think the leaderships at
00:25:15
the company just sort of misread the
00:25:16
rumor and AI. Um, you know, they started
00:25:19
talking so much about AI and how great
00:25:21
AI is. And um the thing people loved
00:25:23
about their marketing was it's you know
00:25:25
it was very focused on their mascot but
00:25:27
it was very human in a way. It was very
00:25:29
humorous. It was their mascot reacting
00:25:31
to things in culture. And then for the
00:25:33
the company leadership to say AI is all
00:25:35
that matters and and things like that. I
00:25:37
think you know there's a it's a really
00:25:39
testy sub subject still. Um
00:25:41
>> and uh yeah was obviously very
00:25:43
alienating to some of their user base.
00:25:46
>> Yeah. I mean it's interesting how this
00:25:48
but anyway let's end. And I know we
00:25:50
don't have that much time left, but it
00:25:51
is Christmas. So, let's go to the
00:25:52
biggest retailer and the story you wrote
00:25:54
on Walmart and the Grinch. Uh, what was
00:25:57
your take on all of that?
00:25:59
>> Yes. So, Walmart for the past couple
00:26:01
years um has really embraced uh this
00:26:05
very pop culture forward messaging
00:26:07
strategy. I mean, last year for the
00:26:09
holidays, they ran an ad that featured,
00:26:11
you know, Gilmore Girls and all these
00:26:13
kind of famous uh sort of seasonal
00:26:15
touchstones. And this year they're kind
00:26:17
of returning to a similar playbook, but
00:26:19
focusing on one kind of cultural
00:26:22
property, which is the Grinch. And
00:26:24
they've basically built this whole kind
00:26:26
of world where they're tying um kind of
00:26:29
their product assortment and services
00:26:31
into the world of the Dr. Seuss uh Dr.
00:26:34
Dr. Seuss is how the Grinch Stole
00:26:36
Christmas. And um they've recently
00:26:37
updated it. Walton Gogggins, who
00:26:39
previously appeared in their ads that
00:26:41
they started running this summer, is now
00:26:43
playing the Grinch. So, um, you know, I
00:26:46
think in times like this, we we we were
00:26:48
having the conversation earlier about
00:26:49
like kind of value and promotions, what
00:26:51
a weird holiday period it is, um, and
00:26:54
and why that, you know, could
00:26:56
potentially lead more people to kind of
00:26:57
focus on on messages of value. But, you
00:27:00
know, Walmart is historically known for
00:27:01
value, but they're leaning into a very
00:27:03
kind of storytelling first approach,
00:27:05
which I think might actually end up
00:27:07
working pretty well for them. I think
00:27:08
people are looking for a sense of
00:27:10
escapism uh and nostalgia. Um and it
00:27:14
gives them a chance to also, you know,
00:27:15
they they are highlighting their product
00:27:17
assortment as well. But I think it's a
00:27:18
pretty savvy campaign.
00:27:20
>> It's so funny because it's like that
00:27:22
sounds so much like traditional
00:27:24
marketing, you know, going to Dr. Seuss
00:27:27
and the Grinch and Christmas and
00:27:28
nostalgia. I mean, those are things we
00:27:30
were teaching 25 years ago. So you start
00:27:33
from culturally forward and AI and
00:27:36
social media and you end up with Walmart
00:27:38
and the Grinch. Kind of interesting what
00:27:41
happens in marketing. Anyway, we are out
00:27:43
of time. So Peter, thank you so much for
00:27:45
joining us today. And where can
00:27:46
listeners go to read up with your
00:27:47
stories and keeping up with the times?
00:27:50
>> Sure. Uh you can always check out uh
00:27:52
marketingdive.com.
00:27:53
Uh we also have a daily newsletter and
00:27:56
two weekly newsletters focused on
00:27:58
agencies and mobile marketing. Uh, and I
00:28:01
post about my stuff on LinkedIn as well.
00:28:03
So, uh, give me a look there.
00:28:05
>> Thanks a lot. Thank you. That's all we
00:28:08
have time for today. I'd like to thank
00:28:09
our producers, Dion Simkins and Marissa
00:28:12
Remma. And thank you all for listening.
00:28:14
We'll be back next week. Till then, this
00:28:16
has been Marketing Matters on the
00:28:17
Wharton Podcast Network. I'm Barbara
00:28:20
Khan here without America's Reed.
