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Why speed festivals offer the perfect setting for brand activations Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

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09.08.2025 08:16 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why speed festivals are the perfect setting for brand activations Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

09.08.2025 08:11 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Creatives still need a book. And yes, it needs to be a really good book It is never a bad idea for a creative to gather all their best work in one place, be it book, cassette or website. Creative mentor Gerry Farrell lays down the wisdom. A creative without a decent ‘book’ has no visible means of support [see my illustration]. When I started copywriting, there were two kinds of book. There was The Book, better known as the D&AD Annual. And your book, a collection of all the ads you’d made that were any good. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

09.08.2025 07:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why speed festivals are the perfect setting for experiential Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

09.08.2025 06:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

How So Delicious brought dairy-free swagger to Lollapalooza The brand’s ‘Pint of No Return’ pop-up used frozen treats and sensory overload to change minds on dairy-free. Chicago was hot. So Delicious was colder. For four days at Lollapalooza, the plant-based brand took over a corner of Grant Park with ‘The Pint of No Return,’ a multi-sensory experience designed to shift long-held perceptions about dairy-free and offer overheated festivalgoers a place to cool off. The pop-up coincided with a major brand refresh and featured a walk-in cooler filled with samples of frozen novelties, surreal photo backdrops, and curated surprises at every turn. It was equal parts freezer, art installation, and marketing stunt, all aimed at showing dairy-free as flavorful and indulgent, not just functional. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

08.08.2025 20:14 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Judge of the Day: HH Global's Kevin Dunckley on ethical AI, avoiding purpose-washing, and designing impact that lasts As The Drum Awards Festival puts social purpose center stage, we speak with juror Kevin Dunckley about spotting purpose-washing, building impact into strategy, and why the most powerful campaigns start with culture, not spin. The Drum Awards Festival is back, bringing together the industry’s top creative and strategic thinkers to spotlight the boldest, most effective work across marketing disciplines. With over 1,700 entries last year spanning 49 countries, this year’s jury represents a global cross-section of expertise, purpose and perspective. As part of our Judge of the Day series, we’re profiling the people helping to define what great looks like. Today we hear from Kevin Dunckley, chief sustainability officer at HH Global and a judge in this year’s Social Purpose category. A longtime advocate for embedding ethics into business at scale, Kevin brings a refreshingly candid take on how purpose work actually works. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

08.08.2025 17:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ads of the Week: Dairy-free trips, plastic pants and nobody’s favorite prick So Delicious rebrands dairy-free as psychedelic indulgence, KFC and Greggs deliver chaos in a pastry box, and Omnipod makes diabetes care weirdly watchable. Add in a Calvin Klein spoof that puts plastic where it hurts, and you’ve got a week where brands finally let loose. Nobody Likes a Prick: Omnipod trades the needle for a wink and a win Why it works: It skips the clinical script and goes straight for the cultural conversation, turning daily frustrations into a marketing breakthrough. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

08.08.2025 17:05 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ad of the Day: This ballsy plastic pollution campaign subverts Calvin Klein classics World leaders may be ignoring the microplastic problem. In response, this campaign hits them where it hurts. Our oceans are full of junk. And our junk might be full of plastic. That’s the point made by new global work from Worth Your While for Plastic Change, in conjunction with Glue Society and One Green Bean. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

08.08.2025 11:41 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

As a Latino business leader, I worry we forget that immigration IS the American story MEL’s Luis Miguel Messianu is a Latino immigrant and an entrepreneur who is deeply unsettled by the ramped-up rhetoric and deportations. He shares ways for leaders to better turn up for their people. Recent anti-immigration events across the United States have left me deeply unsettled, not just as a founder but also as someone who has dedicated an entire career to advancing the Hispanic marketing and advertising industry. I feel compelled to speak up, not to confront or politicize but to assert a profoundly American and deeply personal truth: the immigrant story is the American story. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

08.08.2025 10:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

10 Questions on Advertising... with Diageo’s global MD of gin & rum Patricia Borges With a job title like that, Patricia Borges was born for 10 Questions. From Cannes triumphs to cultural impact, the Diageo exec brings the goods – and the martinis. We’ve had a lot of great people in a lot of great roles in this 10 Questions... series, but we reckon even those already featured would agree that ‘global managing director of gin and rum’ is the best job title we’ve had so far. Patricia Borges holds that role, as well as CEO of Ketel One Vodka and CEO of Zacapa Rum, at Diageo. Which means, in addition to those CEO responsibilities, she oversees the global teams for Gordon’s, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan and Seedlip, too. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

08.08.2025 09:53 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

In the age of AI, PR matters more than ever How do you optimize your brand to appear favorably in AI results? Branwell Johnson of Propeller Group explains why the old truths of PR still hold true. The anniversary of the largest physical object to hit the Earth – the Siberian meteorite - recently came around as a reminder of how powerful forces can jolt our world. Right now, businesses are facing a similar seismic collision as AI begins to throw marketing certainties and strategies off balance. The impact of AI on search behavior is accelerating, whether used by B2B or B2C prospects. More people are looking for information or opinions via AI-powered bots that use ‘intelligent search’ and deliver text-based answers based on context, rather than providing a list of page links based on keywords. We’re all becoming familiar with how this works and sharpening our searches or prompts as we interact more with Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

08.08.2025 09:29 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Turning AI chaos into opportunity: Storyful’s John Hall on the future of news Digital media consultant Mark Challinor continues the News Horizons series by talking to the people shaping tomorrow’s media. Today, he talks to News Corp’s Storyful editor, John Hall, about how the future of news is transparent, fast, and driven by human-led verification. The news landscape of 2025 is a battlefield of fact versus fiction. As generative AI floods social feeds with increasingly plausible but fake content, the need for credible, verified information has never been more urgent. But for John Hall, editor at Storyful, this chaos is not just a challenge; it’s an opportunity. As misinformation becomes more sophisticated, media companies must double down on transparency and trust, all the while seemingly leveraging AI for speed. It’s clear that this can never be at the expense of human judgment, however. In response, Hall talks exclusively to The Drum about what’s next for the news industry and why a journalist-led approach is now more valuable than ever. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

08.08.2025 09:16 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why speed festivals offer the perfect setting for brand activations Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

#Opinion

08.08.2025 08:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why speed festivals are the perfect setting for brand activations Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

#Opinion

08.08.2025 08:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Creatives still need a book. And yes, it needs to be a really good book It is never a bad idea for a creative to gather all their best work in one place, be it book, cassette or website. Creative mentor Gerry Farrell lays down the wisdom. A creative without a decent ‘book’ has no visible means of support [see my illustration]. When I started copywriting, there were two kinds of book. There was The Book, better known as the D&AD Annual. And your book, a collection of all the ads you’d made that were any good. Read more here

#Opinion

08.08.2025 07:03 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why speed festivals are the perfect setting for experiential Goodwood Festival of Speed offered brands the opportunity to connect with a willing audience, says Ben McMahon of Collaborate Global. Here are some standout examples from this year’s event. The annual speed festival season is at full throttle, and brands are diving in to connect with consumers through unforgettable, high-impact experiences. With it, exciting growth opportunities are opening up. Once a playground for pure petrolheads, events including the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula 1 Grand Prix are becoming prime cultural real estate, no longer the domain of car companies alone. Read more here

#Opinion

08.08.2025 06:05 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Why PR matters more than ever in the age of AI How do you optimize your brand to appear favorably in AI results? Branwell Johnson of Propeller Group explains why the old truths of PR still hold true. The anniversary of the largest physical object to hit the Earth – the Siberian meteorite - recently came around as a reminder of how powerful forces can jolt our world. Right now, businesses are facing a similar seismic collision as AI begins to throw marketing certainties and strategies off balance. The impact of AI on search behavior is accelerating, whether used by B2B or B2C prospects. More people are looking for information or opinions via AI-powered bots that use ‘intelligent search’ and deliver text-based answers based on context, rather than providing a list of page links based on keywords. We’re all becoming familiar with how this works and sharpening our searches or prompts as we interact more with Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

08.08.2025 06:02 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Mark Read’s handover notes: here’s what’s awaiting Cindy Rose as WPP CEO The outgoing CEO’s final financial update highlighted the key issues facing his successor come their September 1 handover, chiefly WPP Media, the slow new business pipeline and staff satisfaction. WPP’s update for the first half of the year marked the final time Mark Read would address investors as CEO. Unfortunately, he was delivering another poor set of results that sent the embattled group’s shares plunging by nearly 5% in early trading to hit a 16-year low. The group suffered a 4.3% revenue decline to $6.7bn (£5.03bn), with Q2’s revenues alone down 5.8% to $3.3bn (£2.5bn). This led to a 47.8% operating profit decline for the first half of 2025 to $295.5m (£221m). Reflecting the weaker performance, it slashed the interim dividend by 50%. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 16:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Even with research, did The Drum get the Sydney Sweeney campaign wrong? Kantar research commissioned by The Drum suggested that most of those who saw the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle campaign are likely to buy from the brand. Andrew Tindall says ‘Duh,’ claiming the results say more about memory and methodology than the work. Congratulations if you’ve survived the Sydney Sweeney/American Eagle debate without screaming into your laptop. You’ve shown more restraint than the marketing internet, which has now climaxed with The Drum publishing data from Kantar that supposedly shows what Americans really think of American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney ad. Now, I love The Drum. It lets me write columns like this, so this is me biting the hand that feeds me. The article shared the survey results of 1,000 Americans who said they could recall the ad. Respondents were asked if the campaign made them more or less likely to consider or purchase from American Eagle in the future. Read more here

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07.08.2025 15:44 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Judge of the Day: LexisNexis's Matthew Leopold on AI in crisis comms, earned trust, and the quiet power of consistency As The Drum Awards Festival returns to celebrate the best in global marketing, today we’re talking to PR juror Matthew Leopold about the fine line between control and authenticity, the real power of storytelling, and why sometimes the smartest thing a comms person can do is simply speak up. The Drum Awards Festival is back, and with it, a world-class jury shaping the conversation on marketing excellence, innovation and effectiveness. Held this November at The Drum Labs in Shoreditch and streamed globally, the week-long event spans everything from advertising and design, to media, PR and social purpose. Our Judge of the Day series introduces you to the people behind the decisions, experts tasked with recognizing the work that moves the industry forward. Today we spotlight Matthew Leopold, legal and communications director at LexisNexis and a judge for this year’s PR category. Known for bridging legal precision with communications agility, Leopold brings a grounded but future-facing perspective to the table. He blends clarity, ethics and a healthy distrust of corporate delusion. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 15:26 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

‘Wonderpanic’ and synthetic sludge: what does AI mean for marketers? AI is changing everything, but how? Marry Terry-Lush of Hey Honey spoke with three leading marketing minds to gauge the changes underway. AI is everywhere, and as it changes the game, winners and losers will inevitably emerge. To get a sense of how things are shaking out for the marketing industry, I chatted with three leading creative thinkers. Lars Bastholm, former chief creative officer of Ogilvy, Yates Buckley, co-founder of creative studio Unit9, and William Reed, executive creative director at Hey Honey, all gave a clear-eyed view on what brands stand to lose with AI, while broadly agreeing that personality is key to maintaining a competitive edge on the brand landscape. Read more here

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07.08.2025 14:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

‘Wonderpanic’ and synthetic sludge: what AI might mean for marketers AI is changing everything, but how? Marry Terry-Lush of Hey Honey spoke with three leading marketing minds to gauge the changes underway. AI is everywhere, and as it changes the game, winners and losers will inevitably emerge. To get a sense of how things are shaking out for the marketing industry, I chatted with three leading creative thinkers. Lars Bastholm, former chief creative officer of Ogilvy, Yates Buckley, co-founder of creative studio Unit9, and William Reed, executive creative director at Hey Honey, all gave a clear-eyed view on what brands stand to lose with AI, while broadly agreeing that personality is key to maintaining a competitive edge on the brand landscape. Read more here

Did you see? #Opinion

07.08.2025 14:05 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Judge of the Day: Matthew Leopold, legal and communications director at LexisNexis As The Drum Awards Festival returns to celebrate the best in global marketing, today we’re talking to PR juror Matthew Leopold about the fine line between control and authenticity, the real power of storytelling, and why sometimes the smartest thing a comms person can do is simply speak up. The Drum Awards Festival is back, and with it, a world-class jury shaping the conversation on marketing excellence, innovation and effectiveness. Held this November at The Drum Labs in Shoreditch and streamed globally, the week-long event spans everything from advertising and design, to media, PR and social purpose. Our Judge of the Day series introduces you to the people behind the decisions, experts tasked with recognizing the work that moves the industry forward. Today we spotlight Matthew Leopold, legal and communications director at LexisNexis and a judge for this year’s PR category. Known for bridging legal precision with communications agility, Leopold brings a grounded but future-facing perspective to the table. He blends clarity, ethics and a healthy distrust of corporate delusion. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 13:11 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Join big names experiencing a day in our editorial team at The Drum Live Star panelists discussing all the subjects that matter, and the chance to contribute to our editorial output – welcome to The Drum Live 2025. Across two days in September, The Drum Live will bring together star guests to debate the hottest topics of the day while giving attendees the opportunity to take part in a live newsroom. Former health and culture secretary Matt Hancock, S4 Capital chairman Sir Martin Sorrell, and The Drum columnist Mark Ritson will all appear at the event, to be held at The Drum Labs in London. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 10:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ad of the Day: KFC X Greggs - when gravy met pastry KFC gravy and a Greggs sausage roll - the collab nobody asked for yet everyone wants. Two iconic British dishes, the Greggs sausage roll and KFC gravy, are being combined for the first time in a limited edition Mother campaign. The ‘Gravy Meets Pastry’ campaign was created by KFC’s creative agency with Freuds and Hope & Glory handling the PR. The crux of the campaign is a three-day event starting today (August 7) on London’s South Bank, where two vans will hand out Greggs Sausage Rolls with a side of KFC gravy. The vans then travel North to Manchester and then on to Newcastle on August 9. The first 200 customers each day will also be given exclusive bucket hats. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 10:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

As a Latino business leader, I worry we forget that immigration IS the American story MEL’s Luis Miguel Messianu is a Latino immigrant and an entrepreneur who is deeply unsettled by the ramped-up rhetoric and deportations. He shares ways for leaders to better turn up for their people. Recent anti-immigration events across the United States have left me deeply unsettled, not just as a founder but also as someone who has dedicated an entire career to advancing the Hispanic marketing and advertising industry. I feel compelled to speak up, not to confront or politicize but to assert a profoundly American and deeply personal truth: the immigrant story is the American story. Read more here

#Opinion

07.08.2025 10:45 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

‘We just have to know that change is the only constant’ Leaders from Project Management Institute (PMI), Unilever and M+C Saatchi reveal the untold story of what it really takes to turn big ideas into reality. Watch now. In a conversation that’s part pep talk, part playbook, PMI’s chief marketing officer Menaka Gopinath nails it: “We just have to know that change is the only constant” and so learning “never ends”. It’s a mindset that’s essential in today’s ever-shifting marketing landscape, where pivoting is the new norm as marketing grows more complex by the day. Fragmented audiences demand hyper-personalized experiences driven by AI. Platforms keep multiplying. Expectations for in-house teams and agencies are rising fast, pushing creativity to new heights. And with customer needs shifting constantly, agility isn’t just smart - it’s survival. Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 10:29 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The rise of a lifestyle drug: GLP-1s will force more than just food brands to pivot GLP-1 drugs have shifted from medical to mainstream, and the impact is rippling far beyond health. From luxury to lifestyle, brands must now rewrite advertising and marketing playbooks for consumers who crave control over indulgence. Industry leaders at Havas and Publicis Luxe weigh in on what’s at stake, and what’s next. According to statistics released last year, 1 in 8 Americans (12%) reported using a GLP-1 medication to manage a chronic condition such as diabetes or heart disease, while roughly four in ten said they used it primarily for weight loss. Since 2018, Novo Nordisk, the company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, has generated $50bn in sales, with 72% coming from the US, according to multiple outlets. This week, the former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino was named CEO of eMed, a telehealth startup focused on GLP-1 drugs. “It was initially a US phenomenon,” says Chloé Depiesse, managing director at Havas and head of its GLP-1 consultancy. “But it’s clearly becoming more global.” Read more here

#Marketing #Advertising

07.08.2025 10:01 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

In the age of AI, PR matters more than ever How do you optimize your brand to appear favorably in AI results? Branwell Johnson of Propeller Group explains why the old truths of PR still hold true. The anniversary of the largest physical object to hit the Earth – the Siberian meteorite - recently came around as a reminder of how powerful forces can jolt our world. Right now, businesses are facing a similar seismic collision as AI begins to throw marketing certainties and strategies off balance. The impact of AI on search behavior is accelerating, whether used by B2B or B2C prospects. More people are looking for information or opinions via AI-powered bots that use ‘intelligent search’ and deliver text-based answers based on context, rather than providing a list of page links based on keywords. We’re all becoming familiar with how this works and sharpening our searches or prompts as we interact more with Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Read more here

#Opinion

07.08.2025 09:28 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Turning AI chaos into opportunity: Storyful’s John Hall on the future of news Digital media consultant Mark Challinor continues the News Horizons series by talking to the people shaping tomorrow’s media. Today, he talks to News Corp’s Storyful editor, John Hall, about how the future of news is transparent, fast, and driven by human-led verification. The news landscape of 2025 is a battlefield of fact versus fiction. As generative AI floods social feeds with increasingly plausible but fake content, the need for credible, verified information has never been more urgent. But for John Hall, editor at Storyful, this chaos is not just a challenge; it’s an opportunity. As misinformation becomes more sophisticated, media companies must double down on transparency and trust, all the while seemingly leveraging AI for speed. It’s clear that this can never be at the expense of human judgment, however. In response, Hall talks exclusively to The Drum about what’s next for the news industry and why a journalist-led approach is now more valuable than ever. Read more here

#Opinion

07.08.2025 09:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

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