Serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban thinks we can do better than Clubhouse. At our 2021 Challenger Brands Summit yesterday, he said he’s planning to refine Fireside, the voice-first social platform, into “Podcasting 2.0,” which would lack the ephemerality of Clubhouse while retaining all of the conversational power. He also offered key insights that any marketer can use:

• “No matter what investment you make, always do your homework.”
• "There's the people who create the technology, and then there's everyone else.” If you put in the time to learn about tech—for example, Solidity, the blockchain programming language—that gives you an edge over others.
• Speaking of blockchain, he says that it’s not the assets people have created, but the underlying technology including smart contracts that will have the real disruptive power.

Get more tips and learn about his plans for audio.

Also at Challenger Brands:

Consumer-centric marketing isn’t just for brands, said Amazon Ads’ Alan Moss, who advises starting by figuring out what consumers want from each platform and working backwards from there. Learn how it works.

Cameo, which sells custom recorded videos from celebrities, has benefited enormously from the stay-at-home economy and allowed stars of all rankings to connect with fans and gain prestige. Could this be the end of monolithic A-listers? 

You can still register for Challenger Brands here.

Can't-miss sessions today:

• 11:10 a.m. ET: Lee Applbaum, CMO of WheelsUp
• Noon ET: Actor Jim Belushi on his cannabis operation Belushi's Farm.
• 1:15 p.m. ET: Actress and creative director Nicole Ritchie dishes on her fashion brand House of Harlow.

Three new ads from Apple take viewers on a visually surreal journey into dream sequences that illustrate the health-tracking abilities of the Apple Watch 6. The series, directed by Ian Pons Jewell of Reset Content, who has also helmed visually robust spots for Nike, Squarespace and Google, features beautiful animations and pitch-perfect music.

Watch all three spots here.

Texas has had a rough week during and following a historic winter storm, which put further strain on pandemic-pressured communities. In this compelling Voice piece, professor and Adweek Academic Council member Debika Sihi discusses how brands came to the rescue during the emergency: Grocery stores allowed customers to leave with free groceries when outages knocked out credit card machines, and restaurants delivered meals to healthcare and animal rescue workers. This is what happens when brand equity is strengthened by the power of corporate social responsibility, says Sihi.

Creative agency El Autobús, which was recently acquired by Anchor Worldwide, has a harrowing tale at its heart. Founders Roberto Fonfría and Simón De Franca built a successful agency in Venezuela in the early 2000s—but then things went horribly wrong after a move by former president Hugo Chavez turned the agency’s world upside down.

Learn what happened and how the agency started over in Florida.

After the riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, Google paused its political advertising under its “sensitive event” policy in an effort to prevent people and organizations from taking advantage of moments of upheaval. But now political ads will resume on the platform, though the company says it will continue to prohibit false information. Get the details from Adweek’s Scott Nover.

Briefly:

• Nathan Young’s Journey Continues as He Lands at Deloitte Digital
• These Brands Are Nailing Search Visibility During the Ecommerce Boom
• For His Encore, Jet.com Co-Founder Nate Faust Aims to Make Delivery Sustainable
• How Shelley Stewart Subverted the System to Become an Advertising Success
• Profiles in Black Creativity: Ladi Fatade’s Network for Creatives of Color

Insurance provider The General is known for its overacted, low-quality ads with a boisterous and memorably tone. But now the brand is launching a new campaign from agency Highdive that addresses the quality of its past ads and takes a whole new approach to advertising. The brand was growing, so why change tactics?

Day 2 of our Challenger Brand Summit continues full steam ahead with insights and experiences.

Join us at 11 am and learn from Jim Belushi, Nicole Richie, The McBride Sisters, vrbo, and more about blazing trails in the marketplace, establishing a brand purpose and making change. Join now—it's not too late.

Discovery has more than 11 million total streaming accounts, but didn't break out specific numbers.

Brands are slapping the term on everything from hard seltzers to IPAs to cocktails.

In relation to consumer insights.

The study found spikes in unreliability.

Virtual presentation for marketers and their kids will be held March 18.

It becomes the first alcoholic beverage brand to tap the app’s 3D full body tracking tech.