Hello marketers!
Welcome back to the new Brand Marketing newsletter from Adweek. How was your week? Hearing from many of you—what’s up Amy, Alan and Neil—was a highlight of mine! Please keep sending me notes, suggestions or intel for our brand marketing coverage.
This week Amazon confirmed what had previously been reported: The company will split its second headquarters—oddly nicknamed HQ2, sure—between New York City and Crystal City, Virginia.
Once again, something that could’ve gone to another American city will instead come to New York with the company citing talent as a main driver behind the decision. Now, why does this matter for marketers—aside from Amazon trying to be everything for everyone and essentially looking to put all other companies out of business? The tech giant could woo away marketing talent. Sure, that’s already happening. Yeah, Google scooped up Chloe Gottlieb from R/GA all the way back in May. And Facebook took Andrew Keller long ago. I hear you. But this is Amazon! With HQ2 (sigh, can’t they just call it another office?) coming Bezos and co. could logically be moving marketing practices to New York—it’s a bigger marketing city than Seattle— and then … welp … Are folks at your firm worried about this? Drop us a line.
Speaking of marketing talent, this week we celebrated stellar brand marketers in two great cities: Los Angeles and Chicago (see below).
“Chicago is in an artistic renaissance at the moment. We have a beautiful landscape, incredible architecture, a melting pot of cultures and it’s affordable to live in. It’s a huge reason that entrepreneurs can succeed here,” said Juan-Elias Riesco, founder of Chicago Native and owner of Nini’s Deli.
Next up: We’ll be celebrating Dallas-based marketers. Check back at Adweek.com on December 10th to see who made the cut.
Quote of the week: “We’d have meetings not related to Gritty, and they’d end up being discussions about how much hair he should have coming out of his helmet,” Joe Heller, vp of marketing, Philadelphia Flyers, told Adweek’s news editor Jameson Fleming, of the making of Gritty, the Flyer’s much-buzzed-about new mascot. Read his origin story here.
Say What? Marketers highlighted how Florida students lives are worth just $1.05 each to lawmakers when you calculate how much the NRA has spent per student. That work, "Price of Our Lives," by McCann New York won the Epica Grand Prix for responsibility this week in Amsterdam—where Adweek's managing editor Stephanie Paterik was a first-time judge.
