Some big stories this week!

• How should Lululemon, Athleta and Alo respond to the Nike-Skims new product line.
• P&G returns to its strategy of the 50s and 60s, introducing the first new Soap Opera in many years.
• Much more!

With the nova of Super Bowl ads fading, the home team fields a range of Marketing topics including:

• Brands using Influencers for new product introductions, ala Cera Ve hair care
• Coke enters the alt beverage segment to compete with Poppi and OlliPop
• Starbucks cuts 30% of their sku's, to improve the customer and barista experience
• Barnes & Noble embraces TikTok's BookTok to drive book sales and expand brick & mortar bookstores!
• Super Apps - eyeing the success of super apps in Asia, US brands are looking to expand consumer usage of their apps to new categories - Airbnb, Uber, DoorDash, Amazon Prime
• Walmart buys the Dawn of the Dead shopping mall

Talk about Marketing for better of for worse! The Super Bowl LIX ads completely earned that epithet. While the Eagles were soaring, brands provided flying facial hair. But their were also some excellent commercials. Will any drive sales for the brand - we think so. And others should have been left on the barber's floor.

Modern marketing and entrepreneurship at its best - Christina Mitchell and Rebecca Neckritz, the Philly Food Ladies share their incredible success as Influencers in the Philly market. Hired by restaurants and stores to create engaging videos, and through collaborations with well-known national and regional brands, the pair have built a very successful business, highlighted by almost 150,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. Thanks to YDW team members Mackenzie and Min for arranging and hosting the Philly Food Ladies!

It was really fun to have former TU-AMA star, Maeve Coogan join the podcast. After graduation in 2023, Maeve joined the very popular, clothing and home furnishings retailer, Anthropologie. It was very interesting learning about the co-op programs, artist collaborations and fast-growing wedding business, that Maeve works on.

We already miss student producer, Joe DG who graduated at the end of the year. Joining Mackenzie and Min on the YDW team is Keenan who edited this episode. Welcome!

Back to class this week

Taking students to Dubai over the break.

Starbucks back-to basics strategy; no more free loitering

State Farm cancels its Super Bowl ad - hear why

Yahoo! implements curation to protect advertisers

AB and Meta move to the right

Dry January - Zebra striping becomes a thing!

Celsius and Cottage Cheese having a moment.

We pioneer the new recording studio. It's cozy but sounds great. In this end-of -semester episode we discussed our favorite marketing campaigns of 2024, and a Santa's bag of other interesting topics.

• Streamers raising prices
• Cable networks being spun off
• Sequel heaven - Moana 2 joins Inside Out 2 as top grossing movies of 2024
• More GLP1 food products
• Target gets a Taylor Swift exclusive

How to make great advertising? We are joined by a worldwide expert to answer that question. Shaun Dix is the global leader for creative excellence at Ipsos. Based in Hamburg, Germany Shaun' teams around the world work with brands and ad agencies in the pursuit of breakthrough advertising. Shaun provides some really interesting examples from around the world. He fulfilled our goal to never stop learning.