Brand WTF of the Week: Papa John playing the batsh*t blame game

Papa John’s founder John Schnatter has tried to shift the blame off him and onto his ad agency and even Kanye West, sliding his company’s brand into an 800-degree oven.

How P&G found the insight behind its Emmy-nominated ad “The Talk”

Multicultural agency Egami CEO Teneshia Warner on “The Talk,” why brands need to work on their cultural competency, and how multicultural agencies are no longer niche.

Issa Rae’s new ad continues Covergirl’s search for new femininity

“Shade for shade” looks like just Rae and her friends having fun, but for the brand it represents a goal for more complex, diverse, and real expressions of what beauty means to women.

Top 5 ads of the week: Spotify and Pharrell, Adidas and Zidane

The Atlantic looks at the ethics of AI, Dollar Shave Club gets ready, and Apple knows you can’t remember that new password.

Google introduces machine learning ad tools and brands are hot for them

Responsive search ads, brand lift measurement on YouTube, smart shopping, and more dynamic local ads all announced at Google Marketing Live event.

Jason Stein, digital innovator and Twitter gadfly, is leaving Cycle Media

AppNexus is key to AT&T’s plans to use HBO for more consumer data

New WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey says HBO is going to “change direction a little bit,” and it’s all about the advertising.

Air Jordan sneaker doc is a brand story that’s not branded content

“Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1” is about a Nike shoe, created by an agency who’s worked with Nike, but it’s not produced or funded by the brand.

Ad giant IPG bets big on consumer data with $2.3 billion Acxiom deal

By buying marketing data firm Acxiom, Interpublic Group aims for better data, and less reliance on others like Facebook and Google, to target us with ads.

Why Nike ditched a proven winning strategy for the 2018 World Cup

The swoosh abandoned its previous one big ad success in favor of multiple–and mobile–stories targeted to specific audiences.

Top 5 Ads Of the Week: Netflix diversity, Airbnb travels forward

Time’s Up gets animated about anti-harassment, Nike film profiles a French soccer star, and you won’t even notice Fruit of the Loom.

Remember, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also wrote her own winning ad

The Democrats’ new 28-year-old candidate for New York’s 14th congressional district told her own story, her own way, and it really, really worked.

Airbnb’s new ad opposes Supreme Court’s Trump travel ban ruling

Google is killing off the DoubleClick branding

How “scrappy” Google won Cannes Lions’ Creative Marketer of the Year

CMO Lorraine Twohill talks about the company’s marketing evolution, being a challenger to Amazon, and earning user trust.

Tourism-turned-environmental campaign wins Cannes Lions top prize

Rebecca Minkoff on creating a brand and workplace for modern women

“The model most businesses are set up on is an old one. It’s the 9-to-6, these are the rules, don’t bring your personal baggage to work.”

No, Whole Foods was not hacked—here’s why its Instagram was scrubbed

Marketers risk a consumer backlash linked to mobile-tech addiction

Amid the attention industry at Cannes Lions, former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris and Hearts & Science CEO Scott Hagedorn delivered a warning.