Startup & Brand

Unconventional campaigns, viral stunts, and challenger brand plays that made everyone notice. The creative work worth copying.

Chili’s Put McDonald’s on Trial Next Door (and Court TV Broadcast It)

Chili’s is opening a pop-up courtroom in New York City’s Union Square on April 16, right next to a McDonald’s, to make its case that its $10.99 Big Crispy 3 For Me meal beats the McCrispy. Court TV is broadcasting the “trial.” Consumers serve as the

State Farm Put Jake Inside a Netflix Show and Nobody Can Prove It Worked

State Farm didn't buy a product placement in Netflix's Running Point. That would be simple, measurable, and boring. Instead, they licensed their mascot, Jake from State Farm, as a scripted character in a Kate Hudson basketball comedy. Jake shows up, in character, to help manage an

Uncommon NY Put Live Roaches in a Puffer Jacket and Spent Nothing on Ads

The most interesting marketing campaign of April didn't come with a media plan, a brief deck, or a campaign calendar. It came with live cockroaches. Uncommon NY debuted a see-through puffer jacket filled with actual living cockroaches at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, timed to the Knicks&

Harley-Davidson Launched a Brand Reset Before Anyone Knows the Plan

Harley-Davidson just launched RIDE, a new global brand platform set to Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," complete with the classic bar and shield logo front and center and footage of real riders on open roads. It looks and sounds exactly like what you'd

Nike Optimized Converse Into a 15-Year Revenue Low

Converse just posted $264 million in quarterly revenue. That's a 35% drop year over year, the steepest decline in 15 years, and the third consecutive quarter of accelerating losses. The trajectory: down 27%, then 30%, then 35%. The coverage has mostly framed this as "heritage brand struggles

Dollar Shave Club Made the Pink Razor Aisle the Villain of Its Own Launch

Dollar Shave Club CEO Larry Bodner, explaining the company's first women's product line to Adweek this week, said the thing out loud: "I don't need the BS, just give me something that works, and this works. That's a little bit of

Coca-Cola Restaged Hilltop for America250 to Own What AI Cannot Copy

Coca-Cola just announced "Drink in America," a campaign for the country's 250th birthday that does something almost no other major brand can credibly do in 2026: it leans on a 55-year-old jingle that everyone over 30 already remembers, and dares the reader to feel something about