ADWEEK

Can Brian Niccol make @Starbucks feel like Starbucks again ADWEEK’s October issue explores how CEO Brian Niccol’s Back to Starbucks plan aims to restore the coffeehouse experience through refurbished stores, a simpler menu, a revamped loyalty program, and more staff during rushes. The turnaround has improved comps and renewed the brand’s focus, but controversies persist. His $96 million pay package and company-jet commute drew criticism. Starbucks has closed hundreds of stores, cut thousands of jobs, and remains locked in a dispute with unionized workers. Rising coffee and tariff costs, along with staffing expenses, add pressure. Starbucks is betting that service and operations can fuel growth without eroding trust among customers, employees, and investors. Read the full cover story 👉

Negroni Week may be over, but there’s always time for one. 🥃 We stopped by ViceVersa in Miami to make a Milano-Torino Negroni, with @CampariAmerica bringing its signature bittersweet kick to every pour.

Here are the daily rating for Thursday, Oct. 22: @FoxNews remains No. 1 in total viewers and demo. @MSNOWNews won the 11 p.m. ET hour in the Adults 25-54 demo. @CNN was No. 2 in the primetime demo. Read more 👇

RT @awbrandshare: Shoppers know a couple hundred brands at best, so great products get lost in the noise. @InMobi and @glance_inspires founder and CEO Naveen Tewari explains how AI personal shoppers can fix discovery and why CMOs will soon market to agents.

At @BravoTV Fan Fest in Charleston, @NBCUniversal is bringing brands into the heart of the Bravo universe. Kimberly Francella and Sari Feinberg share how they collaborate with partners to create fan-first activations that make the event even more memorable.

Artificial intelligence startup Netomi is changing its leadership team as it tries to move AI out of the chat window in the corner of a website and into the website itself. Learn more about the new hires 👇

This holiday season is trending to be focused on gifting experiences as opposed to physical items, with 50% of surveyed consumers saying they plan to shop for experience-based gifts.

Creator marketing platform Devotion has brought Ed Victori aboard as its first chief operating officer, where he will oversee day-to-day operations and focus on scaling the team and infrastructure.

.@LiquidIV has hired @DrinkPoppi’s former CMO, Jenny Danzi, to lead its marketing department. Her brief will be to unite Liquid I.V.’s “science-backed foundation with modern, culture-driven brand building,” per a statement.

"As for Shane [Gillis], if he's curious about the shorts, we've made them particularly easy to find. Just search Shane on our website.” - Noel Mack, Chief Brand Officer at @Gymshark 🤭

RT @awbrandshare: A logo and a few tickets aren’t a sponsorship strategy. @IMG explains how brands can connect sports partnerships to consumer action—and measure more than exposure.

For the week of October 5, @ABCWorldNews led with 8.219 million viewers, followed by @NBCNightlyNews with 6.482 million and @CBSEveningNews with 4.219 million. CBS was the only broadcast to grow among adults 25–54, gaining 5%.

.@BravoTV Fan Fest brought fans together to celebrate their favorite shows and Bravo personalities, and brands joined in on the fun too! @Colgate Optic White, @PlanetFitness, @StateFarm, @Wayfair, and @Wendys each offered experiences with fans in mind.

.@Target's Roundel is encouraging advertisers to measure incrementality, which identifies sales generated by ads that would not have happened otherwise. Yet only 8% use it as their primary performance metric, even though 66% cite sales growth as their main investment goal.

Read more 👉

“My customer is my BFF.” It’s a sentiment every brand should embrace, but for LWYA founder and @QVC host @KimGravel, it’s more than a feeling, but a truth. At Brandweek, Gravel shared why she stays hands-on with her brands and why direct-to-consumer sales and live selling play to her strengths more than traditional brick-and-mortar retail.

“From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the @SuperBowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world’s biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true.” Learn more 👉

Branded entertainment often goes unseen because brands overlook essential planning, not because they lack strong ideas. Success requires a different approach from traditional advertising. Brands must understand what audiences want. They need clear business goals and measurable results.

After @paramountco and @warnerbros merged to form Skydance, chief revenue officer Jay Askinasi named his advertising leadership team in a staff memo, following the exits of WBD ad sales leaders Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio.

Between @Meta's Muse, upgraded AI tools for advertisers, and blocking @TikTok_US campaigns from advertising on its platforms, the tech company has been busy. Get the latest in @KendraEBarnett's latest AI, Tech, and Money newsletter.

For the week of October 12, @FoxNews, @MSNOWNews, and @CNN all gained viewers week over week in primetime and total day. CNN posted the strongest demo growth and passed MS NOW for second in total-day Adults 25–54. Fox’s The Five reclaimed the demo’s top spot, while MS NOW’s Monday @maddow Show led its timeslot in both measures. Year over year, MS NOW and CNN grew, while Fox News declined.

How do you know when a market shift is real enough to change the business around it? For Harry Kargman, in the CTV context, it was clear: when @netflix introduced advertising, Kargo would enter the category. On this week’s The Speed of Culture Podcast, the Founder and CEO of Kargo joins Matt Britton of @AskSuzyBiz to discuss how the company has spent 23 years navigating major changes in advertising. Harry gets into contextual targeting after privacy changes, bringing proven creator content into CTV, and why successful pivots depend on building an organization that expects change rather than fears it.

As @Strava broadens its audience, it’s also competing with a broader array of fitness apps. The differentiator for Wee is community, reinforced by shareable cards that allow people to stay connected on social media and in their DMs.

@netflix 🎧 Listen to the full episode: @Apple: @Spotify:

In 2024, @BravoTV introduced its first-ever Bravo Fan Fest in Miami, offering fans a more intimate way to connect with their favorite Bravolebrities through panels, photo opportunities, and activations. This year, the celebration headed to Charleston. Frances Berwick, Chairman of Bravo & @peacock Unscripted at @NBCUniversal, takes us behind the scenes of how the event came together this year.

Following Mubadala Capital’s $6.2 billion acquisition of @CCOutdoorNA, Wade Davis is joining as CEO and executive chairman, replacing Scott Wells, while former @paramountco advertising chief John Halley becomes chief commercial officer.

.@stagwell, led by Mark Penn, has acquired Freestar, an ad monetization company serving more than 1,000 publishers and handling 50 billion ad requests each month. Freestar’s technology, publisher inventory, and audience data will join Stagwell’s AI Media Machine. The deal aims to connect advertisers with quality publisher supply more efficiently. Read more 👉

.@AmericanExpress CMO Elizabeth Rutledge will retire in March 2027, after more than 36 years with the company. She joined in 1990 and became CMO in 2018. She helped launch the “Powerful Backing” brand platform and led partnerships with @F1, @coachella, @aclfestival, and the @usopen. American Express expects to announce her successor in the coming weeks. Rutledge said she is leaving having fulfilled her dream of working for the company. Read more 👉

Manifesting these collabs. ✨ We caught up with some iconic Bravolebrities at @BravoTV FanFest in Charleston to ask them about the brands they’d love to work with. Here’s what they said. Michols Peña @Capt_Kerry @carlradke @miagcalabrese Jessel Taank Molly O'Connell @heathergay29 @bronwynnewport

so that's why Jennifer Lawrence joined @Instagram

1/📍Here's this week's Ticker.

RT @awbrandshare: Video builds awareness. @AmazonAds explained that Pause ads deepen the connection, giving streaming advertisers two complementary ways to make an impression in one viewing session.

.@AnthropicAI has filed for a potentially record-setting IPO, reporting $11.56 billion in second-quarter 2026 revenue—up from $787 million a year earlier—and $974 million in operating income, its only profitable quarter disclosed.

Creators perform best when they’re free to speak in their own voice. At ADWEEK House during Advertising Week New York, Ryan Delahanty of @BestBuy Ads shares how to build authentic creator partnerships and prove their impact across the funnel. #sponsored

RT @awbrandshare: The next DSP battleground isn’t access—it’s intelligence. As AI accelerates media buying, Wurl shares that the competitive edge may belong to platforms that connect richer signals and turn them into smarter decisions.

If you live in #NYC or work in #SPAM (social, PR, advertising, marketing), you’ve probably seen the videos from @GoodAmerican’s influencer event, and they're not positive... What are your thoughts: Is all press good press?

.@Pinterest has made its Programmatic Deals broadly available across North and South America and Asia Pacific, allowing advertisers to buy its display and video inventory through @AmazonAds DVA+, @Google Display & Video 360, and @Yahoo DSP.

In this week’s On Background, ADWEEK's @MarkStenberg3 examines eFormed Ventures’ acquisition of @outdoorlife and its plan to turn the publication’s audience and product recommendations into a more direct commerce business using its AI platform, Resonance. Read more 👇

Here’s a thought experiment I shared with Jenny Rooney on the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026: Imagine every friend in your life treated you like you were their best friend. When you called, they answered. When you needed something, you mattered and you had their full attention. So, what would change if every customer who walked through your door or visited your website was treated like they were the only customer you were going to serve that day? That question forms the core of my “Thinking Human” philosophy. Scale matters and so do transactions but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, matters more than the person enabling both those things. Jenny and I also talked about why retention deserves as much attention as acquisition, why a broken customer experience cannot be solved by marketing alone, how I think marketers should use AI and why I’d rather be effective than right. Listen to our full conversation: Apple: Spotify: YouTube:

.@FoxTV is entering the next phase of its agentic rollout. This means adding more agency partners, expanding agentic capabilities, and looking to make agentic a bigger part of upfront conversations in the future.

.@Sethrogen stars in @Sephora's “We All Sephora” holiday campaign, helping shoppers find beauty gifts with advice from store staff. In the ad, he picks out setting spray for his producer, fragrance for his cousin, and a red-light therapy mask for his mom...and himself. After teasing the campaign with a “Sethphora” makeover at its The Grove store, Sephora will launch it Oct. 29 across TV, streaming, and social, with Rogen’s picks available online and in the app. Read more 👉