Greetings from Greenpoint, where we're testing the limits of our office manager's patience by tearing up our carpet, putting up wall decals, and blasting Cardboard Rocketship in the office. Oh, and 'gramming our succulent collection, as one does.
New father John Hazard is back in action after changing a million diapers per day on paternity leave. Charles has his fresh summer haircut (and bro-zilian), and we're psyched to welcome a new client - Andela, who not only are an awesome group of people but are also kind of saving the world. We’re also on the lookout for a Chicago-based editor, so if you know anyone in the windy city looking for work, get at us!
On to the #content:
Lebron, Nike, and power of brand
Over at ESPN, (which we swear we only read professionally) noted Lebron James whisperer Brian Windhorst takes us through the tick tock of Lebron's first big sneaker endorsement, a bidding war that pitted the incumbent Nike against upstart Reebok in a high stakes battle to sign the most exciting player to enter the NBA in a generation. Reebok offered Lebron over $100 million for his signature, but Nike offered something money couldn't buy:
Writes Windhorst: "Reebok's offer was tens of millions more... but when LeBron imagined his future, he'd always seen himself in Nikes. He'd dreamed of being in Nike commercials. He wanted to be like Jordan. He wanted to do business with Nike. In his words, he wanted to be in the Nike family."
We've oft talked in these here missives about the power of brand, but rarely is there such a stark example of how much it matters. Measuring brand value has always been a tricky exercise, which is why when a company falls on hard times, it's always the marketing budget that gets slashed first. But the story of Nike and Lebron is a powerful reminder of the importance of branding, and why in world where marketing is becoming increasingly a tech-driven demand-focused game of analytics and arbitrage, we shouldn't forget about how our companies make people feel.
Things are happening
In case you were hiding under a rock last week, we bring you the news that consulting giant Accenture has bought the independent ad agency Droga5, for a lot of money. Droga5 is known for ads like Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot and The New York Times’ “Truth is Hard” campaign, and now will be known for having a very rich founder. Most importantly, this proves that megacompanies are investing in creativity and good content creation.
Wondering who owns what in the media landscape? So was Recode, and they made us all an extremely handy infographic about it.
NYT has published an excellent longform on News Corp and the Murdoch media dynasty. Anyone who creates, or regularly consumes content will want to give it a read.
Neuromarketing is a thing that exists, apparently.
Conde Nast is getting a new boss — the former CEO of Pandora is taking over not just the US branch, but the global corporation. Overall, people seem pretty excited about it, if not a bit quizzical about a digital media exec jumping into the print space.
Bruce Hornsby once beat Allen Iverson in 1 on 1 b-ball, a thing we never knew we needed to know until we knew it.