BRAND STRATEGY

General Mills

Brands are part of history. And some of that history might be interesting to the average person.

Did you know that Wheaties was behind what was likely the first commercial jingle, which hit the airwaves on Christmas Eve back in 1926? Or that Betty Crocker was reportedly the second most-recognized woman in America among homemakers (behind Eleanor Roosevelt, of course) in the 1940s?

Other history, though, is probably most valuable to the people who work at that brand. Say marketers are reviving a bizarre ad from the ’90s that’s developed a cult fandom over the years, as General Mills’s snack brand Gushers did last fall with “FruitHeads.” It would certainly help to be able to dig into old files and use everything you could from when that ad was created.

Enter the brand archive, which can be helpful for everyone from history aficionados to brand marketers looking to accurately reference a company’s own history. Brand archives have been getting a workout in recent years, with new creative work regularly referencing older efforts and major anniversaries.

General Mills is celebrating 160 years amid the 250th anniversary of America, and it has also maintained a company archive for more than four decades. To understand what goes into corporate archival work, we asked Natasha Bruns, senior corporate archivist at General Mills, to give us the lowdown on what an archive for a consumer packaged goods company includes, and how the company’s brand marketers tap into it.

Continue reading here.—KM

      

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AI

Ramon “REO” Jimenez Owen, OpenAI

In addition to the splashy national ads from AI brands aired during this year’s Super Bowl and the World Cup, some of those brands are leaning into smaller markets.

In the first five months of 2026, OpenAI allocated more ad impression share for ChatGPT in the Midwest, Mountain West, and South, instead of larger metro areas in states like California and Florida, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower’s recent State of AI Report.

“This pattern suggests a strategy focused on expanding adoption in less-saturated markets beyond major metropolitan areas,” Sensor Tower found.

Competitors Google and Anthropic also appear to be putting more focus on promoting their consumer-facing AI brands in a number of smaller American metros. As the AI companies battle for consumer eyeballs, though, consumers continue to report having mixed feelings toward AI, according to Greg Carlucci, senior director analyst at Gartner.

Read more here.—JS

      

BRAND STRATEGY

Morning Brew

Sometimes, the best thing a marketer can do is less. Or at least, less of the usual stuff.

In his former role as Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer, Raja Rajamannar, who is now the brand’s senior fellow, significantly cut the brand’s traditional marketing budget, redirecting it into experiences, sponsorships, and consumer engagement.

Very little changed—and, in fact, the brand saw better results when it focused on emergent channels. It was an enlightening result that has led Rajamannar to claim that traditional advertising as we know it is dead.

“It’s not that advertising doesn’t work,” Rajamannar told us, “but to make advertising work, it’s getting already more difficult, and it’s becoming even more difficult to establish that your advertising is working and attribute the results.”

We recently sat down with Rajamannar to hear more about where he thinks the advertising industry is headed, and why he believes in the power of brand restraint in a world of endless digital clutter.

On the power of brand restraint: Don’t mistake visibility for impact. You need a certain level of visibility, but beyond that, it is off-putting, and it only adds to the clutter, whether it is visually or on your television or your digital, wherever. Don’t overdo it....Some of the advertising strategies that amuse me even now—and my heart bleeds at the amount of wasted money—in the same programming, they repeat the advertisement multiple times, the exact same ad during every single break. You don’t need that. And it doesn’t have to be that way…Sometimes, less is more. In some cases, silence, actually, is golden.

See more from our conversation here.—KS

      

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Morning Brew

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Hit record: Thoughts on what comes next for marketers after seeing record-breaking viewership numbers for the World Cup.

Hooked: Best practices for social media to improve engagement.

Local hero: Some tips to help businesses navigate local search queries amid the rise of AI overviews.

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IN AND OUT

Francis Scialabba

Executive moves across the industry.

• GM hired former Nissan CMO Allyson Witherspoon to serve as CMO covering GMC and Buick.
• Behr Paint promoted Andy Lopez to the role of global CMO; he is reportedly the youngest person ever in the organization to hold the role.
• Native Pet has brought on Ariel Stoddard, formerly president of MeUndies, as the company’s first CMO.