Marketing stunt boosts sales by 800%—plus Cannes prep

Welcome back to Ad Age Briefly, everyone! Friendly reminder that we extended our deadline for the Breakout Brands awards to June 17. This is your opportunity to highlight the extraordinary leaders and smart work driving success at emerging brands. Enter here today. —Ad Age Web Editor Mark Fischer

This week’s edition includes a viral rebrand, pre-Cannes reading, a moving company's influencer marketing strategy, and much more.

‘The best marketing strategy ever’

A smashing success: Mixoloshe, the mocktail brand co-owned by One Direction member Zayn Malik, rebranded to SMASHD this week following a perfectly executed marketing stunt involving an intern, Ad Age’s Gillian Follett reports.?

How it happened: Two months ago, Mixoloshe marketing intern Nicole Wingard went viral on Instagram after posting reels of herself smashing a can of Mixoloshe with a baseball bat “to prove to my boss that smashing this can is more effective than his entire marketing strategy.” Wingard and chief marketing officer Mike Chambers concocted the social storyline to build buzz for the rebrand—and it worked.

The results:

• 800% increase in sales
• Thousands of email sign-ups
• 524,000 followers on the intern's Instagram account (compared to 97,000 on the Mixoloshe account)

Quotable: “With beverages, you’re basically a marketing company that happens to sell a product. The best beverage brands in the world have figured out that they need to really flex their creative muscles.” —Mike Chambers

The inside pitch: Ad Age’s Gillian Follett spoke with Chambers (who was promoted to CEO after the rebrand) and Wingard (now the chief smash officer) to take you behind the scenes of the marketing strategy, which culminated with a video of Wingard blowing up a car and a bunch of cans of Mixoloshe.

Read the full story and watch that wild video here.?

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Cannes you believe it?!

Cannes is upon us: The advertising world gathers at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week, and Ad Age reporters and editors will keep you updated with the latest happenings from the industry’s biggest awards celebration. Be sure to bookmark our live blog, available to all registered users, for regular updates throughout the festival.

Are you heading to the festival? Ad Age will host programming on VaynerMedia’s yacht all day on Monday, including a session on best practices for brands when working with creators, featuring influencer Tinx. You can find details on all the sessions here. Our annual Cannes Lawn Party is on Wednesday—email [email protected] to request an invite.

Predictions: Ad Age Creativity Editor Tim Nudd asked top creative leaders from around the world to predict which campaigns would win big at this year’s festival. Here are the 45 campaigns they picked to win Lions.?

FAQ: Cannes newbie? Ad Age’s Sabrina Sanchez answers your most pressing questions about the festival, including what to wear, a breakdown of the award categories and how you should prepare for the festival. Check out our guide here.?

Pitch me: Ad Age’s Garett Sloane got his hands on a Cannes Lions pitch deck that reveals how much brands can expect to pay to advertise their business at Cannes. For instance, a restaurant takeover near “Yacht Row” starts around $161,000. Take a peek at the pitch deck yourself.?

Bonus reading: Earlier this year, Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse and Gillian Follett measured the ROI for spending the big bucks at Cannes.?

Creativity Corner

Weird pet behavior: It's been a few weeks since our newsletter last featured a dog. This edition breaks that streak, thanks to Petco. The pet retailer released three TV spots and social posts this week, admitting that while it might not have answers for your pets' strange behaviors—like kissing themselves in the mirror—it knows everything else about pet care. The creative from slapglobal is a must-watch for dog and cat owners everywhere.

?? Watch the ads here.

Marketer's Brief

Moving is a piece of cake: The moving company Piece of Cake is leveraging influencer marketing to promote its business, but it isn’t just targeting creators with the highest following. “What we’ve found is that just because someone may look like they’d have it all—a million followers, high engagement—doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to get a good ROI with them,” Piece of Cake CMO Najah Ayoub tells Ad Age’s Phoebe Bain . The New York-based company is taking a niche approach, which includes fitness influencers such as Equinox and Barry’s Boot Camp instructors.?

?? Listen to the full conversation here.

Opinion

Rewarding loyalty: Acquiring new customers only goes so far, writes VersusGame CMO (and former Ad Age Editor) Scott Donaton , who notes that increasing retention rates by 5% can increase profits by up to 95%, according to a study by Bain & Company and Harvard Business School. "In recent years, the media business was largely focused on the moment," writes Donaton. That is especially true for the streaming space, he adds, "where an audience-growth-at-all-costs mentality has given way to a focus on reaching sustained profitability."

Read the full opinion piece here.

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Final chance to enter Breakout Brands

Paging up-and-coming brands: Did you or someone you know at a brand do amazing things over the last year? Ad Age’s Breakout Brands awards recognize the people and the work that drove brands to new heights. The program is not just for DTC brands or startups—older brands that are experiencing a renaissance or have recently seen surges in sales and consumer awareness are also eligible.

?? Final deadline is June 17—enter today!

?? Speaking of brands, join us Sept. 18 and 19 in Chicago for our Business of Brands conference, as we bring together some of the brightest minds in marketing. Register today for a limited-time discount.

4??0?? And speaking of bright minds, our 40 under 40 entries are now open! Here is everything you need to know about the honorific.

?? New to Ad Age? Create your free account today to unlock select stories and newsletters. Become an all-access subscriber for unlimited access to everything we have to offer, including our annual Agency Report (which will be released soon),??Leading National Advertisers Report and so much more.

Hi there, thanks for reading: This newsletter was curated by Ad Age Web Editor Mark Fischer . Have any feedback or tips? Reach out to him at [email protected].