Adspeak

Legacy retail brands have something that newer brands can only dream of: decades of recognition, emotional connection, and cultural history. But turning that heritage into modern relevance requires more than nostalgia. It takes clear positioning, product reinvention, bold creative decisions, and a strong partnership between marketing and leadership.

In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, Marisa Thalberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Catalyst Brands, sits down with Ken Ohashi, Brand CEO of Brooks Brothers and Eddie Bauer to explore the strategies behind transforming iconic retail brands. They discuss how to reposition struggling businesses, uncover new opportunities by listening to real customer behavior, and balance heritage with the need to evolve. Ken and Marisa also explore Eddie Bauer's shift from technical outdoor gear to a lifestyle brand, the role of cultural influencers, and why small, trusted teams can make better creative decisions. Throughout, they share lessons on building authentic brands that turn skeptical customers into loyal ones.

What You Will Learn:
How to turn around a bankrupt heritage brand
Why creative decisions should avoid "committee thinking"
The "off the mountain" repositioning framework Eddie Bauer used
How to find hidden brand momentum by mining real customer behavior
Why talking "up to" middle-America consumers builds trust and authenticity
How strategic star power can be used as a cultural amplifier
The importance of building CEO-CMO trust early

About the Guests:
Marisa Thalberg is a globally recognized business strategist and brand-building innovator, known for inspiring teams to take brands to new heights of consumer resonance, cultural relevance, and business performance. A pioneer of digital, social, and eCommerce marketing, she has orchestrated blockbuster product launches, unexpected cultural moments, and moved with uncommon ease between industries like beauty and QSR, retail and CPG, brand and performance marketing, mass and prestige.

Ken Ohashi is Brand CEO of Brooks Brothers and Eddie Bauer, with more than 25 years of experience across fashion, consumer products, retail, and business development. He led Brooks Brothers through its acquisition and transformed the iconic brand to profitability in less than two years. Previously, Ohashi served as President of International and Global Retail at Authentic Brands Group, overseeing brand management, business development, and marketing across its international portfolio. He also held senior leadership roles at Aéropostale.

Host and Guest Resources:
Ken Ohashi on LinkedIn
Brooks Brothers Website
Marisa Thalberg on LinkedIn
Catalyst Brands Website
ADWEEK Website
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Halloween is no longer just a seasonal celebration. For brands, it can become a powerful cultural platform for building relevance, generating engagement, and creating long-term brand assets.

In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, Rebecca Stewart sits down with Ibrahim Khan, Global Vice President of Marketing at Fanta, to explore how Fanta turned Halloween into a global brand moment and generated more than 7 billion impressions through fan-generated content without paid media spend.

The conversation explores how Fanta identified an opportunity to build ownership around Halloween, harnessed TikTok and community creativity, and partnered with Universal Pictures and Blumhouse to create collectible horror-themed cans. Ibrahim also explains how product design can become a storytelling platform, how to balance brand authenticity with licensed IP, and why giving audiences creative freedom can drive deeper engagement. He shares the long-term thinking behind turning a successful seasonal campaign into a recurring global franchise that builds anticipation and cultural relevance year after year.

What You'll Learn:
How to identify a "white space" holiday moment competitors have left unclaimed and build ownership around it
Why letting fans create content can generate more impressions than any paid campaign
The "constructive tension" principle for balancing a licensor's IP integrity with your own brand's authenticity
How to select characters or creative assets that flex across generations and 50+ global markets without losing relevance
Why product design itself (not just advertising) can become the most scalable storytelling platform a brand has
The long-game playbook for turning a single viral moment into a recurring, expectation-building annual tradition

About the Guest:
Ibrahim Khan leads global strategy and marketing for Fanta, bringing more than a decade of experience at Coca-Cola across diverse markets. Previously, he served as Senior Marketing Director for Sparkling Flavors in Greater China & Mongolia, overseeing Fanta, Sprite, and Schweppes. His career also includes leading marketing for Sprite in its largest global market, managing sparkling portfolios across ASEAN, and driving brand strategy for Coca-Cola and Fanta across Thailand, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Ibrahim specializes in global brand management, digital transformation, and creating consumer experiences that resonate across cultures.

Host and Guest Resources:
Ibrahim Khan on LinkedIn
Fanta Website
ADWEEK Website
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Mental health campaigns can do more than raise awareness. Done well, they can change behavior, challenge stigma, and help people take meaningful action.
In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, host Audrey Kemp speaks with three communication leaders: Heidi Arthur, Chief Campaign and Program Officer at the Ad Council; Sherrie Mazur, Managing Director of Communications at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation; and WNBA star Jordin Canada. They explore how the national “Love Your Mind” campaign was localized for Georgia through culturally relevant storytelling, trusted community voices, and authentic athlete advocacy.

The conversation examines why vulnerability can make athletes powerful messengers, how a “Brand Platform” approach keeps partnerships consistent, and how strategic media placements can reach audiences when they are most receptive. The guests also share why campaign success should be measured through behavior and resource-seeking, not vanity metrics. With awareness reaching 50% and resource-seeking increasing 49% in under five months, the episode offers a practical look at turning mental health messaging into action.

What You'll Learn:
How to localize a national campaign
Why leveraging athletes' influence, not just celebrity status, builds authentic credibility
The "Brand Platform" approach: treating a cause campaign like a product brand
How to choose high-traffic, high-dwell placements (like airports) to reach broad, diverse audiences
Why impact should be measured through actual behavior shifts and resource-seeking
How brands can avoid tokenism on mental health by partnering with clinical experts

About the Guests:
Heidi Arthur is Chief Campaign and Program Officer at the Ad Council, where she oversees national initiatives like Love Your Mind and transforms empathy into measurable action. With expertise in using communications to address critical social issues, she leads the Ad Council's mission to leverage donated media and cultural influence, particularly through sports and trusted athlete voices, to drive behavioral change.

Sherrie Mazur is Managing Director of Communications at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, responsible for bringing national mental health initiatives to local communities with cultural relevance and measurable impact. Her work bridges philanthropy and grassroots activation by uniting diverse sports organizations and leveraging trusted local voices to destigmatize mental health conversations.

Jordin Canada is a guard for the Atlanta Dream (WNBA) and a vocal advocate for mental health destigmatization both on and off the court. As a featured voice in the Love Your Mind campaign, she shares her personal experience navigating pressure, vulnerability, and the importance of seeking support as a professional athlete.

Host and Guest Resources:
Heidi Arthur on LinkedIn
Ad Council Website
Sherrie Mazur on LinkedIn
AMBFF Website
Jordin Canada on Instagram
ADWEEK Website
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Marketing is no longer just about winning clicks. As AI Overviews, rising ad costs, and changing search behavior reshape customer acquisition, brands need to rethink how they build visibility and engage audiences.

In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, Kyle Denhoff, Senior Director of Marketing at HubSpot, explores how HubSpot is adapting to an AI-first marketing landscape through its four-phase “Loop Marketing” framework: Express, Tailor, Amplify, and Evolve.

The conversation explores how HubSpot uses AI to accelerate brand strategy, personalize outreach at scale, and transform a single expert interview into content across LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, and newsletters. Kyle also explains why marketers need to optimize not only for traditional search, but for visibility within AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. He shares how traffic from LLMs can convert at significantly higher rates than traditional search and offers practical approaches to auditing AI visibility, benchmarking competitors, and creating content that earns citations.

What You'll Learn:
Why traditional SEO and paid social are losing effectiveness
The "Loop Marketing" framework: Express, Tailor, Amplify, Evolve
How to use AI to compress brand strategy development from months to weeks
How to build a one-to-one email engine that personalizes outreach
The content remixing method: turning a single expert interview into optimized formats
Why traffic from LLMs like ChatGPT converts three times higher than traditional search traffic
How to audit your brand's AI visibility and benchmark it against competitors

About the Guest:
Kyle Denhoff is the Senior Director of Marketing at HubSpot and a growth marketer and media operator with 15 years of experience spanning healthcare and SaaS. For the past four years, he's led the buildout of HubSpot Media and its Creator program, scaling properties like The Hustle, My First Million, and Marketing Against the Grain into a network that drives 20-25% of HubSpot's marketing lead demand. His focus: leveraging new media to build brand awareness and convert audiences into qualified pipeline.

Host and Guest Resources:
Kyle Denhoff on LinkedIn
HubSpot Website
ADWEEK Website
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Creator marketing is no longer just about generating awareness or social engagement. It is becoming a measurable growth engine that can influence consumers throughout the entire marketing funnel.

In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, host Zoë Ruderman sits down with four business leaders from Microsoft, Pearpop, and AntiSocial: Marie-Laure De Veyt, Beth Everhart, Christopher Franco, and Cole Mason to explore how brands can turn creator partnerships into measurable business results.

The conversation examines how Microsoft scaled a campaign to 42 creators and 69 assets in just six weeks while maintaining authenticity, creative quality, and performance. The guests discuss why creator content should be treated as a core paid media asset, how brands can measure impact through search lift, foot traffic, and brand lift studies, and why long-term creator relationships can build deeper trust and product knowledge.

They also explore how creator-led market research can replace rigid creative briefs, how brands can balance authenticity with brand safety, and why extending creator content into retail media and CTV represents a significant untapped opportunity.

What You'll Learn:
How to run a six-week, 42-creator campaign at scale without sacrificing authenticity or creative quality
Why creator content should be treated as a core paid media asset
The "Familiar Faces" framework for building long-term creator relationships
How to measure creator campaign impact beyond impressions
Why ditching the traditional creative brief in favor of creator-led market research can uncover insights brands would otherwise miss
How to identify brand safety and creative fit without stifling a creator's authentic voice
Why underutilizing existing creator content across retail media networks and CTV is one of the biggest missed opportunities for brands today
How to look beyond the "typical" creator demographic (like Gen Z)

About the Guests:
Marie-Laure De Veyt is a strategic and creative senior marketing leader with deep expertise in social and creator marketing across global consumer brands. She has led high-impact campaigns for Surface, Windows, and Microsoft 365, including Microsoft’s first creator-led Retail Media Network content. Passionate about influence, commerce, and culture, she builds authentic partnerships that drive engagement, brand love, and measurable business results.

Beth Everhart is the Managing Director at AntiSocial and a collaborative marketing leader with nearly 15 years of experience developing integrated campaigns and strategies for B2B and B2C clients across national and global markets. Known for building strong relationships and leading cross-functional teams, she thrives in fast-paced environments, bringing together people, ideas, and expertise to deliver exceptional results.

Christopher Franco is currently an SVP, Data and Activation at Pearpop. Christopher Franco brings experience from previous roles at Hearts & Science, Merkle, Maxus Global, and Mindshare. Christopher Franco holds a degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of La Verne. With a robust skill set that includes Ad Serving, Marketing Science, Clarinet performance, Technology Evaluation, Graphic Design, and more.

Cole Mason is the Founder and CEO of Pearpop, a creator marketing platform specializing in pairing authentic creator content with strategic paid media distribution. With expertise in scaling creator partnerships at enterprise level, Cole has pioneered approaches that treat creators as independent production partners rather than vendors.

Host and Guest Resources:
Marie-Laure De Veyt on LinkedIn
Microsoft Website
Beth Everhart on LinkedIn
AntiSocial Website
Christopher Franco on LinkedIn
Cole Mason on LinkedIn
ADWEEK Website
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