For a brand that spent the 2000s affixing its name to the chests of suburban teenagers, Aéropostale is now attempting something slightly more sophisticated: it has hired a director, commissioned a title sequence and produced what its chief marketing officer calls "a little show."
The advertising industry has spent more than a century trying to answer the question attributed to John Wanamaker: which half of his advertising budget was wasted?
The sit-down interview with Time magazine, that quadrennial ritual in which presidential candidates submit to the lens and the tape recorder, dates to 1940.
The distance between uploading videos from your bedroom and running a diversified media company used to be measured in decades and required the intervention of several vice presidents at a broadcast network.
The advertising industry has long had a complicated relationship with the phrase "we're not trying to replace anyone." It is the kind of assurance that tends to precede doing exactly that, or at least trying to.
For years, the influencer occupied a peculiar position in the advertising firmament: part celebrity endorser, part media buy, part something that nobody could quite define but that seemed to work well enough.