Move over, Barbenheimer—Glicked is (still) upon us. Please secure an AR-enabled Gladiator arena popcorn bucket, or perhaps one shaped like a lantern for Wicked, to celebrate.

That’s the habit that theater chains are trying to get movie fans accustomed to each time a major release rolls around.

Since the pandemic upended the moviegoing business, theaters have gotten more creative with their offerings in an effort to entice ticket buyers. Accompanying upgraded seats and fancier food is a perhaps unexpected star: the specialty popcorn bucket, usually a themed, over-the-top receptacle to hold the iconic movie snack. The novelty item, which has been offered for titles like Alien: Romulus, Mean Girls, and Despicable Me 4, is aimed at building out the cinema experience to create an emotional memory to encourage customers to return to the theater, according to Wanda Gierhart Fearing, chief content and marketing officer at Cinemark.

“We wanted our customers to have something that they could take home…after the movie that would just bring that memory back,” Gierhart Fearing told Marketing Brew. “[So] the next time they look at it in their home, they think, ‘Oh, the movies. I had such a great time.’ And then it drives this virtuous cycle.”

Read more here.—JN

In January 2024, Publicis rolled out a surprise for its 100,000 employees: It sent each one a personalized video message wishing them a happy New Year.

But CEO Arthur Sadoun and other Publicis execs didn’t spend months recording the messages. Instead, the holding company used AI to customize the videos, complete with references to employees’ interests and hobbies outside the workplace.

Generative AI encompasses a growing part of many agencies’ operations, and according to a June study from Forrester, 91% of US ad agencies are using or exploring use cases for GenAI. And after testing GenAI and integrating it into workflows, some agencies are rolling out restructures partly aimed at pooling talent and resources around the technology.

In June, Omnicom debuted a new practice area called Omnicom Production, uniting its global production operations with Omnicom’s data technology suite, which houses its AI tools. In October, the holding company IPG debuted IPG Interact, a “unified set of standards, practices, and a technology later” that also houses Adobe GenAI products embedded in IPG’s martech platform.

The aims of the restructures, executives have said, reflect an intention to streamline the varied AI-related tests and tools that have cropped up throughout the agencies in their networks.

“It’s waste avoidance more than anything else,” Omnicom chairman and CEO John Wren said during the holding company’s Q3 earnings call last month. “Rather than listening to 75 different agencies’ slightly variant approach towards AI, what we’re able to do is to put them in a room and have them come up with a consensus as to what they think would be most useful for their clients, and then make those investments behind that.”

Continue reading here.—JS

AI isn’t quite coming for marketing jobs—but it sure is stressing some marketers out, according to a new report from LinkedIn.

The growing presence of AI in the industry is contributing to a sense of stress for marketers, according to LinkedIn’s Fall 2024 Global Marketing Jobs Outlook. While 91% of surveyed marketing professionals said they are happy in their jobs, 72% reported that they “feel overwhelmed by how quickly their job is changing,” the study found.

Credit the growth of AI for some of those feelings. 59% of marketers are already using AI in their jobs, the study found, and there’s a growing focus on being able to use the technology in everyday tasks. Some of the common ways AI is currently used in marketing include campaign automation, chatbots for customer support, and website operation and optimization, according to Harvard Business Review.

Not a robot: Despite the attention on AI, though, LinkedIn found that some of the most sought-after skills in the marketing industry are entirely human.

• “Collaborative problem-solving” is LinkedIn’s Skill of the Year, which has, since 2021, grown by 138% when measuring the amount of members posting the skill on the platform.
• Other soft skills of import include relationship building, agility, creativity, teamwork, and emotional intelligence, the study found.

Read more here.—JN

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times wrote about how short-form TikTok series like Bistro Huddy are replicating some of the best parts of good old-fashioned TV.
• The Times also wrote about product “hauls,” videos glorifying overconsumption that began on YouTube and are proliferating amid the introduction of platforms like Amazon Haul.
• Bloomberg wrote about how virality helped save the jewelry store Brooklyn Charm and helped kick off a charm-bracelet trend.