16646: Is Pizza Hut Set To Slice Its White Advertising Agency?

 

Mediapsssst at MediaPost speculated on a possible/probable account review for Pizza Hut, as the restaurant chain hired a new Global Chief Brand Officer from PepsiCo and US CMO from Taco Bell, mere weeks after recruiting former Wendy’s Global CMO to serve as US President. That’s a lot of fast food experience likely hungry for accelerated change.

 

It would be funny if a pink slip is delivered to incumbent White advertising agency GSD&M by an Uber Eats driver.

 

Is Pizza Hut Gearing Up For An Agency Roster Review?

 

By Richard Whitman, Columnist

 

Pizza Hut today announced the hiring of Kalen Thornton as Global Chief Brand Officer and Melissa Friebe as U.S. CMO, just weeks after hiring former Wendy’s Global CMO as U.S. president.

 

The appointments come amid a decline in sales at the company. In the first quarter same-store sales at the pizza chain, part of YUM! Brands, were down 7%.

 

Can a review of the company’s agency roster be far off?

 

It’s a rhetorical question. My guess is we’ll see the company pull the trigger on a review within the next month or two. That’s often the case when a company brings in new senior marketing talent.

 

Pizza Hut spent an estimated $216 million on measured media in 2023 according to agency research firm COMvergence.

 

Publicis Groupe’s Spark Foundry is the current U.S. media agency incumbent for Pizza Hut. Austin, TX-based GSD&M has been creative AOR since 2018. Last year the company appointed Mischief @ No Fixed Address as its social agency. Tracey Locke is the firm’s shopper marketing agency and Alison Brod Marketing + Communications handles PR.

 

Thornton will assume his new role in June and most recently served as Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Marketing for PepsiCo North America.

 

Friebe joins Pizza Hut from Taco Bell, (also part of YUM!) where she served in several positions over nearly three decades with the brand, most recently as Chief Brand Strategy Officer. She succeeds Lindsay Morgan, who is departing the brand after serving more than eight years in various marketing leadership roles.

16645: Artificial Interest For Awards Insularity.

The Caples Awards boasts, “Only award-winners judge your awards entries.” Gee, that’s not too exclusively cliquish. Although winning a Caples Award is hardly an indicator of stellar creativity, no?

 

It also begs the question: At what point will award shows utilize AI to select winners? Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to develop an awards algorithm.

16644: More Jobs, More Systemic Racism.

Job Leads is promoting, “More Jobs, More Opportunities!” The service even offers access to a hidden market with exclusive positions. Based on the images in the advertisement, the jobs and opportunities are mostly for White men.

16643: Monthly Mind Games.

 

In Adland, Mental Health Awareness Month appears to have overshadowed Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month.

 

Feels like a form of disrespect—From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You “Ancient Chinese Secret.”

16642: Director Cries, “Cut!” On Crumbs.

Muse by Clios published a perspective from Sheldon Candis, a Director at Quriosity Productions, opining on the persistent prejudices in Adland that block Black directors from gaining access beyond “specialty market” projects—aka crumbs commercials.

 

These directors call, “Action!”—yet see no meaningful or measurable responses from the White advertising agencies acting like they’re committed to DEIBA+ initiatives besides promoting White women.

 

It’s a racist production that’s been playing for decades.

 

To Foster Diversity, Days of ‘But It’s Not on the Reel’ Must End

 

Opportunities must come from within agencies

 

By Sheldon Candis of Quriosity Productions

 

There’s an informal community of Black directors who get together on a regular basis to talk about the issues we all face working in advertising. And one thing that’s come out of our conversations is this perception we hear that, in general, the work of Black directors isn’t up to the level of white directors. We’ve even picked this up from people who work at multicultural agencies. It’s troublesome on a lot of levels, mostly because it’s not true. I know quite a few directors who are more than qualified to do almost all of the work that’s available today. And to hear that this stereotype still exists, it’s just problematic.

 

That this is still happening today is even more bewildering. Coming out of the burst of cultural awareness that happened in our country—and is still front and center, from George Floyd to Tyre Nichols—there was supposed to be this inclusive push for Black creative perspectives and voices in adland. A lot of agencies and brands released statements to that effect. But my peers and I haven’t seen real, tangible evidence of Black folks and people of color and women getting more opportunities. It was kind of here and there, but mostly more talk than action.

 

On the production side, a lot of Black and Brown directors do get a chance to work on the big brands, but it’s often for the minority or “specialty” market, not for the so-called general market. And the question we ask ourselves is, when are we going to be able to cross that threshold? It’s not uncommon to see the work of these directors elevated to run nationally, but the talents driving the production still don’t even get the chance to bid on the big budget, more highly visible spots.

 

Lots of things factor into this resistance. Agencies often opt for the same-old same-old, going back to people they’ve worked with over and over. And if you’re not in that club, you’re on the outside. What also factors into this is that typically, when you’re only given the opportunity to work on the “specialty market” jobs, you’re dealing with smaller budgets, and less resources to put up on the screen. And that’s not even addressing the elusive quality of the creative itself.

 

Within these structures, Black and Brown directors still have to find a way to craft for themselves a voice and a unique point of view—an aesthetic, if you will—by which all filmmakers, even in so collaborative a genre as advertising, are often judged.

 

What does boost these filmmakers to the next level, however, is to have a champion—someone on the agency side who’ll push for us to get these opportunities. Often, these are people of color like ourselves. And so as agencies themselves seek to diversify their creative, account and production ranks, there’s a great opportunity for directors like me to get our shot at working on the more prominent and influential projects.

 

Some agencies are looking at their vendors—production and post houses such as Quriosity, which represents me and other diverse talents—to help them show off their diversity chops. But it really needs to start internally. And so if you’re expecting to move the creative ad world forward with diversity and inclusion, then the only way that’s ever going to happen is you have to give opportunities to these people, because you’re never going to see it on the reel—which is always the excuse that people fall back on—if you never gave the person a chance to show they can do it in the first place.

16641: Ad Age’s Annual Ageism Advertorial.

 

Advertising Age published another odditorial from anonymous scribe M.T. Fletcher, who supplemented his previous rant with admansplaining on ageism.

 

Seems like age advocates in Adland created a template for viewpoints on the topic:

 

1) Blast and blame finance-driven White holding companies for unloading the larger salaries of veteran staffers

 

2) Gasp and moan that staffers over 50 are woefully underrepresented in White advertising agencies

 

3) Assert and insist that veterans deliver experience and professional poise that younger generations cannot match

 

4) Acknowledge and salute prominent celebrities who found fame in their later years

 

Fletcher even poured the following fuel on his bonfire of the vanities: “Ageism in advertising is as much a part of the diversity dilemma as race and gender, with representation more out of whack relative to the general population, yet it rarely gets discussed because of financial pressures that make it palatable to agency management.”

 

The topic actually gets plenty of discussion, now that Old White Guys and Old White Gals like Fletcher have injected themselves into the diversity dilemma, leapfrogging other groups that have experienced far worse bias from the oh-so-suffering veteran crew.

 

Why marketing is more ageist than ever—and what experienced talent needs to know

 

Ideas can come from anyone, young and middle-aged alike, but a brilliant execution comes down to craft, and that takes experience

 

By M.T. Fletcher

 

Mark Twain once said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

 

And yet age seems to matter a lot in advertising these days, so if you’re reading this, be forewarned you might be approaching your expiration date.

 

As agencies struggle to make their margins, senior talent is getting cut like razor wire at the border. From a financial perspective, it’s understandable. When your hot air balloon starts losing altitude, the first thing out of the basket is the biggest object. At an advertising agency, that means anyone earning more than a mid-level account director, which includes everyone in creative, strategy or account with more than 15 years’ experience.

 

That’s been the pattern for the past decade, and it’s accelerating at an alarming rate. It looks good on a spreadsheet and tricks holding company management into thinking they have a viable business model, but the consequence of this culling has been a constant state of chaos.

 

Shortened client tenure, erosion of agency culture, lack of mentorship and a visible loss of craft are just some of the consequences, but the real tragedy is how far downstream agencies have moved in their relationships with clients.

 

Wind the clock back and you’ll find agency founders talking to CEOs about their business problems, but today you’re more likely to hear anxious account executives listening to CMOs explain why they’re putting their business up for pitch.

 

To put this in perspective, download the annual report from any of the major holding companies and look for a pie chart visualizing staff demographics. The number of employees over 50 hovers around 5%, depending on the network, yet the percentage of consumers that age is well over 30%.

 

Ageism in advertising is as much a part of the diversity dilemma as race and gender, with representation more out of whack relative to the general population, yet it rarely gets discussed because of financial pressures that make it palatable to agency management.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong, young talent is essential, and the openness and curiosity new hires bring are the kinetic energy of most agency cultures. But an industry that once venerated seasoned creative iconoclasts like Dan Wieden and John Hegarty seems so obsessed with youth these days that we can’t tell the difference between shaping culture or chasing it.

 

And with younger employees so anxious over cancel culture that they routinely censor themselves, who besides a hardened pro—who doesn’t give a damn—can show them how to be outspoken, irreverent and contrarian?

 

There is also a difference between an idea and an execution. Ideas can come from anyone, young and middle-aged alike, but a brilliant execution comes down to craft, and that takes experience.

 

That’s why teams of junior talent working with veterans who amplify their ideas and show them the ropes have historically created the best work. Truly experienced creatives and strategists generate more ideas in an hour than their junior counterparts can in a month, because they see the angles more quickly and aren’t afraid of failure or throwing out a bad idea to find a good one. This is why independents like Mischief, L&C and others are gaining traction with clients—they offer the right mix of eager talent and experienced leadership who can solve problems quickly.

 

To post-rationalize the ongoing defenestration of senior talent, agencies often claim youth is key to understanding culture. But who’s culture are we talking about, exactly? The culture of someone standing on line for the next sneaker drop, the culture of someone buying a house or maybe the culture of someone deciding between a Lexus and a Tesla? Let’s face it, culture is as multifaceted as the varied consumer segments targeted by brands, so why wouldn’t agencies want employees who bring personal experience and empathy to every engagement?

 

Ironically, pop culture from the time when today’s 50-year-olds were teenagers has boomeranged back into fashion, with bands like Queen and The Rolling Stones bigger than ever, and brands like Stanley and Dunkin both timeless and trending. You’d think agencies would see the value of having talent who literally grew up with a brand to understand why it still resonates.

 

As for commercial creativity and what’s considered cool, that is certainly not the dominion of the young. Just ask Wes Anderson, Guy Ritchie or Christopher Nolan—all over 50. Choose your favorite action star, whether Tom Cruise, Michelle Yeoh, Dwayne Johnson, Keanu Reeves or Vin Diesel. (They all made a recent list of Gen Z’s favorite celebrities—and, yes, their 50th birthdays are all in the rearview mirror.)

 

The average age at consultancies is more than ten years older than most agencies, which explains their long-term, upstream relationships. Experience counts and wisdom is as rare as diamonds, which means you can charge more. By cutting senior talent, agencies make numbers work in the short-term but erode their value in the long-term.

 

Clients are no longer renting expert talent, they are negotiating for deliverables.

 

Welcome to “Logan’s Run.” For those of you not into cult science fiction movies, “Logan’s Run” is a 1976 film about a seemingly utopian city in which everyone is young and beautiful. The only catch is that when you reach the age of 30, you are sent to the Carousel, an arena where you take part in a spectacular ceremony of pyrotechnics that involves people levitating and exploding into atoms. In other words, this apparently perfect society turns out to be a dystopian nightmare where everyone is killed at age 30 to preserve the limited resources available. No one remembers how it came to this, and until our hero, Logan, escapes and runs away, nobody realizes there’s a better world beyond their own.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Ageless actress Sophia Loren said it best: “There is a fountain of youth. It is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

 

Let’s defeat age together by protecting our most valuable resource—skill honed over a lifetime—and make sure it doesn’t get lost.

16640: 3 Ways To F*ck The Ad Industry.

Advertising Age published another pathetic perspective from anonymous scribe M.T. Fletcher titled, “3 Ways To Fix The Ad Industry—Before It’s Too Late.”

 

Unfortunately, the three solutions are neither original nor viable. So, it’s unlikely anyone in Adland will view Fletcher as a prophet; but rather, as a megaphone-packing streetcorner lunatic hollering, “The End Is Near!”

 

Here’s a quick dissection of Fletcher’s ravings:

 

1) Agencies should get paid for their work, not their hours. Fletcher appears to have lost touch with the industry, which has evolved to project-based cage fighting. Clients are paying for products—whether tangible executions or strategic thinking—which are defined with line-item invoices. And like it or not, White advertising agencies compete by low-balling estimates to secure business.

 

2) Call bullshit on conflicts and own your IP (Intellectual Property). In this case, Fletcher appears to have lost touch with reality. The entire field is rooted in market share and competition. To propose that White advertising agencies could service competing brands—and be privy to confidential competitive data—flies in the face of ethics and integrity. Granted, Adland has never been a bastion of ethics and integrity, but c’mon man.

 

As for intellectual property, see item 1 above. That is, clients are paying for products, and most invoices are essentially contracts stating that the client owns everything delivered and may do with it as they wish. On the flip side, name a single White advertising agency that has allowed staffers to own their intellectual property. (Cue the crickets.) Indeed, former and terminated employees are even erased from award submissions for work they produced.

 

3) Agencies should (re)hire senior talent if they expect to stay relevant. This is actually a prelude to Fletcher’s next exposition, a gripe on perceived ageism in Adland. As for the notion that senior talent will keep White advertising agencies relevant, well, Fletcher’s outdated and irrelevant viewpoints negate his own argument.

 

3 Ways To Fix The Ad Industry—Before It’s Too Late

 

Why it’s time to rethink billing, IP and talent

 

By M.T. Fletcher

 

The previous installment of this column was a well-meaning rant against agencies attempting to sell process instead of ideas, and it seems to have struck a nerve.

 

Half the industry believes that clients want creative solutions to their business problems, while the other half is trading process for pennies and peanuts. Because the two sides can’t agree, agencies are having an identity crisis, clients are losing faith and rolling layoffs are now a seasonal occurrence.

 

So if we’ve diagnosed the problem correctly, what can we do to turn things around?

 

When an election year rolls around, people naturally complain about our comically corrupt and institutionally inept representatives, at which point suggestions are made by family and friends on how to save our democracy.

 

Here’s my favorite: Hang all the lobbyists, drown all the lawyers, poison all the politicians and then start over.

 

Perhaps a bit draconian, but it cuts to the quick of the problem, because those suggestions boil down to money, process and people. Those are the same three elements we can leverage to save the marketing industry from its current downward spiral.

 

So with apologies to anyone offended along the way, here are three suggestions for digging ourselves out of this mess:

 

Agencies should get paid for their work, not their hours

 

Everyone knows that agencies were once paid by media commission back in the days when creative and media sat under one roof. Recurring fees were high enough for agencies to hire truly top talent—iconoclastic thinkers who redefined entire categories with platforms built on big ideas that set a brand up for decades of growth. Don’t take my word for it, study the advertising archives and you’ll see a level of storytelling and craft rarely visible today.

 

This led to relationships that lasted because nobody felt exploited, so agencies weren’t distracted by constant pitching or paranoid about pressure from procurement. The advent of the holding company changed all that, not only for agency networks but independents, too, because the barons behind the holding companies tricked clients into believing media was a bulk-buying business and the creative side was all about client service.

 

Clients aren’t buying client service, they are shopping for ideas.

 

Clients should expect outstanding service just like you expect the guy at the Lexus dealer to answer the phone, but you’re not visiting the showroom to find a golf buddy or a lunch date.

 

Remember, the holding company model was designed by small men with big checkbooks who knew next to nothing about marketing beyond what it cost. Trained in finance, not the messy business of creativity, they lacked the instincts to charge top dollar for intellectual property.

 

Charging clients for hours is akin to a wireless company charging for minutes. Pretty soon a competitor announces the first month is free, then a rival who’s bleeding customers says, hey, now it’s unlimited, and before you know it, an entire industry is on its knees cutting costs and racing to the bottom like a sumo wrestler on a bobsled.

 

Billing by hours is a disincentive for agencies to solve a problem quickly or ideate beyond the brief. It corrupts partnerships once based on shared goals and turns them into transactional relationships. Mischief has said they don’t do timesheets, and Anomaly once made a similar claim, but our industry urgently needs solidarity on this issue. If management consultants can align on the price for adding value, why can’t we?

 

Clients should pay for the incremental value of a breakthrough idea—which is measurable—and not the time it takes to produce a set of deliverables.

 

Call bullshit on conflicts and own your IP

 

Ogilvy recently did work for both Unilever and L’Oreal, and a while back Wieden worked with KFC and McDonald’s simultaneously. Clients gladly pay management consultants for “category expertise” and accept the fact that Deloitte, McKinsey and Bain sleep with everyone, yet advertising agencies are forbidden from philandering.

 

Given that consultants handle more proprietary data than agencies, this never made sense. Great campaigns come from the DNA of a brand, so a decent agency would never create the same campaign for Coke as for Pepsi. As retainers turn into project fees and clients become more promiscuous, it’s only fair agencies leverage their category knowledge to work across competitive brands. All boats rise.

 

Agencies should also own and license their ideas, not sell them outright. If a fickle client flees, the agency should earn royalties on that campaign, and by the way, so should the individuals who developed it. (Take a look at the film production company Artists Equity launched by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. It offers clues on ways to be more inclusive in compensating the talent that makes the magic happen.)

 

Agencies should (re)hire senior talent if they expect to stay relevant

 

As this publication pointed out recently, agencies are making their quarterly numbers by shedding more senior talent—a very dangerous game. Statistically, our industry is the most ageist in the world, with less than 5% of the workforce over 50, which is ironic considering agencies are begging clients to trust them with the future of their business.

 

Clients want an expert who has seen a problem before and knows how to solve it, confidently and quickly. Independent agencies and brand consultancies are increasingly attractive because the agency principals are involved, but the real point isn’t about ownership, it’s having the work guided by grownups who know the difference between disposable advertising and a long-term idea that drives business through the power of creativity. There is no such thing as a small client.

 

Most seasoned talent is now freelance after getting cut from their agencies by the threshing machine of finance. As a result, agency-client relationships are downstream and unstable because they are being managed by junior talent working for time cops.

 

Try bringing some ballers back from the land of misfit toys, go full New York Yankees on the salary cap and see what happens. Your clients might reward you with incremental work, your ideas will get measurably bigger overnight and younger talent might get mentored for a change.

 

None of these suggestions require poison or starting over from scratch. What clients and agencies need is a renewed commitment to common goals, shared faith in the business benefits of creative thinking and an agreement to make things fair and fun for all parties concerned.

 

If we can pull that off, maybe we can stop selling process and get back to selling what clients are really shopping for—an idea that can change their world.

16639: Nissan Driven To New Multicultural Agency.

 

Advertising Age reported on Nissan and Infiniti shifting its non-White marketing duties to a new multicultural agency—sans a formal review.

 

Third Ear—formerly known as LatinWorks—replaced fluent360, who had serviced the Nissan brand for 15 years. Both shops are minority-owned by Omnicom, so the move is likely another example of Corporate Cultural Collusion orchestrated by the White holding company. Omnicom is adept at shuffling accounts between White advertising agencies in its network, so it’s not surprising the company would do likewise with non-White firms.

 

The Ad Age headline for the report read: Nissan And Infiniti Make Multicultural Agency Change—What It Means For Black And Hispanic Advertising. Um, it means non-White shops 49%-owned by White holding companies can expect to stay in segregated silos, collect crumbs, and get shifted/shafted at the “minority” owners’ whim.

 

Nissan And Infiniti Make Multicultural Agency Change—What It Means For Black And Hispanic Advertising

 

Behind the ‘identities-led’ approach of Third Ear, which replaces Fluent360 on the accounts

 

By E.J. Schultz

 

When luxury automaker Infiniti begins advertising its redesigned QX80 premium SUV next month, it will move beyond its marketing comfort zone. Pricing for the vehicle tops $100,000. But rather than targeting households with incomes of at least $100,000, like it normally would do, it lowered the threshold for its media plan to $75,000.

 

The change was spurred by advice from Infiniti’s new multicultural agency, Third Ear, which has also begun working on sibling brand Nissan.

 

“They came to us and said, you’re gonna miss the mark if you set your household incomes too high because these audiences will do whatever they can to get the kind of vehicles that they want. And so don’t let that hold you back,” said Shelley Pratt, director of marketing communications and media for Infiniti USA.

 

The approach is a preview of what’s to come from Austin, Texas-based Third Ear, which focuses on subtleties within multicultural communities that it believes can make a big difference when it comes to branding.

 

Third Ear, which is 49% owned by Omnicom, won the Nissan and Infiniti accounts in April and will handle Black and Hispanic marketing. The incumbent was Fluent360, which is minority-owned by Omnicom. For Nissan, Third Ear will collaborate with Nissan United, Omnicom’s dedicated Nissan creative and media agency. For Infiniti, it will work with Publicis Groupe, which has handled the brand’s global creative since 2021.

 

There was not a formal agency review.

 

“We looked at Omnicom to provide us a great solution for multicultural,” said Nissan U.S. Chief Marketing Officer and VP Marisstella Marinkovic. “And so they connected us with Third Ear and we had deep conversations. We gave them an assignment. And we decided to move forward with the relationship.”

 

Fluent360 Founder and CEO Danielle Austen in a statement said the agency is “proud of our fifteen years leading the multicultural business for Nissan North America. We wish both Infiniti and Nissan the best in their pursuits to win with these vital audience segments.”

 

Not a monolith

 

While Nissan and Infiniti have invested significantly in multicultural marketing in recent years—Nissan in February ran a Super Bowl ad on Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast—the hiring of Third Ear signals a possible shift in creative approach.

 

The agency, formerly known as LatinWorks, rebranded in 2019 in an effort to grow beyond its pure-play Hispanic agency roots. It took the name Third Ear as a signal that it listens to the nuances that make people different. It has since refined its approach to become what it describes as an “identities-led creative agency,” with a philosophy that takes ethnicity into account in multicultural marketing but goes further to recognize that individuals within a certain ethnic group can be very different.

 

“We think that identity transcends ethnicity,” Third Ear Chief Strategy Officer Ed Castillo said in an interview this week. “Endemic factors, like the language you speak, and the food you eat, will always have a meaningful effect,” he said. But “eventually, you will go into the world and you will proclaim a certain identity … I’m a gamer, metalhead, whatever the case might be.”

 

So marketing should not treat groups as a monolith, according to an agency. “One of the standard assumptions about Hispanic audiences is that they are completely focused on the family,” Castillo said. While that might be the case for some, through consumer research, “we found examples of younger, ambitious Hispanics who … will be the first to raise their hand and say, I’m willing to sacrifice time with my family to get further in my career.”

 

“If you show up to multicultural marketing with certain monolithic assumptions, you will miss nuance,” he added.

 

While it is too soon to tell how this approach will show up in Nissan and Infiniti marketing, one possibility is that it could be used to produce work that appeals equally to Black and Hispanic audiences, rather than siloing it.

 

“We have to find some commonalities. And those commonalities are very powerful,” said Third Ear Chief Creative Officer Serge Flores.

 

Growing market

 

The agency change comes as multicultural marketing rises in importance for automotive brands, which increasingly view multicultural audiences as a source of sales growth. General Motors, Hyundai and Stellantis are among the automakers that in recent years have added agencies dedicated to boosting affinity with Black and Hispanic audiences.

 

Nissan and Infiniti already over-index with Black and Hispanic consumers: Nissan is ranked eighth when it comes to sales with all consumers, but has a fifth-place ranking for both Hispanic and Black buyers, according to business intelligence firm S&P Global. Infiniti does not crack the top 10 in total sales, but comes in eighth and ninth, with Black and Hispanic buyers, respectively.

 

The QX80 launch will be one of the first big tests for Third Ear. “We need a partner that’s going to help us authentically show up in social with our influencers, and how we buy media to make sure that that we're relevant in this consumer base that we already overindex with,” Pratt said.

 

As for Nissan, the brand has been increasing its multicultural marketing budget by 25% year over year, and “we’re going to continue to increase year over year,” Marinkovic said. Nissan wants to “make sure that we’re authentically connecting not only with with that specific customer, but with culture as well, and with their interests. So in order to connect and really build your brand, you have to go beyond just your sort of basics.”

 

She pointed to Nissan’s recent reveal of the 2025 Nissan Kicks subcompact crossover as an example of what’s to come. In March, the brand staged an “unboxing” of the vehicle in Brooklyn outside the Barclays Center during opening round play of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The event, which featured a “virtual” reveal of the model using a 3D digital “shoebox” was intended to play into sneaker, basketball and music culture.