McDonald's collabs with Reggaeton star J Balvin, and Peloton peddles real fans: Tuesday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters. McDonald’s collab McDonald’s released another celebrity-themed value meal, this time in connection with global Reggaeton phenom J Balvin. The restaurant chain saw a run on Quarter Pounders last month when it marketed a meal deal with Travis Scott. It figured why not keep the hits coming? J Balvin’s preferred order is a Big Mac, hold the pickles, and it comes with a free Oreo McFlurry. The collab meals lend instant buzz, reports Ad Age’s retail reporter Jessica Wohl. “Promoting a meal with the hit Colombian Reggaeton singer gives McDonald’s a fresh way to get people excited about its brand and potentially garner followers of its own from among the millions of J Balvin fans,” Wohl writes. “As McDonald’s notes, the 35-year-old singer has sold more than 35 million records worldwide. The meal quickly generated buzz for McDonald’s ... Complex and Hypebeast posted interviews with J Balvin promoting the meal.” Peloton returns The fitness brand is back with a new ad campaign, one that ditches the corny paid acting in favor of real workout enthusiasts. Also, the new Peloton campaign is notable because the company pulled back on marketing in May, since it didn’t really need extra attention while sales were soaring with people working out at home. Peloton did not want to repeat the trouble it had with the holiday commercials, after people made fun of the uncanny valley qualities of the depiction of a wife telling her story about getting in shape after her husband bought her the Peloton bike. This time, Peloton went with real people to tell the story. Ad Age’s Adrianne Pasquarelli takes us behind the scenes of the new campaign. Getting there This week, Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse engages in another “Uncomfortable Conversation,” an ongoing series of talks with notable leaders in the ad world discussing topics like racial justice and equality. Rittenhouse spoke with Janis Middleton, senior VP and executive director of multicultural and inclusion strategy at independent creative agency 22squared. Middleton talks about her experience working for the agency in Atlanta, which also happens to be her hometown. Middleton talks about how the ad world is starting to come to grips with the struggles of Black America, but that it’s been a long time coming. In 2012, the killing of Trayvon Martin should have been a wake-up call, Middleton says. “What were they doing before they got here? That’s always the question. But there is a tiny bit of hope that this time is different, especially given the fact that things have continued. This thing has not closed down,” Middleton says. Meanwhile, Ad Age’s Jack Neff looks at a new Procter & Gamble ad campaign called “Raise It Up.” P&G’s Secret is the brand behind the campaign, which highlights how oftentimes women bear the brunt of challenges coming from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The in-house campaign, featuring original work from Black poet Jasmine Mans, cites a McKinsey & Co. study showing that women, especially Black women and women of color, are more likely to have been laid off or furloughed during the pandemic,” Neff writes. Reels deals On Monday, Instagram announced new e-commerce opportunities coming to IGTV and Reels, two of its major video offerings. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, first rolled out shopping to IGTV and says the same tools would be tested in Reels by the end of the year. Reels is Instagram’s version of TikTok, featuring short, musical videos. “The social platforms use their relationships with popular ‘influencers,’ web celebrities who promote products in their videos, to help brands make sales direct to consumers,” writes Ad Age’s Garett Sloane. “The more tools these influencers have to make deals with brands and make money from their activity on the social platforms, the more they invest their time in the services.” Just briefly: Barrel of nostalgia: Pernod Ricard’s Jameson is bringing back an old favorite for its marketing this holiday season. The whiskey maker is restoring its “Legendary Tales” commercial, which debuted with “Lost Barrel” in 2009, reports Ad Age’s Ethan Jakob Craft. Consumers may recall the myth of John Jameson diving into a storm-battered sea to fight a kraken and retrieve a sinking barrel of spirits. Corona spot: Ad Age and iSpot checkout the best TV commercials again. Commercial highlights include Mtn Dew, Sonic Drive-in, Starbucks, Valentino Fragrance, and a Corona ad, starring famous footballer Tony Romo. The stats show Corona put more than $20 million into the TV marketing in the last 30 days, according to iSpot. Lottery winner: Ad Age Creativity looks at the latest campaign from New York Lottery, the first major marketing from the organization since COVID-19. It’s an artful ad, inspired by New York’s greatest landmarks, and executed by the team at McCann New York. That does it for today’s Wake-Up Call. Thanks for reading and we hope you are all staying safe and well. For more industry news and insight, follow us on Twitter: @adage. From CMO Strategy to the Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, we’ve got newsletters galore. See them all here. Subscribers make the difference. Individual, group and corporate subscriptions are available—including access to our Ad Age Datacenter. Find options at AdAge.com/membership.

McDonald's collabs with Reggaeton star J Balvin, and Peloton peddles real fans: Tuesday Wake-Up Call

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