Lord & Taylor finds an unlikely buyer, and Forever 21 considers filing for bankruptcy: Thursday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. You can sign up to get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device. Lord & Taylor & Le Tote Le Tote, a brand you might never have heard of, is buying iconic Lord & Taylor. The sale of Hudson’s Bay Co.’s struggling department store chain to clothing rental startup Le Tote is yet another sign of the shakeup in traditional retail. (Lord & Taylor’s New York flagship store was already sold to WeWork.) As Ad Age’s Adrianne Pasquarelli writes, “Le Tote is paying $100 million for the 193-year-old chain, a far cry from the $1.2 billion a private-equity firm paid for it in 2006, but another clear sign of how much retail has changed in the interim.” Another interesting thought to ponder: Lord & Taylor was founded in 1826 as a dry goods store. Le Tote started seven years ago. In other news from the retailpocalypse: Mall brand Forever 21 "is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing as the fashion retailer’s cash dwindles and turnaround options fade,” Bloomberg News reports. The brand has over 800 stores internationally. Johnson vs. Johnson SC Johnson, maker of Pledge, Windex and Mr Muscle, really doesn’t want anybody to confuse it with Johnson & Johnson, which is a separate company. J&J is immersed in a big PR crisis: This week, a judge in Oklahoma ordered it to pay $572 million for its role in the opioid crisis. J&J plans to appeal. SC Johnson is very upset that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter repeatedly referred to Johnson & Johnson, maker of Band-Aid, baby shampoo and pharmaceuticals, as “a family company,” New York magazine writes. That’s because SC Johnson uses the phrase “A Family Company” as its own tagline. CEO Fisk Johnson wrote a letter (or apparently, several letters) to the attorney general urging him to retract his use of the phrase and threatening to sue. It also posted the letter on Twitter. A question for SC Johnson here: Why not just let this one go? Against the backdrop of the opioid crisis, do you really want to start an argument about marketing slogans? I can’t believe it’s not chicken KFC tested faux plant-based chicken with consumers at a location in Atlanta this week, and the “chicken,” created with Beyond Meat, sold out in about five hours, The New York Times reports. But don’t get too excited yet. The Times adds: “Is a national rollout imminent? Not quite. The company now plans to evaluate the results of Tuesday’s test, and customer feedback, to determine what comes next, the representative said.” Of note to marketers: At the Atlanta store, KFC changed its signature red-and-white branding to green-and-white for the occasion, and it looks pretty surprising. Just briefly: Fallout: Ad agency Ackerman McQueen has laid off 50 employees since its breakup with the National Rifle Association, its client of three decades, the Daily Beast reports. Meanwhile at Facebook: “Facebook is tightening its rules around political advertising ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, acknowledging previous misuse,” The Associated Press reports. People who want to run ads related to elections or politics have to confirm their identity and prove they are in the U.S. ‘The new neighborhood watch’: Amazon-owned doorbell-camera company Ring “has forged video-sharing partnerships with more than 400 police forces across the United States, granting them potential access to homeowners’ camera footage and a powerful role in what the company calls the nation’s ‘new neighborhood watch,’” The Washington Post reports. All-in-one: Fitbit is trying to make a comeback. A new campaign from agency Argonaut “positions Fitbit’s watch as a do-anything device that can stall meetings, count calories and even serve as a topic of conversation on first dates,” Ad Age’s Adrianne Pasquarelli writes. Beer & football: “Coors Light has inked a deal as the first-ever beer sponsor for ESPN’s ‘College Gameday’ college football pregame show,” E.J. Schultz writes in Ad Age. Ad of the day: Bofferding, a beer from Luxembourg, is running ads that feature naked people. Because as the Ad Age Marketer’s Brief notes, “It’s not easy breaking through in the beer category these days, with hundreds of craft beers filling store shelves across America.” Cue the the naked people, who are seen posing in nature and are meant to symbolize Bofferding’s commitment to natural ingredients. The tagline: “Drink in the Boff.” If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters.

Lord & Taylor finds an unlikely buyer, and Forever 21 considers filing for bankruptcy: Thursday Wake-Up Call

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