Tag Archives: advertising

by | Monday, December 8, 2025 · 7:05 am

Scent Shifting: Brands Redefine How to Market to Men

Walk down any store aisle today and you may notice something surprising: men’s products aren’t hiding on a dusty bottom shelf anymore. They’re bold, sleek, and sometimes funny. And they’re booming. The global male grooming market is racing toward an estimated $115 billion by 2028, and brands are fighting hard for a piece of it.

This shift reflects marketers’ understanding of consumer behavior, identity, and cultural change. Companies from Harry’s to Balenciaga are recognizing that men, especially Gen Z, aren’t just buying products, they’re buying self-expression. Younger consumers mix and match scents the way they curate playlists, choosing fragrances to communicate mood, identity, and even aspiration.

Some brands lean into experience marketing, selling scent as a form of introspection. Balenciaga and John Varvatos craft campaigns around ingredients and atmosphere, not shirtless models on cliffs. Others take a more traditional route bottling up ambition and charisma by calling in celebrities like Vinicius Junior or Nicholas Galitzine to do the talking.

Yet the biggest marketing shift may be psychological. Men want authenticity and direct, simple communication. They enjoy humor like that found in Old Spice’s “Holidudes” line, value large-size products, and respond strongly to personal connection. Jake Paul even DMs customers for feedback.

For marketers, the message is clear. Masculinity isn’t one-size-fits-all, and neither is the marketing that reaches it. The recipe for winning in today’s competitive market requires brands to embrace segmentation, storytelling, and cultural nuance topped off with a good-smelling product that works.

Discussion Questions and Activities:

  1. How is Gen Z redefining masculinity as a marketing concept?
  1. Why are ingredient-focused fragrance campaigns becoming more popular?
  2. How does celebrity endorsement affect male consumer behavior today?
  3. What role does humor play in marketing to men?
  4. How does the rise of “affordable luxury” influence consumer buying decisions?
  5. Scent Persona Lab. Students design a fragrance concept for a specific male segment (e.g., gamers, athletes, creators).
  6. Ad Makeover. Find a traditional “power masculinity” ad and redesign it for a Gen Z audience.
  7. Brand Audit. Compare two competing men’s brands—one ingredient-led, one celebrity-led—and present how each targets different motivations and identities.

Sources: Khan, Natasha (27 Nov 2025), Wall Street Journal; Suresh, Sanjeeva (18 Nov 2025) Luxuo. Suresh; Statista Research Department (25 Nov 2025) Statista.

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by | Thursday, October 9, 2025 · 1:23 pm

Too Much Taylor? Brands in Their Showgirl Era

Whether or not you’re a Swiftie, one thing’s undeniable: Taylor Swift is a marketing phenomenon. Her latest ventures, from The Life of a Showgirl film to her engagement with NFL star Travis Kelce, have created a tidal wave of brand activity that’s fascinating to watch from a marketing perspective.

First came the engagement. Within hours, companies from Shake Shack to DoorDash to Cheesecake Factory posted Swift-inspired content, discounts, and memes. It’s the golden rule of brand marketing today: if Swift sneezes, someone’s brand will find a way to market the tissue. When Swift released her new concert film, brands like Reese’s, KFC, and American Eagle scrambled to grab ad space in theater pre-shows. Others, from cupcake companies to donut chains, launched limited-edition “Showgirl” products, proving that Swift doesn’t just create music, she creates marketing moments.

But this raises an important question. When does it all become too much? As University of Michigan professor Marcus Collins warns, the line between celebration and saturation is thin. Brands that rush to join every pop culture wave risk becoming background noise instead of standing out.

The best marketers know that relevance beats reaction speed. Swift’s brilliance lies in authenticity. Every era, lyric, and partnership aligns with her brand identity. The challenge for marketers? Learning when to join the cultural conversation and when to leave the stage.

Discussion Questions and Activities

  1. What makes Taylor Swift’s brand so powerful that other brands run to associate with it?
  2. When does brand participation in pop culture cross into overexposure?
  3. How can a brand maintain authenticity when jumping on viral trends? Should brands avoid celebrity moments altogether?
  4. Swift Strategy Audit. Search for Swift-related marketing – which brand felt most genuine and why? Then analyze one brand’s Swift-related campaign. Was it relevant, authentic, or opportunistic?
  5. Create Your Own “Era”. In small groups, design a short campaign connecting a brand to a major pop culture event. Make it authentic.
  6. Trend Timeline. Track how fast brands responded to the Swift-Kelce engagement on social media. Discuss what that says about modern marketing speed and risk.

Sources: Pasquarelli, Adrienne (3 Oct 2025), Taylor Swift’s latest movie has brands scrambling for ad space, AdAge. Treisman, Rachel (27 Aug 2025), Brands are loving Taylor Swift’s engagement. Do they need to calm down?, NPR.

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by | Tuesday, April 29, 2025 · 12:48 pm

Google to Keep its Cookies

Many marketing instructors have been telling their students for years that Google was getting rid of third-party cookies, which would have limited some popular and effective strategies used by digital marketers. Most of us have received advertising for a product we have shown interest in earlier, typically on a different website. These tactics are enabled by cookies, data packets saved to a user’s hardware that record what that person is doing online. Though tracking consumer internet activity does give marketers valuable information that can lead to higher conversion rates, it also has resulted in privacy concerns. Consumers do not like to be spied on, and when information is shared across platforms and businesses, it ups the creepiness factor for many of us. Apple has taken a proactive stance in protecting user privacy and removed third-party cookies from its Safari browser in 2017 and Google claimed to be planning the same for Chrome.

Google has spent six years (and a lot of money too) experimenting with ways to offer good advertising options for its digital marketing partners without using personal identification coming from tracking cookies. Some of its new ideas have shown only limited success in testing and faced regulatory hurdles as well, and pushback among digital marketers has been clear. So after multiple delays, Google announced this week that it will leave third-party cookie functionality as part of its Chrome browser. Google is the leader in search, with 2 in 3 customers using it, so detailed information about a shopper can be developed often from this source alone. The company was also planning to introduce an obvious opt-out option for these cookies this year, an idea that has also been scrapped because it was likely to have a huge impact as well. The company says that users can still disable tracking cookies in settings.

It is likely that timing has impacted this decision. Google has been facing legal problems, including being found a monopoly in both search (last summer) and advertising technology (this month) in the United States. It remains to be seen what regulators will demand, but adding any other disruptions to its business model is particularly unattractive now.

How do you feel about your activities being tracked online?

Activities:

  1. Ask students: Do you worry about online privacy? Do you use Safari or Chrome browsers for search? Does it matter to you if they have different policies toward third-party cookies?
  2. Have students search for information using a prompt like “how to avoid being tracked on chrome.” Summarize the findings. If you don’t want to be tracked, would you try some of these suggestions? What if there was a simple opt-out on Chrome – would you do that?
  3. Ask students to form small groups and do a search of their social media platforms. They should look for examples of advertising they believe was served to them based on prior activity online. Screen shot the ads and detail why they might have been served. How likely are they to purchase when they see these ads? How do they feel about receiving them?

Sources: Sloane, Garett, (22 Apr 2025) Google will keep cookies and skip opt-out option in Chrome—what it means for advertising and Privacy Sandbox, AdAge. Ikeda, Scott, (24 Apr 2025) Google Seemingly Surrenders on Third Party Cookies, Even As Privacy Sandbox Project Rolls On, CPOMagazine.com.

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