Insights

When news broke that Target would cut somewhere around 1,800 corporate jobs (or roughly 8% of its workforce), it wasn’t just another corporate restructuring headline amidst the AI revolution. It was the punctuation mark at the end of a year that’s tested what (and who) companies truly stand for.   For Target, the layoffs arrive less than a year after its rollback of key DEI programs : its REACH initiative for Black employees, supplier diversity efforts, and participation in

On June 12, 2010, I was at Richmond, Virginia's Penny Lane Pub for the U.S. vs. England match in the group stage of the World Cup. The place was packed, with roughly equal numbers of fans of Team USA and the heavily favored Three Lions (in case the name didn't give it away, Penny Lane is a very English English pub) spewing all manner of good-natured vitriol back and forth as the teams went into halftime tied. Then this commercial came on . The pub was silent at first as fol

When I went to graduate school to study advertising, one of my good friends was in the Air Force. She spoke the same language the rest of us did, used the same words – "campaign", "strategy", "tactics", and so on. – but it all sounded a bit different coming from her. More…real. Which shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose; as far as I recall, she was the only veteran in the building. That wouldn't have been the case in the "Mad Men" era, when much of today's "agency speak" was bo

As of Wednesday, April 24th, Joe Biden has signed legislation leaving TikTok 270 days to sell either a part or whole portion of their company to a U.S. owner. If they fail to do so, TikTok will be banned in the U.S. TikTok CEO, Shou Chew, is working to fight against this. The concept of a TikTok ban is not unfamiliar to anyone who has scrolled through their FYP (For-You-Page) in the past four years. Numerous videos have been created to warn the public of an impending TikTok s

When we look for trends to watch in any given year, it helps to think of them in the context of mega-trends – long-term cultural questions that don't resolve one way or the other. These are topics like whether brands should take stands on cultural or political issues, how increasing consumer savviness conflicts with motivated ignorance, or how the ability to target increasingly fine-tuned groups of people exists in a world where any statement or campaign is accessible to the

The 20th century saw a wave of organized activism to secure civil rights and freedoms for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. At this time, the LGBTQ community was often subject to public hostility and legal prosecution, and was widely denied protection against discrimination in employment, housing, military service, and private and public services. In June 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City. The bar's patrons