October 2021 Quick hits

 ●     WENDY’S admits their fries are terrible. Fast-food brand Wendy's announced it will banish soggy french fries by switching to a new recipe that promises to keep the sliced spuds crisp and hot moving forward.

●     SWEETGREEN purchases robot kitchen company. Wizard of salads Sweetgreen gained some cool mechanical-man technology for filling orders faster thanks to its August acquisition of Boston-based restaurant company Spyce, purveyor of robot-run kitchens.

●     MOUNTAIN DEW makes FLAMIN HOT flavor. In the latest of yet another unexpected brand mashup, Pepsico and its Frito-Lay division combined two of their hero products into a Flamin' Hot flavored Mountain Dew (it went on sale at the end of August but can only be purchased online).

●     SPOTIFY produces songs for CMOs. Spotify rounded up a handful of recording artists to record tunes honoring the professional accomplishments of the chief marketing officers at Kimberly-Clark, Intuit, CVS, Frito-Lay, and Indeed, along with executives from other top advertisers.

●     Ludacris sings the praises of JIF. A new video from peanut butter brand Jif showed hip-hop rapper Ludacris trying to sing immediately after slathering his tongue with a heaping spoonful of the creamy peanut butter (spoiler alert: hilarity ensues).

●     IKEA’s meatball-scented candles. Ikea ran a sweepstakes called 'Store in a Box' in which winners received a collection of items meant to recreate the sensory experience of shopping at a full-sized Ikea store—one of the items was a candle that emits an aroma mimicking that of Ikea's signature Swedish meatballs.

●     Ned Flanders gets his own pair of sneakers from ADIDAS. Good-natured Simpsons neighbor Ned Flanders will be getting a line of Adidas McCarten shoes tied to his particular fashion sensibilities, the sneakers brand announced in August.

●     Viral TIKTOK song becomes APPLEBEE’S ad. Restaurant chain Applebee's received a shout-out in the hit Walker Hayes melody "Fancy Like" (an ode to the joys of date nights spent at the popular eatery), so Applebee's cooked up a four-spot ad campaign featuring Walker and a number of outstanding 'Fancy Like' dance videos from TikTok.

●     Serena Williams as Wonderwoman on DIRECTV. It was game, set, and match when DirecTV put tennis superstar Serena Williams in the role of DC comic book superhero Wonder Woman for an ad that shows Williams saving mall patrons from fiendishly evil tennis balls in grand-slam mode.