Marketing's Latest 2/19/2024

Check out this week’s edition of Marketing Latest! From Coach’s AI-inspired campaign to “The Caitlin Clark Effect”, there is so much to talk about!

Find Your Courage - Coach

Coach has just launched their “Find Your Courage” campaign with celebrity ambassadors such as Lil Nas X and Camila Mendes and they are joined by Imma, a virtual influencer. This is an extension of their The Courage to Be Real” campaign. This creative is AI-inspired and shows each ambassador in a virtual world, learning about their superpower, featuring coach bags of course. The channels of this campaign will be extended to gaming platforms and pop-up shops (Kelly, 2024).

It looks to engage younger consumers surrounding the topic of identity and self-expression. It is meant to empower individuals to explore the possibilities outside of norms and expectations in their life (Kelly, 2024).

As for the “virtual human, model, and digital creator,” imma, this has been one of many appearances since her 2018 debut. imma has also been in content for brands such as Nike and IKEA. “For us, imma is the perfect ambassador to tell this story because she is challenging the notion of what we consider ‘real’ today. Her journey in our campaign takes us into a new world that pushes the boundaries of self-expression and inspires us along the way,” said Sandeep Seth, Coach Global Chief Marketing Officer (Kelly, 2024)

This is a very interesting campaign inspired by AI and it challenges the meaning of what is “real” in our modern world. Who knows where we will see imma next?

You break it, you own it - Nike

Earlier this month, Maryland and Iowa Women’s Basketball teams faced off in an electric game that had us at the edge of our seats. Iowa has sold out or broken attendance records at 30 out of 32 away games just this season.

Caitlin Clark has now broken the record for NCAA WBB career points. Her record-breaking shot has taken over the world of sports marketing.

According to Adweek, Clark has NIL deals with Nike, Goldman Sachs, State Farm, H&R Block, and State Farm. Some of these brands had celebratory posts on social media, celebrating the Iowa star (Cahillane & Notte, 2024).

This includes an in-game points tracker activation from Peacock and State Farm as well as a “now-viral image last night of Clark celebrating, with the tagline “You break it, you own it” from Nike (Cahillane & Notte, 2024).

Clark’s teammates and coaches were seen wearing Nike-branded No. 22 shirts with the same tagline after the game.

State Farm - “The Right Kind of Magic”

Highdive was hired as State Farm's newest ad agency in July of 2023 and has been garnering media hype for “The Right Kind of Magic '' campaign throughout the holidays into basketball season (Kelly, 2024). NBA viewership on ESPN is up 9% and the 2023 WNBA finals had the highest viewership in 20 years (Kelly, 2024), so State Farm is taking advantage of this media attention.Senior vice president at Disney Advertising, Mike Denby, takes pride in their “award-winning-in-house creative agency” and the abilities of their sports streaming platform, ESPN (Kelly, 2024). He believes in the scale and reach of Disney and wants to create opportunities for State Farm as well as other leading brands moving forward.Source: Kelly, Chris. “State Farm Extends ‘magic’ Campaign to NBA, WNBA with Disney Team-Up.” Marketing Dive, 16 Feb. 2024,