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Back on February 6th, 2017, a teenaged Sabrina Carpenter tweeted, Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend. Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) February 6, 2017 Now, nine years later, the pop star is doing exactly thatin the brands Super Bowl ad campaign. Created by agency BBDO New York, the teaser shows Carpenter treating her Pringles like a flower bouquet, plucking chips while saying, He loves me, he loves me not . . . For Pringles, the spot represents the perfect formula for celebrity partnership. Our partner talent has to be a genuine brand fan! says Sarah Reinecke, senior vice president of Mars Snackings salty portfolio and brand, which oversees Pringles. Sabrina is the biggest thing in culture right now and is a fan of Pringles, so having the opportunity to work with her and engage her fan base in all the fun we have planned for the big game is an exciting partnership that hits all the right factors for us. Pringles’ celebrity strategy Pringles is no stranger to the celebrity Super Bowl ad game. The brand tapped Meghan Trainor in 2023, Chris Pratt in 2024, and last year, a seemingly random collection of stars like James Harden, Adam Brody, and Nick Offerman. But Reinecke says the brand’s strategy isnt some game of big name roulette. Each partnership has sharpened our approach, she says. Weve learned that the most effective talent isnt just recognizableit has to authentically align with both the audience and the brands voice.” Reinecke points to Carpenter as an example of this. “She connects deeply with Gen Z while naturally embodying the self-aware, unhinged internet humor that defines how the brand shows up today,” Reinecke says. “The partnership has really embodied a shared sense of play, which we hope ultimately makes it resonate with our fans. Beyond the Game Given the level of investment required to just get a spot in the game, most brands now extend Super Bowl-related work to run long before and after the final whistle. For Pringles, that means tying its work with Carpenter into an existing campaign that launched last fall to resurrect its 90s ad slogan Once You Pop. Pringles Super Bowl teaser was one of the first to drop back on January 14th. Reinecke says that they knew partnering with someone like Carpenter would spark a ton of conversation, so the goal was to capitalize early and often in order to allow the brand to be at the center of the conversation for as long as possible. That level of conversation and enthusiasm is a key metric for the brand. Of course, we would be lying if we said we didnt care about ROI and metrics, says Reinecke. Its incredibly important for us to measure success across both the marketing funnel and the impact on business. But while reach is important, what may be even more important is how much people care. So, we track everything from awareness, consideration, sentiment and purchase intent, and our impact to go beyond where a snack brand is expected to show up. Celebrity Q&A There are three key questions every marketer should ask themselves before deciding whether to use celebrity talent and who to choose for a Super Bowl ad, according to Reinecke: Does the partnership feel authentic to the brand and relevant to the audience youre going after? The face of the campaign on one of the largest stages in brand marketing of the year is a crucial piece, according to Reinecke. How will this ad positively impact the business? For us, the Big Game is the biggest snacking occasion of the year, so having a presence directly ties back to business objectives, she says. Does the partnership have the potential to expand beyond the game? While the move to social media as a newsfeed grows, think about how the partnership and creative could extend to the small screen, and relevant ways to tap into the narrative your brand builds with your partner beyond game day, Reinecke adds.
Category:
E-Commerce
The moment I rise in the morning, I check my phone. Bad habit, to be sure. But I know Im not the only one. There is a message from an editor marked urgent, there is an email from the school reminding me its parent-visit morning, and a text from a fellow soccer mom making sure I remembered the time change for Sundays tournament. (I hadnt). The day had barely started, and I already felt hopelessly behind. This is the reality for working parents everywhere. On any given day, we have many jobs: employee, caregiver, chauffeur, chef, boo-boo healerand each has its own inbox. Once upon a time, we believed technology would make our lives easier. Instead, it taught us how to be reachable at all hours of the day. We are desperate for time hacks. So naturally, parents are wondering if AI can help, or whether its just another thing demanding our attention. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} How AI Can Actually Help AI helps by taking care of the boring, time-sucking stuff that clutters your brain. In other words, that invisible labor that never lets up. For example, school emails that go on and on when all you really need to know is the date of the field trip and what the kids need to wear. AI can summarize them in seconds and pull out the important parts. It can also help us write polite notes to teachers, coaches, or HR without seeming defensive. It can turn your parent-teacher conference notes into an actionable plan. At home, the help is small but impactful. Weekly meal plans with grocery lists, recipes based on whats already in your pantry, family calendars that catch conflicts you would have missed. At work, AI can summarize meetings you were half paying attention to, draft versions of presentations, and help organize your day so things dont hit you all at once. And it does this in less time than it takes to pour a cup of coffee. Moments That Feel Like Magic AI can change your life in practical ways. For example: Turn this voice note into a packing list. Rewrite this PTO request that expresses the urgency without sounding apologetic. Summarize the 25 Slack messages I missed while I was at the pediatrician. Simplifying these tasks is one less thing crowding your mind. How AI Makes Things Worse Some tools require so much setup and maintenance that they become another thing to do. Others add notifications instead of reducing them. Many raise privacy concerns, especially if they include your childrens data. And there is the danger of us becoming too reliant on these tools. It should make our lives easier, but we still need to be able to do these things for ourselves just in case our sci-fi nightmare comes true and an electromagnetic pulse wipes out technology. Then there is the economics of it all. AI isnt free, and paywalls could widen inequalities among parents. Efficiency vs. Relief Parents dont just need to be more efficient; they need to feel supported. We are expected to be completely available for our employer and a fully present parent. AI can relieve that tension a little bit if used wisely. How to Get Started Start with one pain point, not your entire life. Choose the tools that reduce notifications instead of creating them. Be careful about what data you share. If a helpful tool creates more work, then it isnt helpful. The Real Test Parents arent asking AI to raise their kids or run their livesat least not entirely. We are asking it to carry the parts that dont require humanity. So if AI can give us fewer tabs to keep open (either on our screens or in our heads), it might actually live up to its promise. It wont make us superhuman, but it can make the day-to-day a little less punishing. Seven AI Apps That Make Parents Lives Easier To get started, here are some AI apps to try:1. ChatGPT Think of it like a very fast assistant who never rolls their eyes. Use it to summarize long school emails, draft texts to teachers or coaches, and plan dinner. It can also turn a rambling voice memo into a to-do list. 2. Ohai.ai If you find yourself saying “Wait, when was this due?” several times a week, you might need this. It scans emails, documents, and screenshots, pulls out dates and tasks, then adds them to your calendar so fewer things slip through the cracks. 3. Goldee You can use Goldee to organize emails, schedules, and random information that gets lost in the class group chat. 4. AI meal-planning tools (like Ollie) These tools are for parents who are sick and tired of figuring out whats for dinner. Ollie can suggest meals, create grocery lists, and even work with whats already in your fridge. 5. Reclaim.ai This scheduling assistant automatically finds the best times in your calendar for work, family, and breaks. 6. Cozi (with AI features) This one helps flag schedule conflicts to keep everyone in the family on the same page. 7. AI-powered email tools (Gmail, Outlook) Use these to summarize long email threads, suggests replies, and pull up the messages that matter most. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
A major winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow to parts of the East Coast this weekend. Amid freezing temperatures, many will be hunkering down and sipping hot cocoa by the fire or trying out new warming winter recipes. Others will be getting creative with an ingredient that wont be in short supply: snow. First snow of the year means SNOW CREAM, one TikToker posted earlier this month. This is literally my childhood, another wrote in the caption of her video, combining fresh snow with milk, sugar, and vanilla to make a bowl of dessert. Other snow-based recipes that have gone viral in light of the recent weather include using snow as a way to freeze ice cream, adding whipped cream, vanilla, and icing sugar to a mixing bowl pressed into the snow. Another is sugar on snow, also known as maple taffy, made by pouring hot maple syrup directly onto snow and rolling it onto a stick for a simple cold-weather treat. While many of these concoctions arent new, comments online are mixed. Ohhhh girlfriend you’re not supposed to make snow cream with the first snow of the season, one warned. Another wrote, Hey so I saw an under the microscope of snow and Id just put that back on the ground. These fears arent entirely unfounded. The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggests avoiding ingesting the first layer of snow covering the ground. “As snow falls through the sky, it can lock in pollutants into its intricate latticework. The most common is black carbon from coal-fired plants and wood-burning stoves, the organization explains. Snow acts like a scrubbing brush as it falls through the atmosphere. So, the longer the snow falls, the cleaner the air, and also the snow.” If you do want to try your hand at making snow cream this weekend, avoid any discolored or yellow-tinged snow (for obvious reasons) and anything that could have been in contact with chemicals, such as salt or ice melt. City snow is also more likely to be contaminated than rural snow. If you live in Manhattan, perhaps you should sit this one out.
Category:
E-Commerce
At least three-quarters of the speaking invitations I get these days are about AI. But lately, theyre for different reasons. Companies used to bring me in under the assumption that artificial intelligence was going to change everything. So theyd ask me to talk about the jobless future, prompt engineering, or automating marketing online. Today, theyre asking a different kind of question: What went wrong? Where are the promised productivity gains? In other words, why isnt AI helping our company do stuff? And if I were to answer honestly, Id tell them the simple truth: Its because you and your people dont know what you want to do with it! This is not a technology problem or even a people problem, but an organizational one. Most companies are trying to run 21st-century AI-enabled companies on 20th-century industrial age architectures. The goals and the values are simply not aligned. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Weak returns The failure of AI to increase productivity isnt just cherry-picked anecdote or idle speculation. According to Microsofts own study, only 25% of AI initiatives achieved expected returns over the past three years. Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been writing about the hype and misplaced hope around large language models (LLMs) for just as long. But the problem here is not that AI cant do great stuff; its that organizations are not yet thinking in a human-first way about technology. Its what Chris Perry, my partner at Andus, calls the Human OS. Companies are trying to integrate AI into their existing workflows without considering the human systems that can not only utilize it, but also grow and improve with it. This means more than training workers on AI interfaces or running trials of AI-derived ads. It means remaking the very structure of your organization around these new opportunities. Its a transition less technologically focused than the term OS may imply. You dont reprogram your workforce around the needs of AI. Rather, you develop a different kind of workplace. Who thought up how a bank works, with a safe in the back and tellers behind special windows? It was a way of creating an interface between lenders and borrowers in a new economic system. Now it seems obvious. Or take the grocery store, with aisles, shopping carts, and cashiers. It is an operating system designed to allow humans to browse, gather, purchase, or even socialize (in the fruit section). These are architectures for human interaction under capitalism and then industrial production. And they worked, largely because the people designing them were taking the human consumers into mind. Lessons from the Industrial Age We dont generally devise our operating systems for labor with the same considerations for the people trying to function within them. Industrial age values of efficiency and productivity led to the assembly line, the sweatshop, and the typing pool. These are environments in which humans are cogs in a machine, and the more repeatable and uniform their tasks, the better. If anything, the values of the industrial age were to remove human beings from the value equation altogether. Assembly lines allowed for unskilled, replaceable workers to replace higher-paid craftspeople. New machines were always valued for their ability to replace labor, or at least allow labor to be outsourced to less expensive labor in Asia. This approach to new technology wont work in the age of AI. And even talking this way will make workers less likely to consider the possibility that you are trying to do anything other than replace them with this stuff. You are trying to augment instead of replace them, right? I sure hope so, because the alternativea world where you are using AIs instead of peoplemeans your only competitive advantage is the size of your contract with the AI company. Moving from “more to better” Assuming you are on Team Human here, then the object of the game is to help your people come to terms with how their own capabilities can be enhanced with this stuff. Sure, they can churn out more PowerPoints or spreadsheets in an hour, but thats not the enhancement on offer here. The possibility is for them to do categorically better, more considered, and more developed work. Instead of using AI to create more volume of what already is (industrial age efficiency), what about using it to help imagine what does not yet exist? Again, this is the opposite of industrial age repeatability and workforce reduction. We have that one down. Its time to move on from more to better. But to do that, your company needs to retrieve its core competencies, rediscover its values, and reclaim its culture. Oddly enough, this is the real AI opportunity: to double down on the human creativity driving your enterprise. Its the very opposite of what weve been doing with technology until recently. But this means building a different kind of human readiness into the very architecture of your organization. You can buy a bunch of AI capabilities, but you need to match them with human processes that can benefit from them in real and sustainable ways over time. It will take more than one article to explain how that works, because it covers everything from talent development and workflows to rituals and incentives. For now, think of it this way: Machines process data fast and accurately. Humans dont process so much as respirate and metabolize. In a successful organization, these two functionsprocessing and metabolizingcan support each other. The way to get there is not simply to buy more AI capability and work on training, but to engage with your people in a way in which they know what they want to do better. They must understand that their nervous systems and sensibilities are going to be valued and trusted as they explore uncharted territory, and that their explorations are being integrated into the companys institutional memorywhatever their apparent contribution to growth or efficiency. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more isights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
As global leaders disperse from the World Economic Forum, LinkedIn cofounder and tech investor Reid Hoffman breaks down the biggest challenges and opportunities facing business todayfrom political headwinds tied to immigration and geopolitics to why fears of a tech bubble arent shaping his investing. A self-proclaimed optimist, Hoffman urges todays business leaders to speak up and use their voices to help society steer toward the good futures. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. One of the biggest drivers of U.S. tech leadership has been attracting talent from outside the U.S. … Immigration policies have tightened up. The outside pipeline has basically been cut off. Are we going to start to see any implications from that this year? Well, I think we already are. A huge amount of the technology advantages the U.S. has had is because of Indian and Chinese talent that’s come over. Well, now, the Indian talent’s going to stay there. It’s going to go to Canada. It’s going to go to Europe. When someone comes and builds a huge company here, it creates lots of jobs for restaurants and accountants and all kinds of services … and then buying stuff from American manufacturing and staying in American hotels and all the rest of the stuff. Youre wiping out all of that, and you’re saying, “Go somewhere else.” It’s like the Bernie Sanders stupid [remark], “No data centers here. Build them all in Canada. Have Canada get all the economic benefits. Let’s make sure we Americans don’t.” And its just, literally, up is down. It’s crazy thinking. It’s stupid thinking. And so, you want that immigration. That’s how we built the prosperity of this country. In 250 years, it comes entirely from a generation of us going, “Here is the way that we will take immigration and be a competitive advantage to every other country in the world.” It’s like, “Oh, well, let’s take our competitive advantage and let’s sabotage it.” Now, none of this says that we haven’t gotten to a place where we have problems with the borders, we have problems with asylum, we have a set of other things that, of course, need to get fixed. People are saying, “Hey, I’m feeling pain in my job, in my community, my environment. What’s going wrong? And help fix it.” And we should be doing that. But by the way, completely closing the border is not the right idea. I mean, you could do that as a start, just as saying, “Hey, let’s re-normalize.” But then you have to understand, for example, the earlier: “Well, we’re going to send ICE after all of the agricultural work.” And then I was, like, “Oh, our farm’s going to stop working. Oh, don’t do that. No, no. Send them into the center streets of Minnesota, so they can beat up people and shoot people. Do that instead.” You’re, like, “Okay, that’s not good either.” It’s frankly catastrophic and terrorizing. So, if you want to see domestic terrorism, see how ICE is operating in some cities and some environments. And so, it’s like, “Okay, what are the things to do to actually really solve Americans’ problems? That’s what we need. And some rationality in immigration is absolutely essential. How do we have prosperity for our society, for our children, for our grandchildren, and including a bunch of communities that right now feel a lot of pain? How do we solve all those problems?” That’s the thing we need to be doing. The political climate has made business leaders more cautious about commenting on societal issues. What do you say to people when it’s worth weighing in or even necessary to weigh in or whether now just isn’t the moment? Look, the theory that if you just keep your mouth shut, the storm will blow over, and it won’t be a problemyou should be disabused of that theory now. That is not what’s happening. Lots of people say, “Oh no, no, this tariffs thing. This is just an early negotiation tactic.” And it’s, “Look, the volatility is a massive sabotage to business. Our young people aren’t being hired.” It’s, “Well, yeah, businesses are in a highly volatile situation.” I’ll say, “Well, we’re not going to do no hiring until we understand what’s going on.” That’s the message that’s being sent from the White House out to the whole business community. And so, you need to speak up and you go, “Well, but what if I speak up, then they’re going to penalize me.” And they’re, like, “Well, by the way, precisely when you feel fears, you should think about, is this a time for courage?” Because by the way, of course, it shouldn’t be punitive for you speaking up about what your knowledge and expertise and experience and what’s going on is.” I, myself, get regularly called out by the White House and basically only for political persecution purposes. If they would say, “Hey, unlike Trump who has all these pictures of Epstein at parties, I did a little bit of fundraising for MIT. Well, I’m a close associate.” Well, you guys have all the documents. Release all of them. Let’s let people decide the truth of this themselves. So, stop lying about me and reveal all the documents. So, speaking up is actually, I think, really important. And part of the reason why I do so, is not just because of me and because my sense of moral rightlike First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of assemblybut it’s also to try to give other people a sense of, look, you should speak up about the things that you think are real. And if you feel fear, get some other people to speak up along with you and put the energy into it. Don’t just go, “Oh, I’m going to create a rationalization. I’m going to say, ‘Hey, I don’t need … I’m not being fearful. I’m not being a coward. It’s the right thing. It’s the right thing for my business. It’s the right thing.'” And look, human beings firsthumanity, societyand you are members of both of those. Speak up, be present on those things. And by the way, when you’re powerful, one form of power is wealthy. Anyone who’s wealthy inthe society should be extremely grateful for being part of the society. You have responsibilities. They’re commensurate with your power. And so, you need to speak up. And by the way, not only does the current administration want to silence all of this as speech and say, “No, no, you’re not allowed to. You must take pledges of loyalty.” But I also get arguments from the lefties who go, “Oh, well, you as a wealthy person, you have no moral right to speak.” I’m, like, “Yes, I do. We all have a right to speak.” Some people might value my speaking by knowledge of how companies are created, how prosperity is created, how you have a vibrant economy. And that’s part of what creates jobs. I mean, I’m a guy who’s created a site that has many hundreds of millions of people participating in it in order to find work. Should people weigh my opinion on some things more than others? Absolutely. Should they weigh them less than certain things than others? Absolutely. But it’s, we need to be speaking up, and we need to be figuring out how to solve our problems together.
Category:
E-Commerce
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