There’s no question that the cost of living is on the rise, and many consumers have felt it most acutely at the grocery store.

As people have struggled to keep up with the costs of food, which according to the consumer price index is predicted to increase 3% this year, some marketers sensed an opportunity—for better or worse.

Last month, predictions platform Kalshi held an event at a Westside Market grocery store in Manhattan where shoppers were offered $50 in free groceries over the course of three hours. The same day, rival platform Polymarket announced it would host a pop-up grocery store further downtown, in which the first 300 visitors over a three-day period could get as much food, ranging from Aldi milk to Kirkland olive oil, as they could fit in a provided tote bag.

While some people praised the moves—including NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who in response to Polymarket’s announcement posted the satirical outlet ClickHole’s much-memed headline, “Heartbreaking: The worst person you know just made a great point”—others found the stunts to be superficial, and warned against viewing food insecurity as a marketing opportunity.

“It’s a topic of discussion around kitchen tables, in the headlines, in your group chats, and when something reaches that level of cultural attention, I think a lot of marketers see that as an opportunity to insert their product or brand,” Lauren Hoffman, VP of food and nutrition communications company FoodMinds, told us. “Food and nutrition is something that sustains us. It can’t be treated the same way.”

Continue reading here.—KH

Athletes are known for being meticulous about their health, whether that’s counting calories, tracking macros, or skipping spirits. Some are just as diligent about their pets’ diets—at least according to pet food company Nulo’s latest Olympics campaign.

The brand, which was founded by dog dad and former competitive swimmer and biomedical engineer Michael Landa, has been working with athletes for more than a decade, and it found success on the Olympic stage in Paris. While Nulo wasn’t an official sponsor, its work with athletes leading up to the 2024 Games led to growth in sales volume, search, and site visits, according to the company.

In the wake of those results, Landa, who also serves as CEO, said he doubled down on Olympics marketing, inking official deals with teams, signing more athletes, and increasing spend on the Games heading into Milano Cortina with the intention of further improving sales, awareness, and sentiment.

“We [were] driving new traffic, and we were continuing to grow in a really tough environment, so that led me to say, ‘Look, we have another opportunity here at Milan,’” Landa told Marketing Brew. “We were even that much smarter than we were before Paris now, in terms of optimizing these channels and these investments, so I’m expecting even better results.”

Read more here.—AM

When revitalizing a once-beloved tween retailer that’s passed its heyday, who better to hire than a seasoned retail vet who is not only adept at youth marketing and turnarounds, but also got her ears pierced at said retailer at the age of 8?

That retailer, you might’ve guessed, is tween trinket seller Claire’s, and the hire is Michelle Goad, who led Gen Z digital innovation at Nike, served as chief digital officer at Athleta in the midst of the Gap-owned athletic wear brand’s turnaround, and most importantly, spent her childhood shopping at Claire’s.

It's the retailer’s first C-suite hire since investment firm Ames Watson bought it for $140 million following its bankruptcy filing last August. At the time, Ames Watson Co-Founder Lawrence Berger told Retail Brew the firm had a lot of changes planned for the retailer.

Nostalgia won’t be enough to bring the once-cool Claire’s back to life; it’ll have to work to gain aura points with a fresh crop of Gen Alpha shoppers. But Goad—who oversees Claire’s marketing, retail experience and design, and product creation—is poised to implement changes that’ll establish the retailer as a “life moment retail destination.”

In the flesh: The rise of e-commerce sellers like Shein and Temu has made low-priced trinkets Claire’s once specialized in widely accessible, so Claire’s is doubling down on piercing as an IRL experience that can’t be replicated online, Goad told Retail Brew. It’s pierced 110 million consumers over its history, and anticipates 2 million more this year, so it’s “transforming” the experience that’s garnered criticism in recent years. That includes a new piercing excellence team and equipment partners, using pressurized machines rather than classic piercing guns.

Beyond piercing as its differentiator, the brand needs to “get out of the commodity game—which we’re not going to win,” she said. The retailer is shifting its target age demographic from 6- to 8-year-olds to 10-year-olds, which might seem like a miniscule change, but for tweens, “opens up a whole new world” of products it can offer, Goad said.

Continue reading on Retail Brew.—EC

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• Associate Marketing Communications Manager (Hybrid) at Stryker
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