Kendall Jenner plays every role in a café, Ben Stiller arrives at Katz's Delicatessen in a full catsuit, and Amazon blocks Meta's shopping agent from its site. The week's marketing moves mix absurdist creative bets with serious fights over measurement, media inventory, and who controls the path to purchase.
Campaigns of the week
Beats filled a café with multiple Kendall Jenners to launch the Beats 360, its first over-ear headphone with swappable ear and headband cushions. In the spot from Uncommon Creative Studio, Jenner plays the customers, the barista, and the people in the photos at a café named Kendalls. Each version wears a different color combination under the tagline "One headphone. Every version of you." CMO Chris Thorne said the team chose multiple Kendalls over casting other actors. The headphones reach stores September 24.
The New York Times Advertising turned 175 years of ads into a campaign built around a nine-page print spread of seven archive ads spanning 1851 to 2026. Featured brands include Tiffany & Co., Ford, Heinz, IBM, Delta Air Lines, E*TRADE, and L'Oréal. The earliest is a Tiffany & Co. holiday ad that ran three months after the paper's first issue. Tusar Barik, SVP of marketing at NYTA, said the archive showed that advertising "often foreshadows significant cultural moments." None of the featured brands paid to be included. The in-house campaign also includes a digital timeline and audio spots, with media running through September 30.
Lexus commissioned Brooklyn art collective MSCHF to bend two vehicles into sculptures for Armory Week. The electric RZ 450e was looped nose-to-tail into "Circle Car," while the plug-in hybrid RX 450h+ was twisted into a spiral for "Twisted Car." Each sculpture is displayed next to the unaltered production model it came from. Lexus marketing senior manager Lisa McQueen framed the project as asking what electricity can power "in our imagination." The installation, called "MOTOMORPHOSIS," runs September 24-26 at Chelsea Industrial.
Ben Stiller crashed Katz's Delicatessen in a "Cats" costume to promote Stiller's Soda, the brand he co-founded with Alex Doman. It is the deli's first new soda in decades and the first Shirley Temple in its history. In a video directed by New York creator Nicolas Heller, Stiller arrives believing he's there to film the musical. "Severance" costume designer Sarah Edwards created the outfit and helped source a wig from the original Broadway production. Stiller's launched in New York about a year ago, with 30 calories and 7 grams of sugar per can.
Media moves and measurement fights
Comscore, iSpot, and VideoAmp won recertification as national TV currencies for the 2026-2028 term from the U.S. Joint Industry Committee. Each met the baseline for transactability across total households, advanced audiences, and personified demographics. The evaluation ran 39 data questions and 672 tests across more than 150 million telecast observations from 680-plus networks.
DoorDash selected WPP Media as its first global media partner after a competitive review. The assignment covers DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Wolt across more than 40 markets and takes effect in early 2027. It extends an eight-year relationship in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
McDonald's is testing third-party ads on digital menu boards at select company-owned U.S. restaurants. The ads run after customers order, while they wait for food. McDonald's has more than 13,700 U.S. restaurants, turning a captive wait time into sellable inventory.
AI agents and platform friction
Amazon blocked Meta's Muse agent from shopping on Amazon.com. According to Amazon, the agent did not identify itself while browsing and appeared to capture and store customer credentials. Meta maintains that Muse keeps credentials in secure storage and checks with users before sensitive actions. The companies remained in talks when the block was reported.
Pinterest placed ads inside visual search results with new Visual Search Ads, which put sponsored products in visual search results and enlarged Pin views. A beta is rolling out in markets worldwide. The company also added Performance+ features, including manual A/B testing, customer-reach controls, and holiday product prioritization.
Kroger said customers using its AI shopping assistant are adding more items to their carts. Launched across its sites and apps in July, the assistant suggests products, helps plan meals, and turns recipes and shopping lists into carts.
Why this matters for creatives and marketers
The Beats and Lexus campaigns show brands betting on a single bold visual idea rather than cramming multiple messages into one spot. For creative teams, that means fighting harder for simplicity in briefs. The McDonald's menu-board test and Pinterest's visual search ads signal that inventory is appearing in places where people are already mid-decision - not browsing, but buying. Writers and strategists who can craft messages for those high-intent moments will have an edge. And the Amazon-Meta standoff is a reminder that platforms will block anything that comes between them and the customer relationship. If your campaign depends on a third-party agent, have a backup plan.
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