Good morning. Today, a hot activewear brand improves its charity pledge after underwhelming fans; food giants say more marketing will improve their fortunes; and David Ellison’s new media kingdom cuts jobs as priorities change.

Consumers are getting more likely to call out brands’ charitable promotions they deem vague or unsatisfying, Megan Graham writes for CMO Today.

Devotees of the hot fitness apparel brand Set Active recently applauded when it promised that every purchase from a new collection “goes toward breast cancer research,” for example—but they pressed for specifics and grew angry when the company revealed the donated share would be 2%.

Though Set Active quickly increased its pledge amid backlash from social-media commenters who found 2% lacking, it was too late for some.

“If the point is your profit margin, then don’t even play in the cancer space,” said Alanna Vizzoni, criticizing Set Active to her 45,000 TikTok followers.

Younger consumers expect more from brands, said Joe Waters, a consultant who helps nonprofits and businesses team up, adding, “A baby boomer would be like, ‘Hey, if a company’s doing something, that’s great.’ ”

Food companies’ earnings suggest that execs plan on marketing their way out of tough times, Katie Deighton writes for the CMO Today newsletter. 

Big Food faces competition from startups, private labels, rapidly shifting consumer tastes and inflation. Five of the biggest packaged food stocks, including Campbell’s and PepsiCo, fell over the past three years while the S&P 500 climbed some 80%. Now shoppers are anxious about the economy.

Kraft Heinz for back-to-school this year boosted media spending on core brands by 75%, CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera said Wednesday on an earnings call. The company still reported lower third-quarter sales. “We have now one of the worst consumer sentiments we have seen in decades,” he said.

But the company will keep pushing marketing and R&D. “The game that we’re playing for the long term here is to make sure we continue to invest behind our brands to drive superiority from a consumer experience perspective,” Abrams-Rivera said.

Other food giants expressed similar sentiments:

• Campbell’s said it hoped more marketing investment and promotions will reignite Goldfish crackers, and in the fiscal year through next July plans to increase marketing and innovation spending for its beverage and meals brands like SpaghettiOs
• PepsiCo said it is investing more in its flagship Pepsi brand
• General Mills announced a double-digit hike in media spending next year
• And in the same week that Nestlé said it would axe 16,000 jobs, the Swiss company’s CEO, Philipp Navratil, told investors he plans to improve its marketing function in terms of dollar value and capability. “We’re not strong enough,” he said, “and that needs to change.”

Paramount began laying off roughly 2,000 workers across the media company on Wednesday, Isabella Simonetti writes.

CEO David Ellison said in a memo to employees that the layoffs were focused on “addressing redundancies” at the company and to accommodate its “evolving priorities.” Ellison has said he wants CBS News, for example, to focus on speaking to the large politically centrist audience in America.

The layoffs will affect employees across the company, which also owns the CBS broadcast network, the Paramount+ streaming service, Paramount Pictures and cable networks including MTV and Comedy Central.

The cuts at CBS News affected under 100 employees and stretched across the entire division, according to a person familiar with the matter.

This Nov. 18 and 19, CMOs will gather in New York for The WSJ CMO Summit, featuring marketing leaders such as Ryan Reynolds of Maximum Effort, Bobbi Brown of Bobbi Brown and Jones Road Beauty, Craig Brommers of American Eagle, Vanessa Broadhurst of Johnson & Johnson, Alicia Tillman of Delta Air Lines, Laura Jones of Instacart, Behnaz Ghahramani of Marriott International, Kristen D'Arcy of True Religion, Faby Torres of Gap and more.

Together, they’ll explore fan-fueled growth, AI in marketing and the evolving CMO-CEO partnership. Join the CMO Council and be part of the conversation shaping the future of marketing leadership.

Request Invitation

Meta Platforms reported record revenue in the third quarter but the company warned of accelerating spending on AI. [WSJ] 

Facebook began its first big brand campaign since 2021 with an ad about hometown friends reconnecting at Thanksgiving. [Ad Age]

Meta’s automated AI tools are coming up with some weird ad imagery for small and mid-sized businesses. [BI]

Character.ai will ban users younger than 18 from talking with its chatbots, whose interactions with teens have been cited in lawsuits. [Guardian]

Grammarly rebranded as Superhuman, adopting the name of an AI email startup that it acquired this year. [Verge] 

WPP cut its guidance again as client losses hit third-quarter results and new CEO Cindy Rose predicted a turnaround would take time. [WSJ] 

Google’s parent company reported a 16% surge in third-quarter revenue, with digital advertising and cloud growth helping to finance AI. [WSJ]

Technology company Bending Spoons is buying AOL from private-equity firm Apollo, the latest ownership change for the internet pioneer. [WSJ]

Starbucks’ same-store sales in the U.S. were flat in its latest results—good news for its turnaround after six consecutive quarterly declines. [WSJ] 

A group representing potato farmers and importers is promoting potatoes as Halloween treats, and it has some takers. [WSJ]