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Conservative coffee company holds Tesla Cyber Truck raffle

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1775 Coffee, a Rumble partner brand, is giving away a Tesla Cyber Truck in an April, 20 raffle.

Tesla is no stranger to car giveaways—this time it’s using coffee as an advertising vehicle.

A 2024 Tesla Cyber Truck is up for grabs in a Miami-based coffee company raffle that ends April 20. 1775 Coffee, which enlists conservative political actors and media personalities like Donald Trump Jr. and political commentator Dave Rubin to swear by its “fuel for the anti-woke folk,” now entices consumers with one of the latest truck models from Elon Musk’s car company along with a $30,000 cash prize.

The coffee company’s brand draws inspiration from the American Revolution, its coffee acting as a “defiant middle finger to the bland monotony of corporate coffee chains and their modly brews,” according to the company website. Now, 1775 Coffee is partnering with the nation’s 9th largest public company by market capitalization in Tesla to promote its anti-corporate products.

The coffee brand markets its products as a healthy alternative to mass-produced, big-name brand coffee. The first of the raffle’s four tiers, labeled “You’ll finally realize why Corporate coffee sucks,” ranges from $1 to $99 purchases.

1775 Coffee is owned by Stardust Group, a family of companies founded and operated by entrepreneur Foster Coulson, who has in the past partnered with conservative public figures to expose his brands to the MAGA wellness community.

“I don’t endorse any viewpoints of others that isolate a specific group of individuals or spread hate,” Coulson responded to CBC News in an email in October 2024.

1775 Coffee recently partnered with Rumble, a Canadian video platform popular among conservatives and a long-standing business partner of President Trump’s media company and Truth Social platform, to launch a Rumble-branded coffee beans for “freedom-loving people to enjoy.”

The company’s official Twitter/X account, @rumble1775, has reposted videos of Russell Brand driving around in the Cyber Truck leading up to the raffle’s close. An October ad rallied its viewers to participate in “saving the world from ‘woke’ coffee,” a term used often by the conservative community to demean progressive values.

“Not only is Rumble going to lead the way in video and cloud, but we are going to partner with brands that are willing to build long-term advertising relationships with us,” Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski said in a press release. “If large corporate advertisers are afraid to advertise with specific audiences, we will just build the product lines to take them on.”

GOOGLE MISSES ESTIMATES, YOUTUBE AD REVENUES SLIDE AS LAYOFFS BITE

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Google’s parent company Alphabet on Thursday reported a fourth consecutive quarterly decline in profit, missing Wall Street’s expectations for both earnings per share and revenues as advertising sales slowed from their peaks during 2021.

Amid the super-Thursday of big-tech earnings that also included quarterly results from Apple and Amazon, Google announced net income had fallen by 34% to $13.6 billion, missing consensus expectations of $15.3 billion.

For only the second time in the search giant’s history as publicly traded company, revenue from ads fell 3.6% to $59 billion, missing estimates of $60.58 billion. Revenues from Google’s YouTube segment fell 7.6% year on year in the face of increased competition from the likes of TikTok and Instagram.

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Adidas’s new sports bra ad showing bare breasts sparks mixed reactions

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AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File

A marketing campaign from German athleticwear company Adidas to promote its new line of sports bras went viral last week for its bold approach to inclusivity. The ad, which shows pictures of 25 people’s breasts without revealing their faces, was first posted on Twitter Wednesday morning by the official Adidas brand account in a bid to display the company’s commitment to inclusivity. 

“We believe women’s breasts in all shapes and sizes deserve support and comfort, which is why our new sports bra range contains 43 styles, so everyone can find the right fit for them,” Adidas said in the tweet. The company then used the hashtag #SupportIsEverything in the post along with a link bringing shoppers to the new collection.

The image stoked controversy among some customers, who were upset by what they considered to be inappropriate or exploitative nudity, while others praised the post for its openness and authenticity. 

One Twitter user wrote that it was “refreshing to see breasts of all shapes and sizes in a non-sexual manner.” 

Some critics, meanwhile, expressed concern that children might be exposed to the image. Others called the ad exploitative.

“Shouldn’t it at least show how their “body positive” bras support all different kinds of boobies? Or is this just another shock ad designed only to generate revenue by using women’s bodies?” another Twitter user wrote.

The company defended its decision, tweeting an hour after its first post that it is “important to normalize the human body and help inspire future generations to feel confident and unashamed.”

Following the initial tweet, Adidas also posted the uncensored image on its website and on a billboard at its global headquarters. It posted the photo from its official Instagram account, too, but with the individuals’ nipples appearing blurred – a change Adidas said it made to stay compliant with the platform’s rules. Uncensored images of female nipples are banned on both Instagram and Facebook.

Regardless of the mixed reviews, if Adidas meant to grab attention with this ad, it certainly seems to have succeeded. The original Twitter post had nearly 34,000 likes and more than 5,000 retweets as of Thursday evening. 

Creating Super Bowl commercials isn’t (quite) rocket science. Here are the 4 ingredients campaign creators count on this year 

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(AP Photo)

 

It’s that time of year when marketing professionals and creative directors toss and turn in bed, wake up covered in sweat, and suffer countless headaches – not because of a COVID infection, but because of their one-in-a-million, 30-second chance to leave their mark in the advertising world: the Super Bowl finals. 

Said to be the world’s most watched sporting event, the game isn’t any less important to businesses than to football fans. With an audience of up to 114 million in peak years, airing a spot during the final game can help brands in turning millions of viewers into millions of customers.

It’s that ‘now-or-never’ opportunity – one that comes with a heavy price tag. “If you are going to spend $6.5 million dollars for an ad in the Super Bowl, you’d better make sure that ad sells something,” said Robert Barrows, president of a Burlingame, California-based advertising and public relations agency. 

To do so, famed Super Bowl advertisers and big spenders like Pepsi and Budweiser lean on top-tier creative agencies and marketing experts, who shared the 4 things they believe will guarantee a spot’s success this year.

  1. Budget

Money rules the world – of advertising, too. “You want to make a splash… and a lot of times, the client is okay with opening up the checkbook,” said Vinny Tulley from New York-based creative agency DeVito/Verdi. The creative director, who has worked on several Super Bowl commercials throughout his career, said many companies decide to bring in “star power”, forcing them to bump up their budgets even further.

  1. Comedy

Sometimes, it doesn’t take a celebrity appearance or million-dollar production investment to land a success. “You can’t lose with comedy – but it better be pretty funny,” said Tulley. “Humor and fun tend to resonate extremely well,” Dan Lobring, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications at rEvolution, agreed. The Chicago- and London-based company specializes in sports marketing and has served clients like Land Rover and Capgemini during major sporting events. “In previous years, there has been some push-back on what was perceived as ‘serious’ ads,” he added. “I don’t expect to see COVID-19 to be a major theme in this year’s game”.

  1. Simplicity

“Many of those Super Bowl ads are so over-produced that they forget to actually sell something,” said agency owner Barrows, who has been in business for over 40 years. Campaign creators are best advised by keeping it simple and remembering Marketing 101, Barrows believes – like including the brand’s name and logo from the first instead of waiting for the final second, “long after the viewer may have already clicked out of it”. 

  1. A “pass” on the flush test

With average consumers’ attention span drastically shortening, viewers are likely to not even make it through a 30-second spot. According to Barrows, there’s something advertisers can do about it: “The flush test is a term I use for a sound mix that you can hear even if you are out of the room going to the bathroom when the ad runs. Even if you are in the kitchen getting a bite to eat, the sound mix should be good enough to hear.”

It seems as if experts agree that ‘back to the basics’ is the way to go. Especially in sports, effective marketing is not about sophisticated techniques, but about adding value to the fan experience, rEvolution’s Lobring said. “The Super Bowl is a rare exception where viewers want to be entertained by the ads just as much as the game.”

Bengals and Rams, Doritos and FedEx – the stage is yours.  

ALO Yoga sues luxury goods marketplace Italic over its comparative ad strategy

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Photo by Wander Fleur on Unsplash

Italic, an e-commerce marketplace selling luxury goods at discounted prices, is facing a second lawsuit stemming from its comparative advertising strategy after candle company Diptyque settled its claim against the startup last year, The Fashion Law first reported. Athletic wear brand ALO Yoga filed a complaint in federal court earlier this week alleging that Italic’s marketing constitutes false advertising and violates ALO’s trademarks, in part because of its “depictions and purported comparisons involving ALO products,” according to the suit.

ALO, which is based in Beverly Hills, CA, said in the lawsuit that it first began using the ALO name to sell its products in 2006. Italic, ALO’s complaint alleges, used the ALO name in its ads to associate the two brands and “trade on ALO’s goodwill.” ALO’s complaint is focused on two particular sets of ads by Italic it claims are misleading — for a sports bra and a pair of leggings, which Italic’s ads told consumers were “the same as [those] sold by ALO in all respects except for the price.”

Italic works directly with manufacturers of high-end goods to sell comparable, unbranded products at 50-80% less, according to the company’s website. While the manufacturers themselves are anonymous on Italic’s platform, it sells products from factories that work with brands including Prada, Christian Louboutin, and Givenchy, its founder Jeremy Cai told TechCrunch in a 2018 interview. The company makes profit through charging its users a $120 annual membership fee to shop on Italic, it says.

The ads in question, which have appeared on buses and billboards, state that the sports bra and leggings sold on Italic’s site are made using the “same manufacturer” as ALO Yoga, called Intramural Goods. ALO claims in the suit that this statement is false because Intramural Goods does not make leggings or sports bras for the company, according to The Fashion Law.

Candle-maker Diptyque ended up settling the similar suit it brought against ALO last year. Diptyque had claimed Italic engaged in false advertising, unfair competition, trademark infringement, and copyright infringement in an ad campaign comparing the low price of its own candles to that of Diptyque’s more expensive candles, despite what Diptyque said were material differences between the two products in terms of their quality.