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Culture

Culture decides which brands matter. BRNDWIRE covers the places brands show up uninvited and occasionally welcome: stadiums, stages, fandoms, group chats and helmet bumpers. From sponsorship deals to viral moments to collaborations nobody saw coming, we look at how brands earn a place in the conversation, and what happens when they try too hard.

Culture

Mike Ditka, Who Turned "Da Bears" Into a Lifestyle Brand, Has Died at 86

He coached a Super Bowl champion, sold an erectile dysfunction drug on national television, and lost zero credibility doing either.

Oct 10, 2026 · 5 min read

Advertising Week Hires a Creator to Run the Room, Bets $100 Million on the Rest of Them Showing Up

Advertising Week New York opened Monday by naming creator-turned-mogul Dhar Mann its first chief creator officer and launching a $100 million matchmaking push between creators and CMOs. The message: the industry is done talking about the creator economy and ready to write checks.

Warner Bros. Bets $275 Million on Tom Cruise and a Hole in the Ground, Loses Most of It

Digger opened to $8 million domestic against a $160 million budget, and Tom Cruise's name wasn't enough to dig it out.

ComplexCon Turns 10, Leaves Las Vegas, and Lands 300 Brands in a Convention Center

The streetwear festival's anniversary edition swaps the Strip for Los Angeles, with Playboi Carti and Hiroshi Fujiwara running creative.

Scarlett Johansson's Skincare Brand Closes, and Turning Down Estee Lauder Couldn't Save It

The Outset built itself specifically to avoid the usual celebrity-brand trap, equity instead of a licensing check, and shut down after four and a half years anyway.

More from Culture

Nintendo gives Mario his first new logo in 15 years

A quietly updated Super Mario wordmark appeared on Nintendo's website on Sunday, trading the flat black outline for a metallic bevel — and history says a refresh means a release.

Paramount+ takes over Big Ben, and admits it never happened

The streamer promoted MobLand's second season with a computer-generated threat on the Elizabeth Tower, an out-of-home stunt built for phones rather than for London.

Converse learns the spotlight shapes the story

The Nike-owned brand pulled a Chuck 70 X campaign image starring Aespa's Karina after critics said its star-shaped spotlight and dangling sneakers evoked Klan and lynching imagery.

TRIP buys its ambassadors in, not out

The magnesium drinks brand's biggest campaign yet stars Kendall Jenner and Joe Jonas — and all five faces took equity instead of an endorsement check.

Jung Kook turns a zipper into a beat for Calvin Klein

The BTS star fronts Calvin Klein's Fall 2026 denim campaign, and the soundtrack is just him getting dressed.

Oasis in the throes of new ticket sales

Oasis just turned buying a concert ticket into a job application — register, rank three cities, and pray the algorithm likes you enough to let you overpay for Liam's midlife victory lap.

Uber Eats goes back to 2013 to make convenience guilt-free

"Phew," a new brand platform from Special, retires four years of "Get Almost, Almost Anything" and stages a nostalgic horror show of pre-delivery life, complete with Troye Sivan as the world's slowest cashier and a Redfoo flash mob.

Guinness Modernizes Without Touching Its Logo

A new campaign for the stout hides the brand's most recognizable asset inside a single word, which is a lesson in restraint most rebrands ignore.

Hyundai Hands Its Voice to Scarlett Johansson, and the Stakes Are Higher Than a Read

The automaker has replaced Jason Bateman as its signature narrator, debuting the switch on a pediatric cancer campaign rather than a vehicle launch.

Christina Aguilera Buys In, and Beau Joie Gets a Creative Director

The singer takes an undisclosed stake and the Global Creative Director title at the luxury Champagne label as it pushes its low-sugar "Bubble Better" platform.

Whistles Turns 50 and Casts Its Own Customers

The British fashion label marks half a century with a refreshed identity, a new platform called "Designed for an Open Mind," and 50 real customers instead of models.

Interrail Kills Its Own Second Brand

The Eurail Pass becomes the Interrail Pass under a single global platform, "The Interrail Effect," built by WE ARE Pi with 30 creators riding the network.

DWS Trades Three Letters for a Century of Trust

The €1tn asset manager is retiring the DWS name and relaunching as Deutsche Asset Management — a bet that heritage sells harder than initials.

Baemin Built a Mascot Out of Two Lucky Animals

The Korean delivery giant introduced Dochihak, a hedgehog-crane hybrid, and put it across services, marketing and content.

Duolingo Stopped Making English the Starting Line

A new Learn English from Punjabi course, launched with Talented, treats a first language as an asset rather than an obstacle.

KFC Arabia Bought a Seat at the Baloot Table

Rather than borrowing Saudi card-game culture as a theme, KFC built its new campaign inside the game itself with TBWA\RAAD and Zat Baloot.

Foxtel Is Being Renamed by Its New Owner, One Logo at a Time

At its Sydney upfront, Foxtel's chief executive spent his opening minutes explaining what "Dazn" means. That is the whole story.

The ACC's New Campaign Is an Argument, Not an Anthem

"Receipts" asks 18 fan bases who normally hate each other to agree on one thing: the conference they belong to.

Calvin Klein Found a Second Face for the Same Denim Idea

Sadie Sink fronts the next chapter of Calvin Klein's 'Feel the Fit' Fall 2026 denim campaign, one month after Tate McRae — a serialised approach to celebrity casting.

Axe Apologises for Its Own Twenties — Then Sells Them Back

A social-first campaign brings back Kilo, Touch and Anarchy while making the joke Axe's critics have been making for two decades: you got better, so did we.

Miley Dropped Her Last Name. That's a Brand Decision, Not a Mood.

The pop star''s site now reads simply "Miley" — all red, no surname, and a URL that quietly redirects from mileycyrus.com to mileyofficial.com. Mononyms are the ultimate brand flex, and they''re expensive.

Vaseline Didn't Correct Her. It Changed Its Own Name.

A Korean beauty influencer kept saying "Baseline" — there's no V sound in Korean — so Vaseline quietly renamed itself across Instagram in the UK, India and Korea, named her CEO, and turned a pronunciation quirk into a global brand moment.

JENNIE Isn't Just Wearing adidas Anymore. She's Designing It.

The BLACKPINK star makes her adidas Originals co-design debut with "Functional Grace" — ballet precision, sheer layers, reworked trackwear and a pointe-inspired SUPERSTAR SQ BALLET.

The Super Eagles Change Stripes: Nigeria Ditches Nike for Adidas

Nigeria's Football Federation is reportedly swapping Nike for Adidas as kit supplier, ending one of international football's most style-defining partnerships at the height of its hype.

Uggs and Kisses: Willy Chavarria Casts a Family, Not a Face

Eva Longoria, Danny Trejo, Becky G and Ivan Cornejo play a Latino household in Ugg's new designer collaboration — a sitcom conceit doing serious brand work.

Ikea Puts a Thumbstick in Your Living Room

Nine pieces, an Xbox 25th-anniversary hook and a D-pad cushion: the YXSTABY collection is brand licensing designed to stay in the room after the console is off.

Houston Audubon Becomes Birds Houston, and the Name Finally Says What It Does

A 50-year-old conservation group drops a slaveholder's surname and picks a name a stranger can actually decode. Two problems, one rebrand.

Fanta Stops Renting Horror Icons and Builds Its Own Monsters

With 'Fanta's Haunted Universe', Coca-Cola's orange soda drops the licensed-slasher playbook and launches four original characters it intends to own for a decade.

TurboJET Decides the Ferry Is Actually a Lifestyle

Hong Kong's cross-border sea route has spent decades being tolerated. A new campaign from Narrow Door wants passengers to treat the crossing as the good part.

CultureBetway

Betway Builds a Clubhouse and Invites 27 Famous People Into It

Super Group's flagship sportsbook has launched its first activation designed to run in every market at once — a single idea instead of thirty local ones.

Callaway Deletes Its Own Driver Launch After the Internet Swings Back

A collab ad with Good Good Golf showed a YouTuber shoving a woman to the ground for touching his club. It lasted a weekend.

Four Swedish Furniture Names, One Set of Four Letters

NGLM Group hands Gärde Design the job of making Nordiska Galleriet, Länna Möbler, YLLW and KA YO look like one company.

CultureK18

K18 Rolled 150 Pounds of Human Hair Through Manhattan

The Unilever Prestige hair-care brand built a 10-foot ball of real hair from 161 billion strands and pushed it past Sephora. Nobody scrolled past it.

Newman's Own Stops Selling Paul Newman and Starts Selling the Payout

Almost two decades after its co-founder's death, the brand's new CMO is betting millennials will care less about the movie star on the bottle than about where every dollar of profit goes.

CultureAAON

AAON Rebuilds Its Name Into a House: Say Hello to The Aaon Group

The Tulsa HVAC maker introduces an enterprise identity that separates the parent from its operating brands — the quiet architecture move ambitious manufacturers eventually have to make.

CultureAnimal

Animal Welfare League Queensland Unifies 67 Years Of Growth Under One Identity

The charity's biggest rebrand in its history pulls rehoming centres, vet clinics and thrift shops into a single system built on community-donated imagery rather than idealised animal photography.