Good morning. Today, another well-known brand refocuses on what made it famous in the first place; the world’s largest retailer tries to protect a lucrative side business; and Campbell’s plays defense, at the risk of sounding defensive.

Tomorrow and Friday, we’ll be off in honor of Thanksgiving. We’ll see you here again on Monday.

Bath & Body Works is the latest well-known name to embark on a turnaround plan after a bid for new growth fell flat, Megan Graham reports for CMO Today.

Kohl’s is trying to undo missteps in pursuit of younger shoppers that included scaling back petite sizes, fine jewelry and private brands in its stores. Cracker Barrel abandoned a similarly motivated new logo and restaurant remodeling program after a headline-generating backlash.

For Bath & Body Works executives, the mistake was previous leadership’s attempt to create new business through new categories like laundry detergent, a strategy that they said neglected core categories like body care and sanitizers. The company began using discounts to drive sales, which in turn eroded price integrity and brand loyalty, executives said.

The would-be fix includes getting younger shoppers another way: by getting better at the business that made it famous in the first place. That means...

• marketing fewer products,
• backing them with stronger creator advocacy
• and making the broader brand more aspirational.

The company highlighted its new Touch of Gold fragrance as an example. It quickly became a top-seller when it debuted in September, Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Sohosky said.

Although Bath & Body Works’ portfolio of scents still resonate with existing customers decades after its first store opened, the company wants more.

“We want our brand to be a beacon for younger consumers who seek greater efficacy, ingredient-led innovation, modern packaging and compelling storytelling,” Sohosky said in an email.

Tech companies’ incredible spending on AI has been a waking nightmare for nervous investors, but marketing leaders ought to be losing a little sleep themselves over the bill coming due.

Walmart is testing ads in its AI shopping agent Sparky, the Journal’s Suzanne Vranica reports.

One possible approach would let advertisers pay for suggested prompts and appear in a click-to-buy ad below Sparky’s response.

Sparky is just part of the retailer’s wider AI push, which also includes a plan to enable Walmart sales within ChatGPT replies, but the ad test shows that its interest extends beyond consumer spending as chatbots take space in the online purchase funnel.

Walmart is also focused on protecting its fast-growing, high-margin ad business. That means marketers need to prepare AI advertising strategies to complement their search-engine marketing—and to start finding the budget.

Not a straight line: Perplexity has stopped taking new advertisers for a program it introduced in 2024 that included sponsored follow-up questions, Adweek reported last month.

“That still exists today, but we didn’t want to inundate our user experience with a ton of ads overnight,” Jessica Chan, head of publisher partnerships at Perplexity, said during an Advertising Week panel. “We’re continuing to scale it very thoughtfully and methodically—probably not at the scale everybody’s hoping for.”

But the trend is clear: AI will bear-hug online shopping.

On Monday—just in time for Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping—OpenAI added a Shopping Research mode to ChatGPT, promising instant checkout within replies “in the future.” (Give it a try here.)

Although the company announcement made no mention of ad sales, listen to recent comments by Fidji Simo, the Instacart CEO who joined OpenAI in August as CEO of applications. “Advertising as a model works really well when you have a lot of commerce intent,” Simo told Wired. “We have a ton of it already, people coming and asking for shopping advice.”

Final caution: Marketers shouldn’t assume that their search advertising needs will decline as AI shopping grows. Google told CMO Today’s Patrick Coffee this summer that use of its traditional search product was still growing even as AI search came on strong.

Campbell’s is in damage-control mode after a lawsuit alleged that an executive said it made “highly processed food” for “poor people,” Alyssa Lukpat writes.

Former Campbell’s cybersecurity analyst Robert Garza alleged in a lawsuit against the company that Martin Bally, its vice president of information, had disparaged Campbell’s products in a secretly recorded meeting.

Campbell’s said it placed Bally on temporary leave and was investigating the claims. “Keep in mind, the alleged comments heard on the audio were made by a person in IT, who has nothing to do with how we make our food,” the company said.

Campbell’s released a fact sheet about its chicken that said the company doesn’t use 3D-printed chicken, lab-grown chicken or any form of artificial or bioengineered meat in its soups.

On the question of price: The rest of the supposed commentary may have made the whole moment too toxic for anything but a harsh response, but in other instances Campbell’s might have had an opportunity to embrace the “allegation” of affordability.

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Warner Music Group struck a deal with AI music-generator Suno that will let the startup launch new models based on licensed songs. [WSJ] 

UFC and WWE parent TKO sent OpenAI a cease-and-desist letter earlier this year before beginning talks on how to work together. [Axios]

The latest brand trend on TikTok is posting fake apologies—for selling products that are just too good. [Modern Retail] 

Spotify will raise its U.S. price in the new year as it pushes to achieve sustained profits. [FT] 

P.F. Chang’s new CEO wants to upgrade the restaurant experience and make the chain more approachable. [Restaurant Business]

New brands in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade tomorrow will include not only Pop Mart’s of-the-moment Labubu but Netflix, Lindt and Goldfish. [Adweek]