Good morning. Today, Babylist taps a marketing veteran to help turn its gift registries into the beginning of a consumer relationship, not the end. Plus: Carl, Kanye and Chris Kempczinski.

Babylist, a company that helps expectant parents build gift registries, has hired Jill Cress as its first chief marketing officer, Patrick Coffee reports today for the WSJ Leadership Institute.

Cress had been CMO at H&R Block since 2022 and previously held top marketing roles at PayPal and National Geographic.

She’s taking the helm of a roughly 60-person marketing department at Babylist as the company eyes a possible public listing as early as 2027, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The IPO plans were earlier reported by Bloomberg.

I asked Patrick why Babylist was on his radar, and why it decided to name a CMO for the first time.

Patrick: It wasn't really on my radar at all! My wife used it for both of our kids, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you that before I wrote this story, and I definitely wouldn't have connected the service with the brand name. I think this is a pretty good illustration of why Babylist felt like now was the time to hire its first CMO.

So what’s the CMO’s assignment?

Patrick: As CEO Natalie Gordon told me, the company is very popular among the people who actually use it, namely younger parents and especially those about to have their first child. But beyond that it doesn't have much name recognition (see my first answer). Gordon doesn't want Babylist to be the kind of thing you use and then forget as soon as your baby's born.

And let's not forget the IPO plans, because greater visibility is definitely good for a company that's thinking of going public.

Uber Eats was ready to clean up when “Carl’s a mess” came out of nowhere, Megan Graham writes for the newsletter:

We got a new case study in marketing at the speed of social over the weekend when Uber Eats used an unexpected aside from a “Summer House” star to get in on the biggest Bravo eruption since Scandoval.

The grist was a meme that emerged from an interview with Kyle Cooke about the just-confirmed relationship between two other “Summer House” cast members, his estranged wife Amanda Batula and his friend West Wilson.

“It’s not just me,” Cooke said. “It’s our whole friend group. I mean, Carl’s a mess.”

That take took off among fans amused by the tenuous-at-best connection between “Carl”—cast member Carl Radke—and the central drama.

Enter Uber Eats.

It quickly released a video showing Radke crying and being comforted by ex-fiancée Lindsay Hubbard, with some Easter Egg-y touches and references for die-hard fans.

The food-delivery company’s head of social media for the U.S. and Canada, Lexi Levin Mitchel, said in an email that the company “ideated” on Friday morning, shot the ad Saturday and released it via Hubbard on Saturday evening.

Uber Eats wasn’t just paying attention, or lucky. It already has a promotional relationship with “Summer House,” whose cast is often shown receiving deliveries in its bags.

“This speed only worked because of longstanding relationships,” Mitchel said. “There was already trust and creative alignment with both Lindsay and Carl.”

The video is also just the latest example of brands piggybacking off reality TV romances—and breakups.

P.S.: Kyle Cooke’s alcohol brand Loverboy meanwhile is taking orders for “Carl’s a Mess” shirts starting at $34 for the tee.

The managing director of Live Nation’s Festival Republic defended the decision to book Kanye West at its Wireless festival in London despite the loss of several big sponsors.

Anheuser-Busch InBev was the most recent marketer to drop out, following Diageo and presenting sponsor PepsiCo to the exits.

But Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn said that West, who now goes by Ye, has recognized his past “abhorrent” comments about Jews and Adolf Hitler, and has a legal right to perform in the U.K.

“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” Benn said.

Benn described himself as an antifascist who supported Jews as well as Palestinians, and said he has had to forgive “despicable behavior” from a person in his life who suffers from mental illness.

“Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world,” he said.

In practical terms, all this may be moot: The U.K. government on Tuesday said it had banned Ye from entering the country.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski is eating on camera again for the first time since his little Big Arch bite went viral.

“I blame it all on my mom because she told me ‘don’t talk with your mouth full,’” Kempczinski told The Journal’s Tim Higgins in this video, also his first interview since the backlash. “And I think probably in that case I should have said you know what, to hell with it, I’m gonna go talk with my mouth full.”

But why was the CEO even posting a video “taste test” to social media in the first place? Presumably he got the job for skills other than “creator.”

Here’s what Kempczinski said:

Click through for the full 11-minute video, including Kempczinski’s high-stakes bite of a chicken nugget at 30 seconds in. (“I’m looking forward to taking a nice bite outta this, uh, chicken nugget,” Kempczinski says, nugget in hand. My free PR advice: Show, don’t tell.)

The community where marketing leaders drop the corporate speak and share what’s actually happening. The WSJ CMO Council unites leaders from the world’s most influential brands including Adobe, Audi, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Taco Bell, P&G and Verizon.

Tap into the connections and WSJ intelligence that move careers forward and separate the prepared from the scrambling.

Request Information

“We knew him when…” — L.L. Bean and Kohl’s are reposting old catalog shoots with Paul Anthony Kelly, the actor who plays John F. Kennedy Jr. in “Love Story.” [WSJ]

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital said it had made an offer to buy Universal Music Group in a deal that values the company at around $60 billion, the latest attempt by the activist investor to land the record label behind Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift and the Beatles. [WSJ] 

How Hyrox fitness competitions became a phenomenon among everyday athletes. [NYT] 

Ad-industry veterans Bryan Wiener and Sarah Hofstetter opened a firm that promises to help CMOs reshape their operations to take advantage of AI. [Ad Age] 

The Vitamin Shoppe and other retailers are integrating AI into their stores to help shoppers discover and find products. [Modern Retail] 

Microsoft said it will update its terms of use for Copilot after sections calling the AI tool “for entertainment purposes only” went viral. [BI]