Blackbook Weekly: 010
Your weekly round-up of campaigns in culture that you missed.
Every week, we track the campaigns that reveal how brands, creators and celebrities are choosing to show up right now. Here’s what caught our eye this week.
F1’s “All To Drive For” puts Damson Idris in the driver’s seat
Formula 1 has a new face, and the sport is not pretending otherwise.
“All To Drive For” follows the momentum of Damson Idris’ F1 film with Brad Pitt, and casting Idris as its lead feels like a continuation of the same strategy. F1 knows its audience is shifting.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali put it plainly, saying Idris “shares our vision to grow” the sport and that together they will “push the boundaries of how we reach fans.” Idris himself said he has “always been drawn to spaces where culture, performance, and precision meet,” describing F1 as sitting right at the centre of that.
His appointment is clearly a deliberate move to represent and bring a new generation and demographic into a sport that has historically struggled to reflect the people watching it.
MAC enters Sephora US
More than 40 years after its founding, MAC Cosmetics is entering Sephora’s US stores, and the move says as much about where the beauty industry is heading as it does about MAC itself.
Entering Sephora puts MAC alongside the brands that define how a new generation shops for makeup, such as Danessa Myricks, One Size and Huda Beauty.
The ‘I wear MAC’ campaign features creators like Quenlin Blackwell, people who have already built mass followings and genuine influence in the beauty and social media space. It is a deliberate choice to let the audience see themselves in the brand before they ever pick up a product.
Estée Lauder President and CEO Stéphane de La Faverie framed the wider strategy plainly last year, saying the company wants “to be the first to capture where consumers are” and can no longer afford to focus on “too few critical markets, channels, products and consumers.”
The question now is whether MAC can hold its own against the challenger brands it is now shelved beside. Same playing field. Same consumer. Will the legacy carry weight, or has its time passed?
Nalas Baby and Paw Patrol is a collab that makes complete sense
Nalas Baby UK has officially announced a long-term partnership with Paw Patrol, with the Strawberry Springs range launching in stores nationwide from tomorrow.
On paper, this is a brand extension. In reality, it’s evidence that knowing your audience and meeting them exactly where they are is the way to go forward. Nalas Baby has always understood that parents and children are not separate consumers; they are the same household. Paw Patrol is one of the most recognisable shows in children’s entertainment globally (alongside Miss Rachel, Cocomelon, Bluey etc). Together, the fit is obvious. Which is exactly what a good partnership should feel like.
Corteiz and New Era honour grime
Corteiz and New Era have collaborated on a cap design in honour of grime, shot by Gabriel Moses.
For a lot of people in the UK, especially in London, grime is not aesthetic. It is architecture. It provided the scaffolding for an entire generation, building an ecosystem of British music, fashion, and culture largely from the ground up, with very little corporate institutional support behind it.
Across this week, the thread is the same. The brands and partnerships landing hardest are the ones built on genuine cultural understanding. The audience can tell the difference. We always could.
If you spotted a campaign we missed, let us know. And if you’re not already part of the conversation, you know where to find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @The Branding BlackBook .