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He was in the middle of two of the largest race discrimination class actions in history, going up against Texaco in 1997 and Coca-Cola in 2001, which settled for $176 million and $192.5 million, respectively. Additionally, Mehri was instrumental in getting the NFL to establish its so-called Rooney Rule, requiring the league to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching and general manager roles. 

The ad world may recall Mehri from his time working on the Madison Avenue Project, which shed light on the significant underrepresentation of Black professionals in the ad industry, exposing systemic issues in 2009. Mehri’s firm subsequently represented several Black ad pros in race discrimination charges before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

With new pressure being put on the ad industry, and particularly agencies, Mehri and his firm have reached an agreement to work with advocacy group 600 & Rising. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for the organization said: “600 & Rising is focused on advocacy, transparency and, importantly, policy that supports Black talent in advertising and public relations, with wage equity a top priority, based on feedback from a recent survey of 600 & Rising signatories. While taking steps toward meaningful change, 600 & Rising will be receiving legal counsel from Cyrus Mehri and the team at Mehri & Skalet.”

Without going into specifics, Mehri noted that the firm is “providing legal counsel on a wide range of topics.”

Over the summer, several agencies and holding companies released diversity data, yet, according to Mehri, not much has changed since his first foray into the industry in the late 2000s.

“The data shows that virtually no positive changes happened,” he said, also referring to a recent study from economist Marc Bendick showing employment and pay gaps. “The data and social science show that when organizations go through the motions and check boxes, they get the same result. The only way to overcome that is for leadership at the top to insist on meaningful change, accountability and intentional efforts to create an atmosphere of equal opportunity.”

Mehri also noted that American culture and current sentiment are different from 2009, with a population more vociferously and actively demanding change. Related to the advertising industry, he feels that there is “an incredible moment for this industry to do what’s right and genuinely create the change that has eluded them all of these years,” adding that it has to “start from the CEO, C-suite and board of directors, putting their foot down and holding people accountable.” 

Litigation, Mehri feels, is “the absolute last resort.” Instead, a range of opportunities, including policy initiatives, could pave the way for agencies to succeed. 

In looking at where the industry sits at the moment, Mehri is both pessimistic and optimistic that industry leaders can do the right thing and avoid some of the missed opportunities of the past. 

“The pessimism is the track record of dodging and weaving, putting things off and talking a good game, while not holding people accountable,” Mehri said. “I’m optimistic because there’s a tidal wave of change coming. They’re either going to go with it or be forgotten. But there’s probably no better moment than now.”

When you’re designing a pumpkin, it’s important to keep a lot of different viewpoints in mind—the shape of the pumpkin, where it will be placed, and who is carving it. For example, if you’re a parent carving a pumpkin with a 3- to 5-year-old, you might not want to dictate a design at all. Just put down some newspaper, hand them a safe tool, and let them have at it.

Whatever they come up with will be much more creative, and much more fun, than forcing your small child to watch you painstakingly draw and cut out a silhouette of a cat on a broomstick. Will it be a tree? Will it be a ghost with chickenpox? “Whatever they create, you celebrate,” Hardin said.

But if you have bigger plans (and yes, more fine motor control), the next step is to consider where the pumpkin will be. If it’s going to be on a stoop by your door, orient the design closer to the top of the pumpkin, where people are going to be able to see it.

If you have an enormous pumpkin, keep in mind that for some reason, everyone kicks them! “If someone kicks it, then your new artist, who has worked so hard to create a beautiful pumpkin, will go inside the house to get a meat cleaver,” Hardin said. Secure your squash with a sign or another obstacle (and hide the sharp objects in your home).

Another trick Hardin suggests is to place the pumpkin in a yard or garden to watch it change as it starts to decompose. “If you do a face, they start to grow little beards, they start to distort in on themselves,” Hardin said. “But you don’t want it in your home. When they go to juice, they go to juice very quickly, and there’s a lot of juice in these guys.” If it decomposes in your yard, the pumpkin carcass can go toward fertilizing your garden or straight into the compost.

Lighting That Lantern

Let’s get one thing straight: Nothing is more annoying than seeing the light source inside the pumpkin. Luckily, there are ways to get around this. For example, rather than cutting all the way through the wall, you can use a sculpting tool to thin it. This lets light shine through and will give your pumpkin interesting dimensionality.

“It glows in orange or red, so it plays with color as well,” Hardin noted.

Battery-operated or rechargeable lights now come in all shapes, sizes, and price points. There’s no need to use candles to light a pumpkin, especially if you’re planning to put them outside or in a place where they can be easily kicked over.

Finally, once you’ve put all this work into creating the perfect pumpkin, you want to preserve it for as long as possible. If your pumpkin is small enough, you can keep it in the fridge at night. But if you’re keeping it outside, you can spritz it with a solution to help preserve it. Hardin likes to use a 50/50 solution of bleach and water. “It’s like rocket fuel,” Hardin said. “Nothing’s getting through.”

If you prefer less harsh solutions, mixing an 80/20 solution of water and vinegar (80 percent water, 20 percent vinegar) will work—and may smell a little more funky. But even with rigorous maintenance, it’s a pumpkin and won’t last forever! So enjoy it while it lasts, then let it go.

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“Most consumers know us best for the iconic round blue canister of table salt that made Morton famous,” CMO Denise Lauer told Adweek, “but there is so much more.”

The company not only makes salt for cooking and tabletop use (kosher, sea, Himalayan pink and so on) but also pool salt, water-softener pellets and ice melt.

Getting shoppers to recognize a brand when it sells products in multiple categories is often a tall order. The time-honored way to achieve it is with uniform packaging. After two years of work, Morton has finally taken the wraps off of its latest trade dress. It features what the company terms a “design system” with consistent elements that identify a product as Morton’s, yet enough variants to allow each individual product to have its own personality. This is the first time the brand has retooled its look since 2014.

“Morton’s portfolio is much larger than many people realize,” said Clark Goolsby, chief creative officer in the New York office of Chase Design Group, which led the overhaul. “To package all of these products they rely on a diverse range of structures. The elements of their previous design system were too rigid to create successful designs for all [of them.]”

The most visible element Chase developed was a large, navy-blue color block that takes its cue from the classic Morton Salt cannister and dominates the upper third of all the new packaging. A diagonal cutoff demarcates the block from the lower portions of the packaging, which vary according to product. It can be another band of color (in the case of the softener pellets) or a photograph (for the ice melt.)

Chase’s treatment also allows for a transparent window (for the sea salt and Himalayan Pink salt, for example) that allows customers to see the product inside. See-through windows have been a prominent feature on products like pasta for decades, but there are risks associated with using them if the goods inside end up looking less-than-appetizing. Fortunately for Morton’s, salt tends to always look like salt. Plus, according to Goolsby, the visibility is just good marketing.

“It’s important for consumers to see [the] salt for two main reasons,” he said. “First, Morton’s salt is incredibly pure and quite frankly beautiful. Second, it helps consumers shop the product because they can quickly identify the grain size they desire.”

Chase also gently modified the sans-serif typeface to increase its clarity, though the descender on the letter “R” still features an upturned tail to harmonize with leg of the Morton Salt Girl stepping her way through the rain.

As for that girl in the yellow dress with an umbrella over her shoulder, she received careful attention. While the mascot herself looks much the same as she did in 1968 when she traded her pigtails for windblown hair (a 2014 spruce-up merely simplified the character’s linework), Chase varied her proportions according to the product she appears on.

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Covid or not, people still need to see their doctor. As a neurosurgery coordinator for a hospital, I educate patients on treatments, schedule visits, and retrieve records. Some of those visits are telemedicine (online video) appointments. Virtual health care has become a necessity but also a choice. Yet many still don’t understand what online medical charts are or how to best use them. It’s not just for simple scheduling with your primary care doc or meds refill requests.

Contrary to what some may think, telemedicine is not FaceTime or Zoom. Yes, it’s a video chat, but your doctor can also store and view x-rays, MRIs, bloodwork, and other notes all via one encrypted portal. You, the patient, can become an active participant in your own care by uploading or sharing information via this portal, including messages to your doctor. You can also give access to your online chart to other hospitals, so that more than one facility can access your information. It saves a lot of phone calls and faxes for everyone, including you.

For Covid patients, telemed has been a huge assist in monitoring those too weak to travel to an office.

Jeff Langello, an IT consultant, spoke to his primary doctor from home after being diagnosed with Covid and then suffering chills, fevers, and hallucinations. He was too weak to move for days. He was able to log on from his couch. I asked him if he preferred in person or virtual appointments.

“Normally, I like in-person appointments, but I couldn’t move. The doctor saw me and asked me questions regarding my breathing, fever. There wasn’t much he could do with a virus, but I felt better talking to him.”

Jeff also mentioned that for first time users, it can be a little tricky but not difficult if patients are given instructions and walked through the process.

According to Dr. David Shapiro, an orthopedic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, online care is not just for the tech savvy or for younger generations:

“Despite minor tech issues, and first navigating through an app, we have not really found age limitations. It’s less of a difference than I would have expected. There are younger people who are not able to connect to the internet and older patients who are more tech-savvy than I appreciated. It was really a question of which patients were a good or bad fit for online care and how we could figure out a baseline for treatment. But when Covid hit, we all just jumped in.”

Dr. Jesse Green is a professor of clinical medicine in gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania. Like Dr. Shapiro, he mentioned the push for telemed appointments at the start of the pandemic, but also noted the speed in which physicians and patients adjusted.

“For my patients around 85 percent across all age groups can do it very well. Older patients in their eighties and nineties typically have children or other relatives help set up the tech. Our office walks them through it and we have a helpline. A majority of my patients have chronic diseases or issues that need several follow-up visits a year. With telemed, we can still garner that info on video and make adjustments to medications. It’s true access to care.”

When I asked both docs what they wanted patients to know first, both mentioned the ease of flexibility for scheduling and the ability to see patient information all in one space. For my job, getting that information from patients is first-priority.

Here are 5 tips that will help you get the most out of your telemedicine appointment with your doctor, including appointments with specialists:

1. Check Your Tech

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called patients who had a telemed appointment but they never finished setting up their online account or waited too long and now needed a new activation code. I can’t get that for them, it’s secure. I’ve had to tell them to call our IT department and they were given a different password to access the system. Most hospitals or private offices use large medical portals like MyChart or BlueJeans, which encrypts information and allows patients to create a secure online account. It’s through this account and their private email where the video link is set on a calendar for each appointment. So make sure whoever your provider uses for telemedicine has you set up: Necessary app downloaded, correct password set, and test it out. It will save you and your doctor aggravation when both of you can’t figure out why you each are staring at a blank screen for fifteen minutes waiting for someone to appear.

2. Gather Thy Records

If you were referred to a specialist (like my group) from your primary care doctor, we will need their office notes and your history. Mostly, it’s about knowing in advance why you are coming to us. We need a documented reason to see you and the notes will be loaded for review prior to your appointment. It saves both of us time calling other doctors for that information. We’ve had to cancel appointments because we can’t take your word for it though we know you are telling us the truth. We simply don’t want to waste your time coming in or logging on with no documentation to give us a clearer picture.

3. Have X-rays or MRIs? Grab Them

Speaking of images, depending on your doctor’s office, it’s wise to have your films on CD and sent to the office prior to your visit. So, when you get them done, ask for a copy of the films before you leave the radiology office. They will give you one. We can upload it on our end once we get it. If you have an external disc drive or a computer that still has a disc drive, by all means let us know. Some offices use a service called LifeImage where you’ll receive an emailed link to upload films directly from your computer. So ask. Otherwise, send us the CDs and track it. The mail is slow and we still need to see you on the inside. We can’t see through you—not yet anyway.

4. Medications? We Don’t Judge

Doctors and staff have heard everything-especially those who have patients in pain. So, if you were on Oxy for a couple of years and stopped taking it, it’s fine. Just tell us your history. We have to know and don’t care if you were on Zoloft, Lexapro, or Wellbutrin either. It’s about your safety. It’s better for us to know all of your history now, rather than find out later and have to cancel a procedure or write a new med script because we didn’t know you were on two drugs that may interact. Tell us and we can work to figure it out.

5. List Your Contacts. Other Than Family

If you want to list your best friend as caretaker or emergency contact instead of mom and dad it’s okay. We just need to be able to notify someone if we can’t reach you. Contacts can also be other doctors you see for whatever reason-psych, cardiology, it doesn’t matter. We’d like to know a few folks just in case we have a question like did you stop taking your cholesterol or blood pressure meds in time for surgery? We don’t want you bleeding too much from a minor procedure. It matters.

The first prompt will address voting by mail, enforcing the fact that it is safe and secure, while the second will remind people that official announcements of election results may be delayed due to numerous factors.

Both prompts will link to Twitter Moments providing more context and credible information from election experts, journalists and authoritative news sources.

The prompts will be available in 42 languages, and they will appear in the timeline of every person with a Twitter account located in the U.S., as well as in search when users search for related terms, phrases or hashtags.

“Many factors, including Covid-19, are presenting unique and unprecedented challenges for voters as we approach the final stretch of the 2020 U.S. elections,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an email. “Millions more people than ever before are voting early, including by mail, and election experts are anticipating that election results may not be announced on the usual timetable we’re accustomed to.”

The report, from consumer experience platform Acquia, found that 82% of respondents said they had seen a boost in return on investment from new marketing tech spending this year, even as marketing spending overall was slashed. The biggest investment areas included marketing automation platforms (63%), customer data platforms (54%), AI and machine learning (44%) and content management systems (35%).

“Covid-19 has thrown most organizations a curveball, but the results of this study show just how resilient marketing teams are in shifting to digital,” Lynne Capozzi, chief marketing officer at Acquia, said. “Even though marketers are trying to do more with less, technology has created opportunities to connect with consumers on a personal level—at a time when their digital engagement is higher than ever.”

The findings are in line with the results of similar studies that show that while overall marketing budgets have been cut or remained flat amid the pandemic recession, investment towards automation and other forms of digital transformation has continued unabated or actually increased. A Gartner study in July found that 68% of CMOs expected to up spending on mar tech in the next year, while digital spending overall has grown to account for 80% of multichannel marketing budgets.

“CMOs believe technology will help them navigate through difficult times and recover faster, and thus will continue to shield these investments—like customer data platforms, mobile marketing platforms and digital commerce—from further cost efficiencies,” Gartner analyst Ewan McIntyre wrote in the report.

Among the uses that marketers are finding for automation and machine learning are the introduction of chatbots for answering routine questions and reducing wait times, digital consultations for product advice and dynamically personalizing content for consumers.

But the survey also revealed that a shortage still persists in the amount of technical talent available with 43% of marketers saying they struggle to recruit data scientists, while about 40% having trouble filling machine learning engineer positions. CMOs, rather than technical leadership positions, are still responsible for leading digital transformation efforts at around 52% of organizations surveyed.

Siloing between marketing tech platforms continues to be a problem in this regard, with marketers reporting frustrations with their ability to share data across different parts of an organization. That also echoes a finding from Gartner that around 58% of CMOs report their marketing tech stacks not delivering their full potential, a stat that could threaten future spending on the category.

“Many brand leaders found themselves trapped by siloed marketing technology that limited their ability to share data across systems or integrate new tools with their existing platforms,” the authors of Acquia’s report wrote. “Too often, that results in a fragmented digital brand experience that’s not easy to evolve.”

The survey, Acquia’s third annual report on this topic, covered 800 marketers across Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Haunted house stories are having a moment. It might be quarantine. Or it could be Netflix‘s fault—its release of The Haunting of Bly Manor has reinvigorated the discourse about what makes a good haunted house story and whether or not Mike Flanagan, the horror director who, between Bly Manor and Hill House and Doctor Sleep seems to be veritably obsessed with them, really has what it takes to make one that feels both scary and fascinating.

Haunted houses are special because houses are special. They keep us safe—until they don’t—and are both entirely familiar to us and entirely unfamiliar, as anyone who’s had to deal with serious home repairs could tell you. People have intimate relationships with the places where they live. And that’s a powerful entry path for horror. Or, as the opening line of Kitty Horrorshow’s 2016 video game Anatomy puts it, “In the psychology of the modern civilized human being, it is difficult to overstate the significance of the house.”

Horrorshow’s game starts with a tape player in an empty kitchen, and a single cassette. When you put it in, the narration begins, a faux-academic exploration of what houses mean, why they’re special, and, most importantly, how people might think of them anatomically. Is a kitchen a stomach? Is a living room a heart? In what ways are houses like us?

All of this occurs, by the way, in an empty, modern suburban home. Two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a little narrow set of stairs. One peculiarity of haunted house stories is that they’re often period pieces. It’s the distance, I think: Old ornate Victorian-style homes are familiar without being too familiar. We want to think about how scary houses can be without actually letting that horror fully inside. Anatomy, a small game released on itch.io for PC, refuses that distance. This could be the house you grew up in. Or one you rented, for a while, in college, a lonely dull little home at the end of a lonely dull little cul-de-sac. It might be a lot like the one you live in right now.

The voice in the tape continues: “But of all the structures mankind has invented for itself, there is little doubt that the house is that which it relies upon most completely for its continued survival.”

Anatomy understands the haunted house story. It understands why houses are scary and fascinating, and why artists from Henry James to Shirley Jackson to Mike Flanagan have been so obsessed with them. And alongside scaring you, Anatomy also wants to teach you. It is, in some sense, an exercise in explaining the joke—its narration delves into what is so frightening about a haunted house. But it’s an exercise that’s so effective and so deeply dialed into the core of human fears that even when you understand it, you’re still unnerved.

Here’s how it’s played: You find that first tape, in the kitchen of an empty, dark house. Then a message on screen tells you to find another tape, in another room. In this way you explore the house, gathering tapes, listening to this voice contrasted with the uneasy, shadowy presence of the house. A presence that grows, as the house becomes more and more alien, as it begins to feel like something is there. Or maybe it’s just the house itself, broken the way Hill House was in Jackson’s novel. Then, a question arises: Whose voice is it on those tapes?

More happens in Anatomy‘s short runtime, but summarizing it here would be to the game’s detriment. But know this: What makes Anatomy feel vital four years after its release is the sense that it wants to welcome you into horror at the same time as it plays with horror storytelling. It pushes you to think about why scary things are scary, what deeper psychology is at work when you’re afraid of the dark room at the end of the hall, or what might be behind that locked door.

This means brands must craft creative online shopping experiences and alternate pick-up and delivery options that will appeal to and actively engage shoppers. In creating an interactive environment that allows shoppers to experience the joys of shopping, Sam’s Club has demonstrated a heightened understanding of the desires of this year’s consumers.

Sam’s Club created a holiday shopping experience with a virtual reality recreation of the Griswold House from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation—complete with decorations and gifts that can be purchased directly through the site. The Griswold family was chosen because of Clark Griswold’s determination to make the season a happy one for all, despite the circumstances.

“Clark’s goal of creating perfect moments and memories for his family for it to be greatly interrupted by things outside of his control is basically the story of 2020,” a representative said in a statement.

The house includes Sam’s Club’s top toys, food, gifts and decor, along with movie trivia and interactive elements throughout the house, such as character Aunt Bethany’s cat wrapped up in a gift box.

The Griswold House recreation is part of a larger initiative by Sam’s Club to provide convenient experiences that bring holiday joy to its customers. The brand is also adding more days of deals, introducing new products, hiring 2,000 supply chain associates to fulfill heightened shipping demand and increasing contactless shopping options.

“Covid-19 has changed how our members shop and the experiences they desire,” said Tony Rogers, chief member officer, Sam’s Club. “We’re listening and evolving our approach to meet their needs.”

Other high-level brands are similarly adapting to an unexpected holiday season. Macy’s launched a virtual Santaland to recreate its typical in-store Santas. Facebook is providing education, resources and training to small and mid-sized businesses to prepare for a virtual shopping influx. Pinterest added shopping features to allow consumers to make purchases through the app.

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On Election Night, she wrote, Wikipedia is likely to impose even tighter restrictions, limiting the power to publish a winner in the presidential contest—sourced, of course, to reputable outlets like the Associated Press or big network news operations—to the most experienced, most trusted administrators on the project.

One administrator, who goes by the handle Muboshgu, compares the vigilance that will be needed to keep the political coverage reliable and accurate to the work he does tamping down baseball-focused editors eager to “break the news” of reported trades. “We try to explain that while those reports are often accurate, they are also inaccurate enough to merit caution,” he wrote in an email. “I plan to apply that same logic to 2020 election-related pages, if necessary.”

Moving slowly has been a Wikipedia super-power. By boringly adhering to rules of fairness and sourcing, and often slowly deliberating over knotty questions of accuracy and fairness, the resource has become less interesting to those bent on campaigns of misinformation with immediate payoffs.

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Wikipedia’s article on 86, for instance, was immediately revisited once it was used to bolster the Trump campaign’s case against Whitmer. At first, an editor took the reference to killing out of the article, noting that there was no reliable source provided for that definition. Others objected, arguing that such a swift response made it appear that Wikipedia was so hell bent on not helping the Trump campaign that it would change even accurate articles.

Ultimately, killing was returned to the article, but not in the first line. Instead, it was included this way: “The term is now more generally used to get rid of someone or something. In the 1970s its meaning expanded to refer to murder.” It’s hard to imagine the Trump campaign would tweet a screen grab of the revised article now, with its explanation that 86 mainly means what Whitmer obviously intended it to, even if it at times is used in this other, violent way.

Similarly, the Wikipedia article on the QAnon far-right conspiracy theory is straightforward and evidence based, laying out the claims of a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles plotting against Trump and concluding, “No part of the theory is based on fact.” This summation disturbed the libertarian economist Tyler Cowen, however, who recently wrote in Bloomberg Opinion that it “makes me slightly uncomfortable” because there isn’t a similar disclaimer on the pages for the world’s major sects and religions, or “for the Book of Revelation of the Bible, which shares with QAnon an apocalyptic spirit.” QAnon may best be thought of as an inarticulate revolt against elites, he offered.

Being a stickler for accuracy is a drag. It requires making enemies and pushing aside people or institutions who don’t act in good faith. To some, you may be losing the poetry and performance of politics. To profit-making ventures like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, you may be losing the users who make you money.

And lurking in the background, spreading the misinformation and conspiracy theories, are those who see elections as a battle between warring cults, and bend the facts accordingly. Wikipedia insists, however, that contemporary politics can and should still be distilled down to reason and shared facts, including who won a free and fair election. Let’s hope they are right.

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What a difference a year makes.

Last October, luxury retailer Neiman Marcus unveiled its 2019 Christmas Book, a curated selection of almost 800 holiday gifts. Among these were its legendary Fantasy Gifts, a franchise whose 60th anniversary was celebrated at an event at the retailer’s then-new store at New York City’s Hudson Yards, with presents such as a 007 Aston Martin designed by Daniel Craig on display.

Fast forward to today: The U.S. economy has been crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic, its society riven by political and social strife, and Neiman Marcus has filed for Chapter 11, reorganized and emerged from bankruptcy. The process included closing its Hudson Yards store, among others, as well as 17 of its 22 Last Call stores; its two Bergdorf Goodman stores remain open.

It is against this backdrop—and daunting challenges facing all brick-and-mortar retailers across the country—that Neiman Marcus is unveiling its 2020 holiday campaign.

Not surprisingly, it is a continuation of its digital transformation strategy, underway before the pandemic. Featuring the theme “Make It Magic,” the campaign, which launches today, will be promoted on the retailer’s website, Hulu (a new partner) and YouTube, as well as social media and email.

A new spot, created in-house in 30- and 60-second versions, features five adults, a young girl and a dog cavorting in a contemporary home decorated with a large white Christmas tree and lights. They pass among themselves a small, rectangular white box, tied with a red ribbon, illuminated from within and trailing a stream of small, sparkling, white CGI stars. At the end of the spot, one of the men gives the box to one of the women; she appears overjoyed when she opens it and the two kiss.

“Neiman Marcus: Make it magic,” the ad says. “There’s magic in coming home, where memories (and mischief) are made. There’s magic in being together. There’s magic in giving … delighting everyone on your list. There’s magic in you.”

Darren “Daz” McColl, who was named Neiman Marcus’ interim chief marketing officer in January and was given the post permanently last week, said the campaign is “about intimacy, connection with family, bringing back traditions, bringing the magic to Christmas.” He said the retailer hopes to inspire people and enable them to “connect with the thoughtfulness of giving, the joy of spreading joy. These are moments we believe are really important.”

The retailer is also creating 10 different virtual holiday stories—the first being the spot launching today—which will be released through the end of 2020. It also will create some 55 additional pieces of content, such as editorial and gift advisor emails, to illustrate each story.

In addition to the digital campaign, each Neiman Marcus store will have a gift lounge where sales associates will show customers a curated selection of merchandise. The stores’ window displays also will illustrate the “Make It Magic” theme.

The retailer said it would offer some 3,000 holiday gifts. McColl said the gifts are “based on customer needs today, which have changed in the last 12 months.” Because of the pandemic, he said there is greater demand for leisurewear, shoes and handbags, and more shopping by men.

“Trends are not as predictable by season; they are way more fluid,” he added.

The campaign, McColl said, “is built around our customer, and recognizes a desire to come together this year, in whatever form it takes to connect, to enjoy traditions new and old in a magical way. The stories we tell throughout the season were developed to inspire, celebrate and bring the magic of Neiman Marcus to our customers, however they shop with us this season.”

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