NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins appreciates a value haircut at Great Clips. So the hair salon’s marketing team is using the organic praise to its advantage. Its recent promotion featuring Kirk Cousins and Jesse Palmer drove an 11.6% increase in sales, in fact. The salon’s new VP of Marketing shares the highlights and strategy behind the campaign.

Land O’Lakes, a multi-billion-dollar cooperative of farmers, is looking to change the image of rural America. And to do so, it’s sponsoring a stock image collection and launching a toolkit for the entertainment industry to help portray rural America as a vibrant community. Chief Marketing Officer Heather Malenshek shares the strategy behind the program.

Fresh Step, a brand of cat litter owned by The Clorox Company, thought Valentine’s Day was an opportunity to stand out to consumers. (Yes, you read that right.) The company’s Valentine’s Day campaign encouraged single people to celebrate the annual holiday of love looking for cats, not dates. And they enlisted Bumble’s help to do it. Here’s the story.

Lastly, marketers often frame AI as the next revolution. Yet it has the power to operationalize and scale weaknesses within organizations. If marketing leaders want to plan intelligently, they’ll have to make a series of structural repairs. Here are five that separate marketing organizations that pass the AI audit from those that fail it.

Until next week,