Why the symbol of corporate creativity will survive the remote-work era — Chances are if you’ve spent time in offices, you’ve spent time around whiteboards — and, perhaps, you’ve spent time dreading them. But where did these things come from, and how did they become a physical symbol of the mandatory brainstorming session? Fittingly, the precise history of the whiteboard is somewhat…

Bucatini is so 2020 — Object of the Week is a column exploring the objects a culture obsesses over and what that reveals about us. The 21st century has been a time of constant technical innovation — and a time for ridiculously overthinking food. These seemingly unrelated meta-trends have now coalesced in cascatelli, a brand…

Brands rush in to help end the pandemic with vaccine doughnuts and other marketing stunts — Skeptical about the Covid-19 vaccine? Or too lazy to get jabbed even though you’re eligible? Well perhaps you can be persuaded by… free doughnuts. This is apparently the thinking behind a new promotion from Krispy Kreme: Present your vaccination card at its U.S. locations, the Wall Street Journal reports, and…

Staggeringly low ratings from the Grammys and Golden Globes prove the traditional mass-audience awards spectacle is over — If an organization started handing out trophies for the most astonishing collapse in cultural relevance, this year’s top prize would have to go to — awards shows. The ratings plunges for recent awards shows are staggering, suggesting a major turning point for a ritual that has been vital to the…

After more than a year of travel being ground to a halt, timing is everything — Object of the Week is a column exploring the objects a culture obsesses over and what that reveals about us. A year deep into a deadly pandemic that crippled the travel industry — U.S. passenger traffic is down by half — does not sound like the best time for a…

An angsty public is turning the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines into a dangerous brand battleground — Worldwide, there are 11 vaccines available to combat Covid-19. And according to some observers, this has led to a problem: “People are doing what they do with cars and peanut butter and Tinder profiles — comparison shopping,” an On the Media segment this weekend declared. Host Bob Garfield noted that…

At a time when women have been hit hardest by the recession, brands are making International Women’s Day about themselves — “There is no Hershey’s without ‘SHE,’” the candy behemoth announced recently. The occasion for this, uh, insight was International Women’s Day, this past Monday. To mark the day — and March as Women’s History Month — the company “developed a small batch” of its flagship chocolate bars, with the package…