Good morning. As we gear up for the Paris 2024 Olympics, we’re watching how Nike is responding to criticism of its track and field uniforms for Team USA - just two months after backlash over its new MLB uniforms. We’re also keeping tabs on the cocoa shortage as prices hit record highs due to late orders from major companies and climate change.

Also, don’t miss the Reporter Spotlight below - our monthly feature on what journalists are interested in, how their editorial process works and more.

Campaigns

Earned-friendly campaigns & clever moments

Also, Hellmann’s “Save Our Sandwiches (S.O.S.)” campaign, Heinz x Mattel’s Barbiecue sauce for Barbie’s 65th anniversary, John Deere’s Chief Tractor Officer hire and Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay-I playlists.

Culture 

Snackable bites of consumer culture

Corporate

Trends at work and for good

Commerce

Shopper society snapshot

Connections

Feed intelligence

Reporter Spotlight: Matt Egan

This month’s spotlight is on Matt Egan, an award-winning reporter at CNN. Matt primarily covers business, the economy, and financial markets across CNN’s television and digital platforms. Prior to joining CNN in April 2014 (happy 10-year-anniversary this month!), he was at Fox Business for nearly seven years and also had a short stint at The Times of Trenton, a New Jersey newspaper. Here are a few things to know about working with Matt:

• His overall interest and focus is on what is going to be most interesting to the CNN audience, which differs from some of the more narrow-focused business outlets we work with due to its mass appeal.

• Given CNN’s audience, Matt has noted that stories he considers should have a strong focus on the impact to people, rather than be strictly business- or company-focused.

• His goal is always to try to tell stories that would work across all of CNN’s platforms, including digital, broadcast, streaming, and international.

• More often than not, he and the broader team at CNN prefer exclusives that provide them the ability to break news on a topic that is especially compelling to their audience and dovetails with other hot or trending topics, such as AI.

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