Happy Saturday, y’all 👋. I hope you found a little space to unwind after the holiday before heading into the weekend push.

Today’s deep dive looks at how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade delivered a record audience and why that performance reinforces the idea that cultural rituals are becoming one of the last reliable distribution channels for attention.

Let’s get into it.

Driving the news: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade delivered 34.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, as reported by Natalie Oganesyan for Deadline. Macy’s also announced a new 10 year rights agreement with NBCUniversal that extends their long running partnership through 2034, detailed in Macy’s Newsroom. Additional reporting from Kimberly Nordyke at The Hollywood Reporter highlights the strength of combined linear and streaming viewing. The data reinforces the thesis from my earlier deep dive on how the Parade functions as one of the last dependable cultural rituals for brands and IP. You can revisit that edition here. Link

Why the Parade works: The Parade blends cultural familiarity, family viewing, and seasonality into a single shared moment that audiences still choose to watch live. The combination of spectacle, performance, and recognizable characters gives advertisers rare access to predictable reach. It opens the holiday season with a multigenerational experience that feels both consistent and renewed, giving brands confidence that their presence will land with cultural clarity.

Why it’s rare: Only a small group of cultural events still deliver synchronized national attention. The Super Bowl continues to grow while many awards shows decline, shrinking the set of rituals that draw large audiences in real time. Most programming now competes within fragmented feeds and on demand environments. The Parade sits alongside the Ball Drop on New Year’s Eve and a few major sports moments as one of the last events that unites households across age groups and platforms.

Why it’s hard to copy: Rituals require time, repetition, and cultural permission. The Parade’s power comes from nearly a century of equity, a fixed position in the calendar, and an infrastructure that coordinates sponsors, performers, broadcasters, and city agencies. That architecture cannot be fabricated quickly. A balloon is not simply a marketing asset. It is a test of whether an IP can translate into a shared national moment with emotional resonance rather than temporary visibility.

Why it matters now: Ritual has always created predictable attention, but its value rises when other channels become unpredictable. The volatility of algorithmic distribution and the decline of award shows illustrate how rare dependable mass reach has become. The Parade’s record performance shows that the few rituals that still grow are becoming more influential in shaping culture, commerce, and brand strategy. For operators, these moments function as strategic infrastructure that supports long term storytelling, IP expansion, and coherent reach in a fractured media environment.

For everything else, see below 👇:

Media

1. Substack Entrapment Theory: Why Traditional Media Is Experimenting With Substacks — (Julia Alexander for Puck) — Link

Advertising

2. The CMO Is Dead, Long Live The Chief Messaging Officer — (Maarten Albarda for MediaPost) — Link

3. Done Deal: Omnicom Now Owns IPG — (Steve McClellan for MediaPost) — Link

Commerce

4. Black Friday: Winners And Losers — (Dani James for Retail Dive) — Link

5. Black Friday Sets Online Spending Record Of 11.8B Adobe Says — (Anthony Ha for TechCrunch) — Link

Culture

6. Call My Agent: The Basketball Version — (Tania Ganguli for The New York Times) — Link

7. Republic Records Unveils OnlyHands A New Hip Hop Fighting Game — (Mark Elibert for Complex) — Link

8. Vans Having Moment Sneakers 2025 — (Renato Pagnani for Complex) — Link

Tech

9. The ChatGPT Effect AI Changed Search — (Fast Company) — Link

10. Personalized Surveillance Pricing AI New York — (Tim Balk for The New York Times) — Link

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