Be Like Narcissus, Says Equinox; Eastern Airlines' Comeback: Tuesday's First Things First

Welcome to First Things First, Adweek’s new daily resource for marketers. We’ll be publishing the content to First Things First on Adweek.com each morning (like this post), but if you prefer that it come straight to your inbox, you can sign up for the email here. In a Baffling New Ad, Equinox Urges You to Be More Like Narcissus We all know some version of the story of Narcissus—and it doesn't end well. Either he turned into a flower or died by suicide after falling into a deep obsession with his own reflection. But in a new ad, Equinox has reimagined the mythological egomaniac as an icon for its upscale fitness club. Droga5 created and Floria Sigismondi directed the tongue-in-cheek spot, which features a woman standing in front of a painting of the self-obsessed figure, describing his plight to a group of rapt schoolchildren in a museum. In this version, self worship turned Narcissus "into a gift not just for him to treasure, but a gift that brought the whole world pleasure," says the woman. Therefore, she asks, is self obsession not the most selfless act of all? She and the children begin a jerky dance to close out the spot, but it remains unclear who the ad was meant to be targeting. Read more: The campaign also includes a series of print ads shot by fashion photographer Glen Luchford. The TV Industry’s 5 Biggest Questions Going Into the 2020 TCA Winter Press Tour Adweek's TV editor Jason Lynch is headed to the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., this week, where he'll take in screenings, receptions and sessions with top television industry executives. Ahead of the tour, he rounded up the five biggest questions the industry is facing heading into the event (as well as the new year). The topics on the list are ones that have dominated discussion in the industry over the past few months: The impending arrivals of HBO Max and Peacock, WarnerMedia and NBC's streaming services, the newly-merged CBS and Viacom and Apple TV+'s underwhelming launch, among others. Read more: From streaming services to network momentum, these are the questions facing the TV industry this year. Eastern Airlines Is Back (Again) With a New Strategy and Rebrand Remember Eastern Airlines? The company was one of the major players in the American skies until 1991, when it folded. It's set to make its return this month, this time, instead of serving a domestic audience, the airline is focused on long-haul flights to little-served international destinations, including Guayaquil, Ecuador and Georgetown, Guyana. Steve Harfst, Eastern’s president and CEO, told Adweek reporter Ryan Barwick that Eastern is looking to fill a hole that today's major American carriers have left in the market. “As we look at the world, we see a fairly significant opportunity as the aviation industry is consolidated," said Harfst. "Big airlines with big airplanes need a lot of utilization to feed the aircraft—that leaves a lot of secondary markets without nonstop service." Whether Eastern's new life will be successful still remains to be seen: Just four years ago, an Eastern reboot as an airline connecting Miami to Havana, Cuba and other Latin American destinations, failed to take off with passengers. Read more: The once storied carrier tries a different approach. CES 2020 Kicks Off With an Unlikely Participant: Apple After two days of media preview, CES 2020 officially kicks off today in Las Vegas. Adweek's Sara Jerde is on the ground at the world's largest tech show (alongside Ryan Barwick and Nick Gardner), where Apple is making waves as one of the most surprising additions to the CES official programming this year. The tech giant generally opts out of the event, put on by the Consumer Technology Association, preferring to make its big announcements on its own. But this year, Apple’s senior director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, is scheduled to appear onstage Tuesday afternoon as part of a panel discussion tackling consumer privacy, alongside Erin Egan, Facebook’s vice president of public policy and chief privacy officer for policy, and Rebecca Slaughter, commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission. Read more: CES organizer CTA has fielded criticism for having Ivanka Trump on stage to discuss jobs. Best of the Rest: Today's Top News and Insights Ad Industry Needs to Figure Out ‘What the Hell’ to Do With Data With Restructuring, Toms Shoes Suffers Fate Common to Mall-Based Retailers Saks Fifth Avenue Parent Company Hudson’s Bay Agrees to Take-Private Offer 4 Lessons I Learned in My First Year as a First-Time CEO Voice-Enabled Gas Pumps Are Coming to Exxon and Mobil Stations Recipe Site Yummly Is Getting Into the Hardware Business Americans Are Picking Up the Travel Slack From Europeans in the Face of Brexit Ad of the Day: OkCupid’s New Ads Focus on Politics, BDSM and Other Make-or-Break Dating Factors Two years after OkCupids buzz-worthy "DTF" ad campaign from Wieden + Kennedy New York, the online dating company is back with another set of ads that focus on the issues that make or break romantic relationships. The answers real dates gave to the platform’s in-app questions inspired the new campaign from Mekanism. In addition to out-of-home ads, OkCupid enlisted artist Xaviera Lopez to create looping animation to bring some of the platform’s matchmaking questions to life, including a question about foreplay and whether or not it was worth waiting for a “soul mate.” [kickout id="1"] How Marketers Ensure New Talent Has What They Need to Succeed "The first three months, in my mind, are the absolute key. Our new hires receive check-ins with our People Team to ensure that things are on track, and we provide our managers with a checklist of items to address with their new team member." —Laura Small, vp and people director, RPA "To kick off on the first day we had a celebratory team dinner to get to know one another and start team building. We then held a week-long onboard with core team members where we reviewed annual goals, agency values and model, internal operations and key clients. Given some folks work remotely in other offices, it was helpful for us all to start off together in the same room to learn each other's communication styles." —Lucienne Glaser, director of business development, Unconquered "We try to ensure success by providing as much consistency for our new hires as possible. We want to make sure that every new employee is given the same onboarding experience as everyone else, no matter their team or client. We do that by providing extensive onboarding sessions in their first week in order to give them time to ease into their role and not feel too overwhelmed. To round out the experience, we also host programs like Trail Guide, which pairs new employees with existing employees. This introduces new employees to a wider variety of colleagues and opens the floor up to questions on the peer level." —Meghan Patrick-Crane, associate director of talent management, Firewood "Introduce them to the office dogs. Introduce them to clients. Set the expectations and help them stay organized. Acknowledge their contributions. Invite them to a lunch run, or pressure them into joining the bowling team, book club or other extracurricular action. Check in regularly to see how they’re doing." —Mark Lewman, executive creative director, Nemo Design More of the Latest: Netflix’s Polarizing Poster for The Goop Lab Sparks a Renewed Wave of Backlash This Insurance Company Is Just as Obsessed With Your Engagement Ring as You Are Ellevest CXO on Grit, Intent and Overcoming Unconscious Design Bias The Ad-Tech Industry Is Failing to Meet Heightened Consumer Expectations of Privacy New Panasonic Campaign Attempts to Connect With Younger Consumers by Highlighting Brand Values