Asana

What Makes a Great Marketing Mascot

The Drum collected views from agency and brand professionals about the role and resurgence of marketing mascots. Contributors argue mascots can deliver memorability, distinctiveness, emotional connection and cross-channel consistency when strategically integrated into products, experiences and social content. Several speakers contrast figurehead mascots (Mailchimp’s Freddie, Asana’s unicorns) with highly integrated examples (Duolingo’s Duo, ESPN’s App‑E), and warn that mascots often fail when strategy, guardrails or brand fit are missing. Agencies cited recent mascot work (Ponderosa’s characters for Snap Finance and Leasing.com; Aim B2B’s Susumu) as demonstrations of purposeful use. The piece concludes that mascots work best when they serve a clear brand role, are woven into everyday touchpoints, and are deployed with rules that ensure they amplify — not hijack — the underlying brand.

Marketing Teams Lose Time to Platform Workarounds

An industry feature examines how marketing teams lose productivity to fragmented toolchains, context switching and platform-specific workarounds. Citing an Adobe productivity study that estimates US full-time workers lose 91 business days a year and marketers spend nearly three hours daily on operational busywork, the article recommends process mapping before selecting work management tools. It assesses several platforms — Adobe Workfront, Asana, monday.com, Wrike, Smartsheet and Jira — and explains typical fits: enterprise governance, cross-functional tracking, visual boards, creative proofing and spreadsheet-centric planning. The piece argues AI and automation should start with low-risk, rule-based tasks (reminders, status updates, approvals) and stresses governance, defined workflows and reliable integrations over vendor count for improved marketing productivity.

Dept launches Deptify orchestration AI assistant

Dept has launched Deptify, an AI system surfaced through a persistent assistant called D that orchestrates existing partner tools rather than replacing them. Dept positions Deptify as an orchestration layer that pulls context from clients' workflow tools (for example Adobe Workfront and Asana) and routes people to the right systems, and it will not charge clients for the tech layer itself — instead billing for input (augmented human), output (asset-based) and outcome (growth-linked bonuses). Dept says Deptify is already deployed across clients that represent about 20% of its global revenue and expects to exceed 80% by Q1 2027. Early commercial interest includes three unnamed clients ready to use it and another agreed after a pitch; Cannes Lions attendees will be able to test it. Dept uses a third‑party tool called Optimal for output effectiveness checks and says it will not pass token costs to clients.