The staff at Dunder Mifflin Paper, the fictional company at the center of The Office, aren’t exactly known for being star employees. For the B2B expense management platform Ramp, that was the point.

In mid-October, Ramp put Brian Baumgartner, best known for playing the lovable, bumbling accountant Kevin Malone in the hit sitcom, in a transparent box in Manhattan’s Flatiron Plaza for seven hours. Inside, Baumgartner processed expense receipts in real time—an entertaining commentary both on the drudgery of the work and how the platform can help companies streamline those efforts.

The activation, which was in the works for five months, drew a rough estimate of 10,000 in-person attendees, Kendall Tucker, head of creative experimentation at Ramp, told Marketing Brew; a livestream on X garnered 380,000 viewers over the course of about a week. Across platforms, Ramp estimates the activation has had “at least 85 million views,” Tucker said.

The effort came about shortly after the company’s first foray into Super Bowl advertising earlier this year, where Ramp executives were itching for their next big push to pitch businesses on Ramp, especially when there can be hesitancy to switch software.

“Once a company switches to our software and our corporate card, they love it, but helping them to understand that they have a problem, that their current expense management solution is not great, is actually really hard,” Tucker said. “Accountants have been using the same software for 30 years, they’re not looking for alternatives. So we’re like, ‘How do we make that pain feel visceral?’”

And putting Baumgartner, arguably the most famous accountant in pop culture, in a glass box for hours processing receipts was one way to highlight those pain points front and center.

Continue reading here.—KM

For years, Clif Bars have featured instantly recognizable packaging showing rock climbers clinging precariously to overhangs. But the company has plenty of history with athletes who prefer to challenge themselves on solid ground.

Founded in 1992, Clif Bar & Company has been involved in running since its inception, especially during its first 20 years, according to Brooke Donberg, director of partnerships and activation, and with interest in running on the rise, the brand is doubling down on the sport. The new approach is focused on driving both sales and brand awareness, she said.

“We’re in a moment where a brand can pull all sorts of levers around the running space,” Donberg told Marketing Brew. “I am more excited than ever to retarget and speak to that core audience that helped us build our brand, but then, because [running] is so relevant and cool these days, we’re also able to reach younger consumers. From a consumer target standpoint, I think running is a really great sweet spot for us to move the needle.”

Hard core: Core to Clif’s current running strategy is a partnership with the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), which makes it the official energy bar of the Boston Marathon. The deal kicked off in March, about a month ahead of this year’s marathon, and is set to last through 2027.

While part of this year’s partnership included handing out Clif bars to marathon finishers in recovery bags, it went beyond samples. Ahead of the race, Clif ran a campaign called “Raise Your Bar,” donated 10 race bibs to athletes who came within 10 seconds of qualifying, had a presence at the Boston Marathon Expo, and took over a bar near the finish line, Rosebar Boston, for the week leading up to the race.

Read more here.—AM

What does it take for a small business to succeed in the current economy? Good products, good prices, and…terrific marketing, it seems.

Per new data from email marketing firm Constant Contact, which analyzed more than 12,000 campaigns sent between June 1 and July 11, authentic, community-oriented messaging outperformed both big-brand and urgency-driven promotions.

Campaigns that included phrases like “shop small” or “shop small business” saw average open rates of about 45%, while more conventional hooks like “exclusive sales” and “early access” still performed well, drawing open rates of 45.3% and 42.3%, respectively.

Even Amazon couldn’t quite top the trend. Emails referencing “Amazon Prime Day” saw slightly lower open rates (41.3%) and click rates (3.9%), which Constant Contact attributed to growing “consumer fatigue” around big-event marketing.

Read more on Retail Brew.—JS

Executive moves across the industry.

• Epsilon hired former Dentsu Americas Media CEO Sean Reardon as CEO.
• Mastercard tapped Accenture alum Jill Kramer to succeed Raja Rajamannar as chief marketing and communications officer. Rajamannar will become a senior fellow.
• Panera Bread hired Kraft Foods and Best Buy vet Earl Ellis to serve as CFO.
• Welch’s hired former PepsiCo leader Andrew Hartshorn as chief brand and innovation officer, taking over CMO duties.
• Droga5 hired Rafael Rizuto, formerly of Ogilvy, as chief creative officer of New York and the Americas.