(Actually) Swedish (Fake) Meatballs

A few years ago, Sweden’s official Twitter account revealed that—gasp—Swedish meatballs aren’t actually Swedish. Naturally, you’d expect a response from Ikea, which slings its iconic meatballs like there’s no tomorrow, but none came… until now. Ikea is introducing truly Swedish meatballs made by Swedish chef Alexander Magnusson—although they’re actually Swedish, they’re not actually meat(balls).

Watch a video about the plant-based products.

HBO is well-known for its immersive, massive scale SXSW experiences, usually dedicated to one of its high profile shows, like it's life-saving Game of Thrones activation or real-life Westworld town. This year its presence won’t just focus on one show, but all of the shows on HBO Max with its digital experience, HBO Max Orbit. The experience creates personalized recommendations including more than 150,000 from the streamer’s offerings—all based on voice cues and tracked facial movements.

It’s even gamified: Learn how the experience works.

Following Eric Toda’s powerful and heartbreaking Voice piece imploring the industry to stand up against hate crimes and discrimination against Asian communities, Joanne Chan, CEO of Turner Duckworth, followed up with this voice piece considering next steps for #StopAsianHate and the BLM movement.

"The path forward requires a practice of radical inclusion, along with multicultural community engagement,” she writes. 

The next major milestones for chatbots will be the ability to handle complex, multi-step tasks and carry on conversations around ongoing projects. To that end, Amazon has introduced a competition challenging developers to create apps with that capability—one that will grant up to 10 university teams research grants of $250,000 to help Alexa multitask better. Adweek’s Patrick Kulp has the details.

Briefly:

Too often, we plan to achieve our goals “someday”—and then someday never comes. But a new campaign from Ace Hardware is making Some Day a real day, April 3, and on that day it hopes to inspire people to tackle those long put-off home improvement projects. The brand is offering promotions to encourage participation, including babysitting search services, free paint samples, delivery and more. Learn how the campaign marries procrastination and inspiration.

Join Adweek April 6–7 for a virtual summit focusing on best practices for upholding diversity, equity, inclusion and sustainability. Centered around both people and planet, this live event will showcase best-in-class brands and leaders who have successfully implemented these principals into their company’s brand purpose and DNA. Sign up for free today.

Private labels have soared during the pandemic.

The auction house uses Quantcast Platform to find high-net-worth clients.

It teamed up with The Home Edit founders Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin on the 'Lighten Up' campaign.

With support from SiriusXM, Pandora and Stitcher, Studio Resonate confronts the 'sonic color line.'

The career journey of the Co-Founder behind a Black-Owned Millennial Led Creative Agency.

The social network confirmed that it is testing a Tip Jar for its Clubhouse-like audio feature.