Case Studied

This week's smartest moves in marketing

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Robots play soccer, Adidas switches sides, and Fable 5 returns

This week's Brief catches the tail end of World Cup mania, a campaign built entirely with AI video, and a string of industry moves that are reshaping who owns what in media and marketing.

On the campaign side, Hyundai sent a Boston Dynamics robot out for a World Cup halftime show, Whoop turned Cristiano Ronaldo's biometric data into a career retrospective, and Polymarket recruited Rick Rubin for an ad that looks nothing like a betting platform.

Meanwhile, Omnicom poached Adidas from WPP after eight years, Sky and ITV agreed to reshape British broadcasting, and Anthropic brought Fable 5 back online after a three-week export control standoff.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Hyundai

Atlas steals the halftime show

Hyundai brought its Boston Dynamics robot Atlas onto the pitch at a World Cup Round of 16 match, having it deliver the match ball and perform goal celebrations from stars like Erling Haaland. It's the first live integration of a humanoid robot into a World Cup match environment, and the debut builds on Hyundai's "Next Starts Now" campaign platform, which has been showcasing the brand's shift from automaker to mobility company throughout the tournament. Atlas trained for the moment using retargeting technology that translates human movement into robot motion, alongside reinforcement learning built on thousands of simulations, and an operator only initiated the sequence, with the robot's balance and recovery driven entirely by its own systems. The activation caps a 27-year partnership between Hyundai and FIFA, one that has expanded this year for the first time into robotics rather than just vehicle sponsorship.

Why it stood out: Hyundai didn't just sponsor a moment, it manufactured one built to survive the scroll. In a tournament packed with content, a robot delivering a soccer ball is the rare activation that's genuinely undeniable on sight, and it doubles as proof of concept for Hyundai's robotics ambitions well beyond the automotive category. With plans to deploy tens of thousands of Boston Dynamics robots across its own facilities by 2028, this World Cup moment functions as much as an investor and workforce signal as it does a piece of fan-facing marketing. Few brand activations manage to double as both entertainment and a corporate roadmap update.

📖 Read more: Hyundai Newsroom

Polymarket

A prediction market ad with no odds in sight

Polymarket's newest spot, which debuted during the World Cup, ditches the frantic betting-platform playbook entirely. It opens on producer Rick Rubin asking "if you could ask one question, what would you ask," then cuts to people around the world posing questions in their own languages, set to Kanye West's "Runaway." The tone lands closer to an art film than an ad for a wagering app, and it cut through even during a difficult stretch for the company, drawing a notably strong reaction from CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin, who called it one of the few ads to genuinely stop him in his feed. Rubin's involvement drew its own backlash, with critics online accusing the famously anti-commercial producer of "selling out" by lending his minimalist, question-first persona to a gambling platform.

Why it stood out: By borrowing the register of prestige documentary filmmaking instead of leaning into urgency and odds, Polymarket reframed itself as a platform for curiosity rather than speculation, and did it while absorbing real reputational heat from other parts of its business. Changing how a brand sounds can change what people think it's for, but only if the borrowed tone connects to something true about the brand rather than functioning as aesthetic cover. The Rubin casting sharpens that tension: the discomfort people feel about a "sellout" tastemaker is really a proxy for whether they trust Polymarket's own reinvention, which means the backlash and the ad's intended message are, in effect, arguing about the same thing.

📖 Read more: Inc.

Whoop

Ronaldo's data does the talking

Whoop's new global campaign "In the Blood" follows Cristiano Ronaldo from his childhood in Madeira to his sixth World Cup, pairing that story with the brand's biometric tracking. Rather than leaning on trophies, the campaign centers on Ronaldo's physiological data, spotlighting a "Whoop Age" metric that puts his body years younger than his actual age. The campaign was shot on location in Madeira, using talent from Ronaldo's first youth club and a local narrator to keep the storytelling grounded in place, and it was created by Flower Shop, the indie agency that joined Whoop's roster earlier this year. Ronaldo isn't just a paid face for the brand; he has been a Whoop investor and ambassador since 2024, which the company has described as one of its largest athlete partnerships to date.

Why it stood out: Turning a wearable's data into a single, shareable number gives Whoop something no spec sheet could: a stat people want to beat themselves. Pairing it with an athlete who's also a company investor blurs the line between endorsement and product proof, and for a health tech brand trying to feel essential rather than optional, that's exactly the point. The timing matters too, since this year's World Cup features more players over 40 than every previous tournament combined, giving Whoop a broader cultural narrative about longevity and recovery science to hook the campaign to beyond one athlete's storyline.

📖 Read more: AdAge

Jeep

A tire's journey, entirely AI-generated

Jeep's new "Tire Story" spot, created by Highdive and its studio 1986, follows a discarded tire chasing a Jeep across various terrains, and was built almost entirely using Google's Veo and Luma Dream Machine. The AI-generated vehicles were built to millimeter-level accuracy and approved by product specialists, cutting production time from six months to two. The creative team storyboarded key story beats first, then reviewed AI-generated takes together in sessions that functioned like dailies, discovering what executive creative director Nathan Monteith called "happy accidents," unplanned moments in the generations that ended up reshaping scenes. The campaign premiered at Google's lunch event during this year's Cannes Lions and was developed under Google's Creative Lighthouse programme, an initiative built specifically to encourage "Impossible Ads" that couldn't exist without AI while still keeping a human creative team driving the story.

Tire Story | LBBOnline

Little Black Book, Tire Story

lbbonline.com/work/173031

Why it stood out: This isn't AI used to cut costs. It's AI used to compress a production timeline while keeping creative control intact, right down to vehicle-accuracy sign-off, and a useful data point for any brand still treating generative video as a novelty rather than a legitimate production tool. Monteith's own framing is telling: he describes the shift as moving from "what can we afford" to "what else is possible," arguing that AI expanded the creative team's role rather than replacing it. That distinction, tool versus shortcut, is likely to become one of the more contested questions in advertising as more agencies adopt similar workflows.

📖 Read more: LBB Online

Industry news 🤝

Omnicom takes the Adidas account from WPP

Omnicom Media Group is set to win Adidas's $512 million global media account, beating out incumbent WPP and rival pitcher Publicis Groupe. WPP's EssenceMediacom had controlled the business since Mediacom first won it in 2018, prior to its 2023 merger with Essence, ending an eight-year relationship between Adidas and WPP. The account will now be led by OMG media agency PHD, whose client roster already includes Volkswagen, Google, Audi, and 7-Eleven. The win lands as Adidas ramps up marketing spend more broadly, with the brand committing €3.079 billion to marketing and point-of-sale expenditure in 2025, up 8% year-on-year, powering campaigns like "You Got This" alongside partnerships with Liverpool FC, the Audi F1 team, and NBA star Anthony Edwards.

What it signals: Losing a $512 million global account is a meaningful blow for WPP at a moment when holding companies are fighting hard to prove their relevance against leaner, faster-moving competitors. The win also caps a strong stretch for PHD specifically, which recently took home the Media Grand Prix at Cannes Lions for Uber Eats's "Build Your Own Super Bowl" campaign, and follows other recent global wins for Omnicom including IBM and Dyson. As Wren argued at Cannes last month, Omnicom's pitch is increasingly data infrastructure: the completed IPG merger paired Acxiom's data platform with the Flywheel commerce arm, and this win suggests future account reviews may hinge on that kind of capability rather than incumbency or creative reputation alone.

📖 Read more: Adweek

Getty walks away from its $3.7B Shutterstock merger

Getty Images has called off its planned $3.7 billion merger with Shutterstock after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority demanded Shutterstock sell its editorial business, including celebrity and news photo units Backgrid and Splash, as a condition of approval. Getty's board voted unanimously against that divestiture and chose to terminate the deal instead. The merger had already cleared US antitrust review in February with no conditions attached, making the UK regulator the sole obstacle that ultimately sank it, more than a year and a half after the deal was first announced in January 2025. The combined company, which would have carried a library of 450 million images and been led by current Getty CEO Craig Peters, had projected annual cost savings of $150 to $200 million within three years. Notably, just days before killing the deal, Getty signed a separate licensing agreement with OpenAI to bring its image library into ChatGPT.

What it signals: Both companies pursued this merger specifically to build scale against the growing threat of AI image generation, and losing that scale leaves each one more exposed to the same pressure they were trying to counter. US antitrust clearance also means less than it used to when a UK or EU regulator can still unilaterally block a global deal, a dynamic that's likely to shape how future media mergers get structured and negotiated. The CMA has a track record here, having previously forced Meta to divest Giphy in 2021, and this case follows the same pattern: a transaction can sail through American review and still collapse entirely over a single foreign regulator's conditions.

📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

Walmart buys its way deeper into streaming ads

Walmart is acquiring Vibe.co, a self-serve connected TV advertising platform built for small and mid-sized businesses, folding it into Walmart Connect, the retailer's commerce media arm. Vibe.co brings self-serve campaign activation, direct supply-partner integrations, proprietary ad technology, and performance-driven optimization to more than 10,000 existing advertisers. The deal builds on Walmart's earlier acquisition of VIZIO and recent partnerships with Magnite, Yahoo DSP, and Google DV360, further rounding out Walmart Connect's CTV ecosystem, and specifically targets advertisers, including Walmart's own third-party marketplace sellers, who lack the media teams or budgets to buy CTV effectively today. Vibe.co's leadership team, including co-founder and CEO Arthur Querou and co-founder and CTO Franck Tetzlaff, is expected to join Walmart Connect after the deal closes.

What it signals: Retail media has become one of advertising's fastest-growing categories, and Walmart is positioning itself to own not just the shopper data but the entire path from streaming ad impression to purchase. By making CTV self-serve and measurable for smaller advertisers who previously lacked the media teams to buy it effectively, Walmart is betting that accessibility, not just scale, will be what wins the next phase of the retail media land grab. Walmart's public commitment to keeping the ecosystem "open and collaborative" with existing broadcasters and SSPs suggests it wants this positioned as an expansion of advertiser choice rather than a walled garden play.

📖 Read more: Walmart Newsroom

Sky buys ITV's networks in a $2.1B British TV shake-up

Sky has agreed to acquire ITV's media and entertainment division, including its broadcast channels and ITVX streaming service, for £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion). ITV Studios, the production arm behind shows like Love Island and Coronation Street, is not part of the deal and will remain a standalone listed company, though Sky has committed £2.1 billion to content from ITV Studios over the next five years. As part of the agreement, Sky is also selling Great British Bake Off producer Love Productions to ITV Studios in a separate £200 million side deal, and ITV plans to return roughly £950 million of the proceeds to shareholders. The transaction still requires approval from Ofcom and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, with completion not expected until late 2027. Notably, the deal arrives just a week after Comcast, Sky's parent company, announced it would spin Sky off together with NBCUniversal into a standalone media business, meaning the new UK broadcasting champion is being assembled inside a company its own owner has already decided should be split apart.

What it signals: This is British broadcasting consolidating in real time to compete with YouTube, Netflix, and other global platforms that increasingly dominate both viewing time and ad budgets. Combined, Sky and ITV would account for roughly 20% of UK in-home video viewing, a figure the companies are already using to argue that scale here is defensive rather than dominant, since YouTube alone captures a similar share on its own. The deal also reflects a broader reassessment of what's valuable in media right now: ITV concluded that separating its declining broadcast business from its growing production arm unlocked more value than staying combined, the same logic Comcast applied to its own Sky and NBCUniversal businesses just days earlier.

📖 Read more: Comcast | Hollywood Reporter

MarTech moves 🤖

Fable 5 comes back online with tighter guardrails

A week after Mythos 5 returned for approved institutions, Anthropic has restored full access to Claude Fable 5, ending a three-week suspension triggered by US export controls. The controls were applied on June 12 following a report that Amazon researchers had found a way to prompt the model into identifying software vulnerabilities and, in one case, demonstrating how to exploit one. Anthropic's testing found that several less capable models, including Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5.5, and Kimi K2.7, could reproduce the same behavior, meaning the bypass reflected a borderline safety-margin case rather than a unique cyber capability. The company built an improved safety classifier that now blocks the reported technique in over 99% of cases and worked closely with the government throughout the suspension, with US Department of Commerce researchers independently testing and endorsing both the prior and new safeguards. Access was restored on July 1. Alongside the fix, Anthropic is partnering with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other Project Glasswing members to build a shared industry framework for scoring the severity of AI jailbreaks, and is deepening pre-release testing collaboration with the US government going forward.

What it signals: A three-week suspension of a flagship model is a rare, concrete example of export controls directly shaping product availability in real time, not just corporate strategy. The response also signals something bigger than one company's fix: a shared jailbreak-severity framework, if adopted industry-wide, could become the AI equivalent of a common vulnerability scoring system, giving developers and regulators alike a consistent way to triage risk rather than reacting case by case.

📖 Read more: Anthropic Newsroom

Instagram wants your TV, not just your phone

Instagram for TV is now available on Samsung Smart TVs across the US, covering 2020 model year and newer, joining its existing presence on Amazon Fire TV, where it debuted in December 2025, and Google TV, added in February 2026, to reach the majority of connected TV devices in the American market. The rollout brings interest-based channels that group Reels by category like comedy, sports, and favorite creators, phone-to-TV casting for Reels and saved content, and Stories viewable on the big screen, features designed around what Meta says is largely a shared, group viewing experience where friends and family pass the remote and swap recommendations in real time. Instagram is also testing a dedicated home for horizontal video, acknowledging that vertical phone content doesn't always translate to a living room screen, and is exploring longer-form formats including episodic series and live creator broadcasts. This marks a notable departure from Instagram's failed 2018 attempt at long-form video, IGTV, which only drew seven million downloads before being quietly retired within 18 months. This time, the strategy leans on repurposing existing short-form Reels content rather than asking creators to produce new hour-long videos for a mobile-first audience.

What it signals: Every minute spent watching Reels on a television is a minute not spent on YouTube or Netflix, and Meta is chasing this at a moment when YouTube's share of US TV watch time hit 13%, its highest since Nielsen began tracking the metric in late 2023, while TikTok simultaneously struggles with content quality, with one recent study finding nearly 60% of videos shown to new accounts are AI-generated. Positioning Instagram as a living-room platform rather than just a mobile app also opens a real advertising opportunity, since advertiser intent to increase connected TV spending sits at 82%, far ahead of the 56% intent for paid social, giving Meta a fresh inventory category to sell against as attention keeps shifting to bigger screens.

📖 Read more: Instagram Newsroom

Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs as Xbox absorbs the worst of it

Microsoft is eliminating 4,800 jobs, about 2.1% of its global workforce, in a restructuring that hits its Xbox gaming division hardest, with 1,600 roles cut immediately and a total of 3,200 gaming positions, roughly 20% of the division, disappearing by the end of fiscal year 2027. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told staff the division's profit margin had fallen to just 3%, three to ten times lower than competing platforms, and described the business as facing "the most severe hardware crisis in its history," while framing the cuts as a necessary reset rather than managed decline. As part of the overhaul, four gaming studios, including Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs, are being spun out to new management or independence. Microsoft's leadership was explicit that the roles being eliminated are not being replaced by AI, even as the company simultaneously plans to spend $190 billion on AI infrastructure and data centers in 2026, and stock has fallen roughly 19 to 23% so far this year amid investor concern that Microsoft's own AI products haven't yet become major commercial hits.

What it signals: This is one of the clearest examples yet of a company drawing a hard line between cost-cutting and AI, insisting the layoffs are workforce reallocation rather than automation, even as it pours record capital into the technology in the same breath. Microsoft's move also lands inside a much larger pattern: tech layoffs have topped 100,000 for the year with AI cited as the leading cause, and Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon combined are projected to spend nearly $700 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026 alone, meaning the same balance sheets funding the AI buildout are simultaneously shedding thousands of jobs to make room for it.

📖 Read more: XBOX | CNBC

Editors Choice 👀

🤖 AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic are handing startups up to $500K in free compute to lock in loyalty early. 📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

🐻 The Bear's final season sold out sponsorships again, proving Disney's ad playbook still works. 📖 Read more: Adweek

🎙️ Natalie Silverstein talks influencer strategy and brand trust in a candid Marketing Brew Q&A. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

🎓 Elite students are skipping Wall Street internships this summer to chase startup dreams instead. 📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

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Vol 134: Audible: Love at first listen 🎧

Case Studied — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 20:00:51 +0000

Case Studied
When a genre has a moment

Romance novels have always had a devoted fan base. But in the last few years, something shifted.

Gen Z started showing up in numbers, #BookTok exploded in popularity, and romantasy (fantasy with a romantic core) started dominating bestseller lists. As a result, publishers doubled down on limited editions and creator partnerships. Streaming platforms built out dedicated genre hubs. And Audible dedicated its largest global campaign of 2025 to it.

This week, Case Studied explores how Audible drove record listening hours for its romance catalog.

The Brief

Audible has been in the audiobook business longer than most people have owned a smartphone. It was founded in 1997 by writer Don Katz, who wanted a better way to listen to books while jogging.

The company launched the first digital player for downloadable audiobooks at a time when the concept barely registered. It survived the dot-com bust, got a lifeline from the iPod era, and was acquired by Amazon in 2008 for $300 million. Today, Audible holds the largest audiobook catalog in the world, with over 600,000 titles.

By 2025, romance had become one of Audible's most engaged categories. So the brand built a campaign to meet romance fans across the many spaces they already occupied.

The Execution

"Love at First Listen" launched as a global, integrated campaign spanning creator partnerships, brand collaborations, out-of-home, and live experiential events. The creative anchor was a cinematic hero video that follows an elven princess's love story (a direct nod to the romantasy titles driving the category's growth). The rest of the campaign had three key components: social partnerships, brand partnerships, and experiential activations.

On social, Audible partnered with 18 creators across Meta, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. The mix included high-reach accounts like @madison.humphreyy (4.7M TikTok followers) and @meimonstaa (4M). A smaller group included @gracekomalley, @henryhenryhenryhenryhenr, and @juliamervis, who participated in a more intimate listening experiment. Paid social ran on TikTok alongside organic creator content.

The brand partnership side of the campaign was particularly distinct. In keeping with the theme of romance, Audible integrated into Tinder and Match.com through swipe cards, polls, and quizzes. Tastemade, a food and lifestyle media network, produced content that blended audio storytelling with food culture. And TikTok and Snapchat filters helped bring the campaign into the everyday scroll.

Out-of-home ran in high-traffic locations like Penn Station, Toronto subway stations, and Venice Beach lifeguard towers. The cheeky copy said things like, “A midnight snack got a little spicy” and “Picking up groceries left me hungry for more.” Audible also used offbeat placements like bar coaster and aerial beach banners, which said “Sizzling hot romance” alongside the Audible logo.

The experiential component ran across multiple cities and events. In Central Park, fans could take rowboat rides with actors playing fictional "book boyfriends" and "book girlfriends." At the iHeartRadio Music Festival, Audible took over a Ferris wheel and set up a kiss cam. In Sydney, the brand released a limited-edition box of hot wings with a popular local Sydney chicken restaurant (a wink and a nod to the spicier end of the romance spectrum).

In total, the campaign ran across 10 countries, seven languages, and 12 dialects, supporting 155 romance titles and producing more than 1,100 creative assets.

The Results

"Love at First Listen" generated over 1.3 billion total impressions globally. Qualified listens of Audible Original romance titles grew 475% in Q3 2025 compared to Q2, and total listening hours climbed more than 600%.

Channel performance was strong across the board. The campaign drove 519 million social impressions, 75.9 million TV impressions, and 481.5 million streaming impressions. Paid social captured 100.8 million TikTok impressions, and the campaign generated more than 500 fan-made videos. BookTok creator partnerships generated 177.9 million influencer impressions in the U.S., and OOH contributed 277.9 million impressions.

The Tinder integration posted a 2.7% engagement rate—117% above benchmark—and messaging tied to the campaign achieved a 98% open rate.

The Takeaways

1) Map your audience's full ecosystem.

Audible recognized that romance fans aren't only on audio platforms. They're swiping on dating apps, watching food content, going to music festivals. The brand was intentional about aligning this global campaign with those places and experiences. And that contextual relevance proved effective.

Before finalizing a media mix, map out what else your target audience is doing. What platforms are they on? What events do they attend? What cultural spaces do they occupy? The adjacent opportunities can be more engaging than the obvious ones.

2) Match your creative format to the fandom's energy.

Audible’s roster of creators ranged from high-reach accounts driving broad awareness to a smaller group tasked with more intimate listening experiences. That range reflects the fact that romance fandom contains multitudes, and a single creative approach wouldn't speak to all of them.

When building a creator strategy, resist the instinct to over-standardize the brief. When creators have room to work in their own register, the content tends to perform better (while also feeling less like a paid placement).

3) Build experiences fans want to tell people about.

The experiential activations in this campaign were built around highly sharable moments. A rowboat in Central Park, a box of hot wings that said “Spicy Romance” on it. Those who engaged in those moments leave with memorable, personal stories about Audible.

When planning experiential activations, think about what makes the experience specific to your audience. The more tailored the moment, the more likely your attendees are to share it. A targeted experience that travels through word of mouth can carry big value with it.

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This week's moves in marketing

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Cannes wraps, ranch goes viral, and OpenAI hits pause

This week's Brief lands in the thick of Cannes Lions aftermath, a World Cup that's turning condiments and rappers into cultural moments, and several significant pieces of AI news.

On the campaign side, DoorDash turned a case of mistaken identity into a viral stunt, Skims turned a fictional Will Ferrell golfer into a menswear model, and Sprite put hip-hop's greatest songs up for debate.

Meanwhile, Omnicom defended its big bet, OpenAI got cold feet about Wall Street, and France proclaimed that it’s making creativity a national strategy.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

DoorDash

The "intern mistake" that was never a mistake

During New Zealand's Group Stage match against Egypt on June 21, DoorDash tagged rapper T-Pain nine times in a series of World Cup posts on X, appearing to confuse him with New Zealand defender Tim Payne. T-Pain played along, asking DoorDash if they were okay and predicting "the intern is gonna sht a brick when they realize." The “mix-up” was all planned: DoorDash had coordinated the stunt with T-Pain in advance, leaning into the near-identical name of the tournament's breakout fan favorite defender. After the exchange went viral, DoorDash sent T-Pain dozens of insulated delivery bags stuffed with soccer balls, TimTam bars, and kiwis. T-Pain posted the haul with the caption "I do not play soccer. And I did not order all of this sht!" with a DoorDash partner tag buried at the end. The nine original posts generated 7,500 likes and 400 comments, and Google searches for T-Pain spiked 9% in the days following.

Why it stood out: This campaign drew a wide array of reactions. Some praised its cleverness, while others argued that it disregarded transparency rules by positioning a paid partnership as an organic mistake. Regardless, it certainly garnered plenty of attention. T-Pain's replies were timed and deadpan enough to make the confusion feel real for some who watched the interactions unfold. DoorDash was intentional about its sequencing: it went from mistaken tags to a physical delivery to a partner post that revealed the arrangement, which came well after the earned media had compounded.

📖 Read more: Campaign

Skims

Will Ferrell's fictional golfer is now a Skims model

Skims tapped Will Ferrell's character Lonnie Hawkins from The Hawk to front its latest menswear campaign. Shot by photographer Nadia Lee Cohen, the campaign features Ferrell in full character. He poses in Skims briefs, tanks, and a visor in a deliberately deadpan pinup aesthetic. It plays directly into Hawkins' bloated self-mythology as a former world No. 1 golfer who’s attempting an improbable comeback two decades past his prime. The campaign comes ahead of the 10-episode comedy’s Netflix series premiere on July 16. The show was co-created by Ferrell with the PGA Tour as a production partner. Netflix has been running an in-character promotional campaign alongside the Skims partnership, including a Hawk Bus Tour with stops at the Travelers Championship Pro-Am in Connecticut. Ferrell also appeared in character at Netflix House in Pennsylvania alongside real PGA Tour players Rickie Fowler, Harris English, and Tony Finau.

Why it stood out: The Skims launch is doing two things at once. On the brand side, it gives Skims' expanding men's line a comedic and culturally timed entry point that departs from the earnestness audiences are used to seeing in celebrity menswear campaigns. On the content side, it extends The Hawk's fictional universe into retail, treating the character as continuing IP rather than a one-off promotional tie-in. The timing also lines up with the PGA Tour's own promotional push around the show.

📖 Read more: AdAge

Sprite

Sprite put hip-hop's greatest songs up for debate

Sprite launched "The Living Tracklist," a campaign built around an evolving Spotify playlist that’s meant to both establish and start debate about hip-hop's most important songs. To assemble the initial slate, the brand convened a Cultural Authority Panel of seven hip-hop figures including Angie Martinez, Speedy Morman, and Scottie Beam, whose full 40-minute discussion is live on YouTube, with associated social cutdowns. The campaign spans 26 limited-edition Sprite packaging designs that feature key lyrics from iconic tracks across six decades. The songs range from The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" to GloRilla's "TGIF,"and represent the most songs Sprite has ever licensed at once. Packaging appears on cans and bottles from July through September, with on-pack QR codes leading to a Genius-hosted microsite where fans can explore additional content and enter sweepstakes.

Why it stood out: This campaign's core decision is built around disagreement rather than celebration. Sprite isn’t taking a stance itself but it is opening up the floor for discourse. That structural choice invites participation rather than just attention. The panel format, the YouTube debate, and the social cutdowns were all designed to provoke and sustain the conversation. Sprite brand director Terika Fasakin noted, "We want to encourage the discussion because that's where the richness and the engagement happens." The approach also reflects a longer pattern for the brand—Sprite has run hip-hop-tied campaigns since the 1980s and this campaign can be seen as a new approach to that familiar playbook.

📖 Read more: Marketing Dive

Kraft

Ranch dressing's unexpected World Cup moment

Ranch dressing became one of the breakout stars of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It went viral as international fans discovered the condiment for the first time and began smuggling full bottles home in their carry-on luggage. The TSA followed with a series of Instagram posts showing agents confiscating bottles at checkpoints across the U.S and advising fans to stop chugging ranch outside the security line. In response, Kraft moved fast to launch a limited-edition TSA Compliant Ranch kit on June 19. It comes in a clear quart-size TSA-approved bag with enough individual ranch packets to equal a full bottle and a ranch-bottle-inspired luggage tag.

Why it stood out: Brands across the category, from Hidden Valley to Heinz to the Cheesecake Factory, piled into the TSA's comments section, but Kraft was the only one to turn the moment into an actual product. Kraft's kit landed about a week after the TSA's first public warning, which was fast enough to still ride the trend. For a quick-turn campaign built around packaging design and a well-timed Instagram caption, the earned media it generated was substantial.

📖 Read more: People

Industry news 🤝

France made creativity a national strategy

French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the Cannes Lions festival via video on June 26 as France was awarded Creative Country of the Year, the festival's annual recognition of a nation's exceptional commitment to creativity. In his address, Macron framed French creativity as a national philosophy running through fashion, luxury, cinema, and advertising. He used the moment to make an explicit pitch for France as a destination for foreign investment, creative studios, and European headquarters. Macron also cited the France 2030 project, which received €350 million in government investment to boost domestic film production, noting that foreign companies pledged €93 billion in investment at the annual Choose France summit earlier this month, with a significant portion directed at AI and data projects. France has now been ranked the most attractive country for foreign investment in Europe for seven consecutive years. Macron closed his address by inviting attendees to the Lumiere Summit on September 7 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a summit on cinema, series, and video games that’s co-chaired by France and South Korea.

What it signals: A head of state addressing an advertising festival via video is unusual. Using that address to explicitly position creativity as economic infrastructure, soft power, and a driver of foreign investment is even more out of the ordinary. Macron's speech connected Cannes, the Paris Olympics, France's video game industry, the Choose France investment commitments, and the France 2030 production fund in a way that framed creative industries as a competitive strategy. The fact that LePub Milan (a Publicis agency headquartered in Italy) won Agency of the Year at the same ceremony and France received the country honor underscores how seriously the French creative ecosystem is being taken. Many governments treat creative industries as a cultural afterthought but France is treating them as an economic asset class.

📖 Read more: LBB

The merger is working, and Wren wants you to know

Seven months after closing the largest merger in advertising history, Omnicom CEO John Wren used his Cannes Lions appearance to make the case that the $26.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group is already delivering. Speaking at the festival, Wren reported a 98% client retention rate since the deal closed, with new business wins from American Express, Kroger, IBM, Merck, Unilever, and Bayer. The combined entity now generates roughly $26.5 billion in annual pro-forma revenue and has doubled Omnicom's AI investment capacity according to Wren. The integration of Acxiom's consumer identity platform into Omnicom's existing Omni system and Flywheel commerce platform gives the holding company what it describes as an end-to-end view of the global consumer journey. Wren committed to staying as CEO through 2028 and has set a target of $1.5 billion in cost savings over the next 30 months, double the original projection. He also pledged to scale Omnicom Global Solutions India to 8,000 employees by the end of 2026.

What it signals: Wren's framing at Cannes emphasized infrastructure. With AI threatening to disintermediate agencies, the Omnicom/IPG deal is being framed as a data and infrastructure bet rather than a consolidation play. Wren’s argument is that combining Acxiom's identity graph, Flywheel's commerce data, and Omni's planning infrastructure creates a different proposition than any of those three assets individually. The harder question is whether clients see the benefit before the cost savings materialize. Roughly 10,000 roles were cut across the two holding companies in the run-up to the deal, with more expected. At Cannes, Wren presented the upside. The industry will be watching to see which version of the story proves true.

📖 Read more: Bloomberg

The trillion-dollar company that isn't ready to go public

OpenAI is weighing a delay of its planned IPO from late 2026 into 2027, according to the New York Times. The news comes after the company saw market conditions temper enthusiasm for high-profile tech listings. OpenAI confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC in May, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading the deal at a target valuation near $1 trillion. Despite generating roughly $5.7 billion in Q1 revenue and nearly 905 million weekly ChatGPT users, OpenAI is still burning through cash at scale and does not project positive cash flow until 2030. The delay reflects both public market caution and the reality that OpenAI's aggressive infrastructure spend—on data centers, model development, and an expanding hardware division—continues to outpace its revenue growth. OpenAI also made its first Cannes Lions appearance this year, using the festival as a coming-out party for its nascent ad business. It pitched advertisers on what it calls "super intentional" users as a premium audience.

What it signals: An IPO delay from a company valued at $1 trillion is a telling sign of how much public market appetite for AI has shifted in twelve months. The gap between OpenAI's revenue trajectory and its spending rate is no secret, but going public forces that gap into a quarterly disclosure structure that private status avoids. Staying private longer also gives OpenAI room to build out its hardware ambitions and ad business before either faces Wall Street scrutiny. For brands and agencies that have built enterprise strategies around OpenAI tooling, an extended private runway means continued pricing opacity and uncertainty around the platform's long-term commercial structure.

📖 Read more: The New York Times

A24 took Google's money and lost loyalists

A24 announced a $75 million research partnership with Google DeepMind to develop new AI workflows, tools, and techniques for filmmaking and distribution. It marks the first time Google has taken a stake in a film studio. The deal gives A24 and its tech arm A24 Labs access to DeepMind's research and infrastructure, while DeepMind's researchers work with the studio to build tools for production. The partnership does not give Google access to A24's content library or data, and there is no mandate for filmmakers to use any tools developed through it. The backlash from A24's cinephile fanbase was immediate and intense. Fans canceled memberships to the studio's AAA24 subscription service and flooded its social posts with criticism. The studio issued a statement through spokesperson Sophia Shin: "This partnership exists because we want to dictate what tools get built for artists, and so they have a voice in shaping them rather than having tools handed to them. We'd rather have a seat at the table than on the sidelines." The reaction was amplified by the fact that A24's biggest current box office hit, Backrooms, was directed by Kane Parsons, who has publicly said he would make generative AI "disappear forever" if he could.

What it signals: This A24 story reveals a lot about brand trust in the AI era. A24 spent a decade building cultural credibility on the premise of protecting filmmaker vision and artistic integrity, and its audience responded to this deal as if a covenant had been broken. The "seat at the table" framing may be strategically sound, but for many, it landed as corporate. For brands that identify with authenticity and creative independence, the A24 situation shows how quickly AI association can destabilize that positioning.

📖 Read more: Deadline \ Google DeepMind

MarTech moves 🤖

Alexa’s ads take you straight to checkout

Amazon introduced Alexa+ Agentic Ads on June 23, the first ad format that takes a customer from seeing an ad to completing a purchase within a single conversation, without leaving the interaction. Launched alongside Prime Day, the format debuted with Papa Johns for food ordering and artists Beck, Jill Scott, and Omar Courtz for concert ticket purchases via Ticketmaster. A shopper can see an ad, ask Alexa questions, check availability, review options, and complete a transaction through conversation on Echo Show devices. There are no redirects, no separate checkout, and no app switching. The format sits within Amazon's broader agentic advertising suite, which also includes Creative Agent for producing ads quickly, Ads Agent for automating campaign setup, and an Amazon MCP server that connects external AI agents to the Amazon Ads API without custom coding.

What it signals: Agentic Ads collapse the distance between discovery and purchase to zero, which is the direction performance marketing has steadily been moving. The format's reach is currently limited by Alexa+'s installed base, which remains modest compared to mobile, but the underlying architecture matters more than the launch numbers. If a shopper can go from curiosity to confirmed order inside a single voice exchange, the traditional funnel no longer supports what’s happening. Brands that can structure offers for conversational completion, rather than click-through, may have an edge as the format scales.

📖 Read more: Amazon Ads

A tariff threat that reaches straight into ad budgets

On June 26, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose immediate 100% tariffs on all goods from any country that implements a digital services tax on American technology companies. he threat escalates pressure on European nations ahead of a July 4 deadline, when the EU and U.S. are set to begin implementing a broader trade agreement capping most EU export tariffs at 15%. In a post on Truth Social, Trump named European countries as the primary targets, stating the tariff would supersede any existing trade deals. Digital services taxes, which levy charges on the gross revenues of U.S. tech companies operating in a given country without a physical presence, are already in place or under active consideration across roughly half of all European OECD members. Affected companies would include Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. The threat follows a similar warning Trump issued in August 2025 and mirrors his successful 2024 pressure campaign that led Canada to rescind its own digital services tax during trade negotiations.

What it signals: For global marketing and ad tech ecosystems, a 100% tariff threat tied to digital revenue taxes is not abstract. Meta, Google, and Amazon underpin much of the digital advertising infrastructure in European markets. Any retaliatory escalation that disrupts those platforms' operations or pricing in Europe ripples directly into media buying, campaign delivery, and measurement for brands running cross-border campaigns. The Trump administration has now twice demonstrated willingness to use trade policy as a lever against digital regulation, which means international ad strategy increasingly requires a geopolitical risk layer.

📖 Read more: BBC

Adobe just bought the tool professionals already use

Adobe announced a definitive agreement to acquire Topaz Labs, an AI company specializing in video and image enhancement technology. Used by 20 of the world's 50 largest companies, Topaz Labs' product suite includes tools for upscaling, sharpening, stabilization, frame interpolation, noise removal, and footage restoration. Its Emmy Award-winning AI technology has been used across professional filmmaking, documentary restoration, and archival workflows. The acquisition brings two specific capabilities into Adobe's stack: enhancement models that work across hybrid workflows combining real-world footage with AI-generated content, and Topaz Labs' proprietary Neurostream technology, which lets large AI models run locally on consumer devices rather than requiring cloud processing. Topaz Labs CEO Eric Yang will continue leading the team after the deal closes, which is expected in the second half of 2026. Standalone Topaz products will remain available through the company's own website.

What it signals: Adobe is not buying an audience here so much as a capability it hasn't built in-house. As creative workflows increasingly blend traditionally captured footage with AI-generated content, the ability to enhance, restore, and upscale existing material at professional quality becomes more foundational than optional. For the broader creative software market, the acquisition signals that the next phase of AI integration may not be about generation alone. Rather, the focus is more centered on quality control, restoration, and the hybrid pipelines that connect human-shot content with AI-assisted output.

📖 Read more: Adobe

The government decided who gets the most powerful AI

The U.S. government lifted its export block on Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 model on June 26, allowing limited deployment to more than 100 U.S. institutions including major companies and government agencies. The move comes after two weeks of daily negotiations between Anthropic and the Commerce Department. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed the decision in a letter to Anthropic, stating that appropriate safeguards were in place for trusted partners to access Mythos 5. The model was blocked earlier in June over its ability to find and exploit software vulnerabilities, which the government flagged as a national security risk. Anthropic disputed that characterization, calling it a narrow jailbreak that added no real capability beyond what other public models already offer. The partial lift covers Mythos 5 but not Fable 5, a less powerful Mythos-tier model that was briefly available for general consumer use before the block. Negotiations over restoring Fable access were ongoing at the time of the announcement.

What it signals: The Mythos situation could mark the start of a new regulatory approach in which the U.S. government controls the release of frontier AI models, mainly through direct negotiation with the labs themselves. For brands and enterprises that have built workflows around frontier AI access, the episode is a reminder that availability is not purely a commercial decision. The framework being built here will likely shape how the most powerful AI tools reach the market. What is being decided isn’t just who gets Mythos but who makes those decisions moving forward.

📖 Read more: CNN

Editors Choice 👀

🏆 Columbia Sportswear's flat-earther challenge "Expedition Impossible" won the Brand Experience Grand Prix. 📖 Read more: Ad Age

📺 Streaming is quietly becoming the ad-supported medium it swore it would never be. 📖 Read more: The Verge

🎤 Sir John Hegarty asked Cannes if advertising is "all f*cked," then answered his own question. 📖 Read more: LBB

🤖 Brands are now fighting to be recommended by ChatGPT, not just ranked by Google. 📖 Read more: The New York Times

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Vol 133. Skims: Campus rush 🏫

Case Studied — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Building around rush

College students have been a target demographic for consumer brands for decades.

Red Bull built an entire campus rep program around late-night study sessions. Victoria's Secret Pink ran a long-standing campus ambassador program built on giveaways and events. And recently, Skims launched a clothing line designed for college students during a very specific moment of the school year.

This week, Case Studied explores how Skims joined the RushTok craze.

The Brief

Skims launched in 2019 as a shapewear brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede. Since then, it's added an apparel line and posted revenue growth of 438% over three years.

Like many other consumer brands, Skims recently began focusing more on college Greek life.

Why? One word: RushTok.

This realm of TikTok content is specifically focused on sorority recruitment. It’s been gaining in popularity over the past few years as students began posting their outfits, rush updates, and bid day results. It’s expanded to the point where some students on RushTok have over one million followers.

With the rise of RushTok, Sorority recruitment became a reliable tentpole moment on the marketing calendar for certain brands. The typical playbook involves influencer partnerships and product tie-ins. Poppi sent customized cans to sorority chapters. Princess Polly designed "rush-ready" outfits paired with discount codes. And Skims decided to build an entire product line around it.

The Execution

Skims designed an apparel line called the Campus Collection with college life and younger generations in mind. It included dorm-ready basics like camis, baby tees, zip-up hoodies, polo sweatshirts, and sweatpants.

For the launch, though, the brand didn’t follow the usual playbook of seeding products to established influencers. Instead, it partnered with actual college students.

Skims cast more than a dozen student models across multiple universities including University of Alabama, San Diego State, Duke, Northeastern, USC, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Many of the students that were cast had sorority affiliations prominently listed in their social media bios, keeping the campaign closely tied to Greek life culture.

Three of the featured students from University of Alabama had become recognizable RushTok faces during Bama Rush, with a combined TikTok following of more than 300,000.

The Campus Collection dropped on social media just as upperclassmen returned to begin preparing for rush and the rest of the campus was returning for the start of the school year.

The Results

Specific campaign metrics haven't been made public but the Campus Collection launch campaign generated coverage across fashion and marketing media. Outlets including Inc. and Vogue Business pointed to it as a notable example of how brands are engaging with RushTok.

The broader RushTok ecosystem that Skims tapped into with the Campus Collection is substantial. Content tied to Bama Rush alone generated an estimated five billion views across platforms in 2025. The RushTok hashtag has accumulated more than 111 million posts on TikTok. And influencer posts tied to rush season have seen 79 million global impressions in comparable campaigns.

The Takeaways

1) Cast for cultural credibility.

Skims led its launch campaign with students who were already embedded in the cultural moment it was entering. This helped create a more organic feel to the partnerships and signaled that Skims understood the Greek life culture, not just the audience.

When entering a cultural space your brand isn’t already in, look for voices that are native to it. Micro influencers who are genuinely inside the world you're trying to reach can lend a different kind of authenticity than paid influencer placements. It can help your brand look less like a sponsor and more like a natural partner.

2) Be intentional about campaign timing.

RushTok arrives on a predictable schedule, and it happens to coincide with the back-to-school shopping season when college students are already primed to buy new wardrobes and accessories. Launching into that window meant Skims was showing up at the exact time its target customer was most likely to be paying attention.

If your brand has a natural connection to a seasonal or recurring cultural moment, build your campaign calendar around it early. The cultural tailwind that comes from showing up at the right time is difficult to manufacture after the fact. And showing up late, or outside the window entirely, can make even a well-executed campaign feel like an afterthought.

3) Make products for the moment.

Most of the brands that joined in on RushTok seeded existing products to creators. Skims took it a step further and actually created a product line specifically suited to the moment. That gave them the creative freedom to build something specifically for RushTok, rather than retrofitting existing products for it.

When a cultural moment becomes big enough to market around, it's worth asking whether you can go beyond just a campaign. If the tentpole reflects a genuine use case for your brand, there may be an opportunity to develop a product that speaks directly to it.

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Biggest moves in marketing this week

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:58:01 +0000

Case Studied Brief
World Cup wins, media consolidation, and AI that means business

This week's Brief covers brands cashing in on the beautiful game, a media landscape reshaping itself through major deals, and an AI industry that's moved from pilot to production.

Verizon made a Calvin Klein-esq ad for a phone plan. Heinz turned a taped-over bottle into a campaign. And Etsy took aim at Prime Day with 5,000 guys named Jeff.

PMC swallowed Vox Media to become the world's largest digital publisher, senators moved to block the biggest media merger in years, and Fox became the first major upfront presenter to close negotiations.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Verizon

The least telecom-looking telecom ad

Verizon released a second spot for its Simplicity Plan, this one a sharp creative departure from the Dr. Evil and Yo soy Betty, la fea campaigns running simultaneously. Titled "Simplicity is Sexy," the one-minute black-and-white film stars Stephen Kalyn aka the breakout lead of Prime Video's hit hockey romance series Off Campus. It was directed by Bardia Zeinali, the same director behind Calvin Klein's “Deal With It” campaign. Shot on film with Kalyn dancing and moving to "Hey Hey What Can I Do" by Led Zeppelin, the spot is a deliberate riff on iconic Calvin Klein advertising, leaning into the brand language of luxury fashion rather than telecom. Verizon CMO Leslie Berland described the creative intent as blending "nostalgia with current zeitgeist." The spot sits alongside Verizon's broader Simplicity Plan launch, which also features a campaign with Connor Storrie, the lead of another Prime Video series, Heated Rivalry, directed by Nia DaCosta.

Why it stood out: Running three visually and tonally distinct campaigns for a single product launch is an unusual move. But this latest installment of Verizon’s campaign is arguably the most distinctive of the three. The casting marks Kalyn’s first major brand deal following his Off Campus's debut, which positions Verizon differently than an established celebrity would. Between Kalyn’s casting and the ad’s luxury fashion aesthetic, Simplicity is Sexy stands out from the typical creative approach seen in telecom.

📖 Read more: The Hollywood Reporter

Heinz

Even censored, the label still wins

During the FIFA World Cup 2026, strict stadium sponsorship rules forced staff to tape over non-official brand labels, including Heinz ketchup bottles. Photos of the covered bottles soon circulated online, with fans noting that even completely obscured, the shape was still recognizable. Heinz Canada responded with an "Unofficial Stadium Ketchup" limited-edition bottle that intentionally mimics the taped-over look. Fans in Toronto can get the censored bottles and pocket-sized packets, while fans across Canada can join the conversation on Heinz's Instagram. Developed with Zeno Group Canada, the activation is deliberately lo-fi in execution, matching the energy of the original viral moment.

Why it stood out: Heinz didn't create this moment but it moved quickly to build on it. The decision to lean into being covered up, rather than fighting it, proved to be a reactive marketing win for the brand. And the fact that the bottle shape is distinctive enough to carry the joke without any explanation says a lot about Heinz’s brand equity.

📖 Read more: LBBOnline

Etsy

Meet the Jeffs who actually make things

Etsy launched "Shop Other Jeffs," a campaign timed to Prime Day that spotlights the more than 5,000 sellers named Jeff on its platform—woodworkers, ceramicists, lighting designers—as a stand-in for its nearly 6 million independent sellers. The campaign rolls out across broadcast TV, paid social on YouTube and TikTok, out-of-home in New York, Seattle and Washington D.C., and a full site and app takeover. It's also backed by limited-edition "Shop Other Jeffs" merchandise that’s designed and sold exclusively by actual Etsy sellers. The campaign is positioned as the next chapter in Etsy's "Celebrate Being Human" brand platform. Three featured sellers anchor the campaign's storytelling: Jeff Brown of Jeff Brown Pottery, who’s been making pottery by hand since 1977; Jeff Zabriskie of LUXGEN, who learned woodworking from his father; and Jeff Risinger of BootsNGus, who turned lamp-making into a business that ships handcrafted lighting fixtures around the world.

Why it stood out: The campaign name implies its comparison without ever making it directly. The decision to sell campaign merchandise through Etsy sellers themselves helps unify the message and the method. And spotlighting sellers' names, backstories, and products (which are shoppable directly from the campaign page) helps further strengthen the campaign’s narrative.

📖 Read more: Etsy \ Shop Other Jeffs

Industry news 🤝

PMC swallows Vox and rewrites digital publishing

Penske Media Corporation acquired the remaining brands of Vox Media—including The Verge, Eater, SB Nation, Thrillist, PopSugar, The Dodo, and Punch—along with Vox's premium ad marketplace Concert and its first-party data platform Forte. The deal makes PMC the world's largest digital publisher. To house the combined portfolio, PMC created a new subsidiary called PMX, which now spans more than 25 titles including Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Rolling Stone, Billboard, WWD, Robb Report, IndieWire, Sportico and all newly acquired Vox brands. Ryan Pauley, who served as president of Vox Media, will join PMC as president of PMX, reporting to PMC chairman and CEO Jay Penske and PMC president Craig Perreault. The deal follows the earlier sale of New York magazine, Vox.com, and the Vox Media Podcast Network to James Murdoch's Lupa Systems, which formally concluded the multiyear breakup of Vox Media as a standalone entity. PMC was already Vox Media's largest shareholder before the transaction, having taken a 20% stake in 2023. The combined PMX portfolio now reaches hundreds of millions of people monthly and produces more than 300 live events per year.

What it signals: Media consolidation at the publisher level is accelerating and owning the full commercial stack is a big part of it. PMC's acquisition of Forte may be as consequential as the editorial brands it came with. As cookies continue their slow decline and advertisers increasingly demand verified first-party audience relationships, owning that infrastructure gives PMX a serious commercial advantage.

📖 Read more: Variety

MarTech moves 🤖

Disney and Adobe are building theme parks with AI

Adobe and Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development announced a collaboration to bring Adobe Firefly Foundry into the Imagineers' design and pre-production pipeline. Firefly Foundry enables businesses to work directly with Adobe to create custom generative AI models trained on their own proprietary assets. In this case, Imagineering's own design catalog spans decades of franchise IP. Three initial workflows are in development: a sketch-to-image tool that turns rough hand-drawn concepts into polished 2D concept art, a custom image model generating on-brand assets across franchises including Frozen, Moana, Cars, and Mickey & Friends, and a 3D modeling capability that converts 2D renderings into construction-ready prototypes for engineering teams. The models are built on top of Adobe's commercially responsible Firefly foundation models rather than scraped internet data, which addresses enterprise concerns around IP fidelity and brand consistency. Adobe's partnership with Imagineering extends a decades-long relationship with the media and entertainment industry. The company has received multiple Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievement.

What it signals: This partnership signals how the world's most IP-rich creative organizations are approaching generative AI as a bespoke infrastructure investment. By training models on Imagineering's own catalog rather than public internet data, the organizations are making the case that custom, IP-safe generative AI is an enterprise-grade path forward. As Disney grows its footprint across parks, hotels, and cruises, the ability to iterate at speed without sacrificing creative standards could provide a serious advantage.

📖 Read more: Adobe Newsroom | The Walt Disney Company

Broadcast radio finally gets digital targeting

iHeartMedia unveiled AudioGraph, a suite of advertising capabilities that brings digital-like targeting, identity-based planning, and outcome-based attribution to broadcast radio. Built on technology from Triton Digital, AudioGraph uses a privacy-safe identity spine, enriched audience attributes from TransUnion data, and proprietary ID-level listening models to enable planning and measurement at the listener level while activating campaigns at broadcast scale. The gap AudioGraph closes is significant: broadcast radio accounts for 64% of audio consumption in the US and reaches more than 278 million consumers monthly through iHeartMedia's stations alone. Yet until now, it lacked the targeting and measurement infrastructure available in digital media. Early results show that campaigns planned and measured using AudioGraph IDs deliver a KPI outcome 75% higher than traditional demographic-based plans, per iHeartMedia. The platform supports direct DSP connectivity and is built to be interoperable with existing measurement partners including Magellan AI, PlaceIQ, and GroundTruth. Triton Digital is also positioning AudioGraph as an industry-wide solution, with plans to expand capabilities across the broader broadcast radio landscape in the US and globally in 2027.

What it signals: Broadcast radio has historically carried massive reach with limited measurement precision. AudioGraph addresses that gap and, in doing so, makes radio more directly competitive with digital and podcast inventory in a unified planning environment. For brands looking for authenticated, fraud-resistant reach at scale, a measurable broadcast radio product with DSP connectivity gives media planners a reason to revisit the format.

📖 Read more: iHeartMedia

ChatGPT ads just got a lower barrier to entry

StackAdapt dropped its minimum spend commitment for advertisers running ads inside ChatGPT through its self-serve model, eliminating the $50,000 floor it set when it launched its ChatGPT pilot in April. The move came after StackAdapt opened its self-serve offering to the broader market in May, with chief revenue officer Christian Gerron confirming to Adweek that the platform now operates with no minimums for the format. The timing here is notable: rival ad tech firm Criteo moved in parallel, cutting its own ChatGPT ad threshold from $50,000 down to $10,000 earlier in June. Criteo’s decision was a step in the same direction but not as aggressive as StackAdapt's outright elimination of the floor. The competing moves reflect intensifying rivalry among DSPs and ad tech platforms to establish early footholds in OpenAI's emerging ad business.

What it signals: The race to own the buy-side infrastructure for AI-native ad placements is underway, and dropping spend minimums indicates that platforms are prioritizing market share over margin in the early land-grab phase. As AI assistants become a primary discovery surface for consumers, the platforms that establish deep advertiser relationships now will have a structural advantage when that inventory matures. The gap between StackAdapt's no-floor approach and Criteo's $10,000 threshold also reflects that there's not a settled consensus yet on the pricing for this new format.

📖 Read more: Adweek

Nexxen opens its ad platform to external AI agents

Nexxen announced the next evolution of its nexAI platform, adding interoperability capabilities that allow external AI agents to connect directly to its advertising platform via open protocols including Model Context Protocol and Agent-to-Agent. This makes it one of the first ad tech platforms to support both in-platform AI usage and external agent integration simultaneously. In practice, the update means Nexxen customers can integrate the platform's data, planning, and activation capabilities into their own tools and AI workflows. New agent-powered workflows enable teams to run automated pre-launch campaign checks, surface spend recommendations inside their own planning tools, and query campaign performance in plain language through whichever AI assistant their team prefers. The announcement positions Nexxen's nexAI as what the company describes as an "open AI operating system" spanning its DSP, SSP, and DMP, with human-governed guardrails built in at each stage.

What it signals: Interoperability is becoming a new competitive advantage in ad tech. As agencies increasingly build in-house AI systems for media buying and optimization, ad tech vendors that open up via standard protocols will be more attractive to sophisticated buyers than closed systems. It's also a signal that media buying may become a workflow that AI agents execute end-to-end, with humans setting strategy and guardrails rather than executing individual transactions.

📖 Read more: Nexxen

Editors Choice 👀

🏀 Kalshi and Polymarket used the Knicks' NBA Finals run as a live street-marketing battleground 📖 Read more: NYT

🎭 Publicis coined "AI pitch-maxxing" to call out agencies overselling AI capabilities to win business. 📖 Read more: Adweek

📹 MrBeast became the first creator to hit 500 million YouTube subscribers, reaching 1.3 billion viewers quarterly. 📖 Read more: Adweek

🦁 At Cannes Lions this year, AI hype is giving way to practical, results-focused conversations. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

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Vol 132. Claude: Ads about ads 📺

Case Studied — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Raising the question

Some of the most memorable brand campaigns are about saying something, not selling something.

We saw this in 2004 when Dove launched its long-running Real Beauty campaign that challenged the beauty industry’s unrealistic, harmful depictions of women and girls. In 2011, Patagonia took out a full-page ad in the New York Times on Black Friday with the headline "Don't Buy This Jacket." And more recently, we saw Anthropic make a statement about the convergence of AI and advertising.

This week, Case Studied explores how Anthropic questioned the role of advertising in AI during its Super Bowl debut.

The Brief

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, Anthropic positioned Claude differently from its competitors. It frames it as less of a productivity tool and more of a thinking partner. This is clearly shown in its "Keep Thinking" platform, which focuses on the idea that Claude is a tool to expand human thinking rather than replace it.

Fast forward to 2026 and the AI landscape was looking significantly more crowded and more commercial. ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI, announced plans to introduce advertising into its product. That prompted real conversations across industries about the future of AI and the attention economy.

Among these conversations, Anthropic saw an opportunity to put Claude's brand philosophy front and center and draw a clear line between Claude and its competition. And it decided to do so on one of the largest advertising stages.

The Execution

Anthropic partnered with Mother on its first Super Bowl campaign for Claude called "A Time and a Place." It included a series of four darkly comedic films that extended the brand’s "Keep Thinking" platform.

The central idea was to question whether advertising belongs in AI chats. Directed by Jeff Low of Biscuit Filmworks, the spots depicted people turning to AI for help with genuinely personal questions. In response, they receive answers…and ads.

In one film where an inquirer asks “Can I get a six pack quickly”, he receives an ad for insoles that add vertical height to help “short kings stand tall.” In another film, a man asking, "How can I communicate better with my mom?" receives an ad for a dating app that matches “sensitive cubs and roaring cougars.” In the final frame of all the films, the end card says “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”

Much of the film’s humor came from how obviously wrong it felt once you saw it played out. Mother CCO Felix Richter noted, "All the time, we see proof that advertising works brilliantly in the right context. We're using advertising's biggest stage to ask a simple question: does it belong everywhere? So we made funny ads about how unfunny it would be."

It’s worth noting the role Claude played in the campaign. The chatbot assisted with research, brief development, and keeping a complex production on track. Everything else was handled by human beings at Mother and Anthropic.

The Results

Anthropic’s Super Bowl campaign resonated widely. Within days of airing, "A Time and a Place" won the Super Clio for Creative Excellence in Super Bowl Advertising, a recognition launched by The Clios alongside WPP's Rob Reilly to identify the standout creative work from the Big Game each year. The pregame and in-game spot alone reached 120 million viewers.

Nicole Purcell, CEO of The Clios, said of the campaign: "It's refreshing to see a brand like Anthropic take bold risks with its product messaging in their first spot in the big game. I hope it encourages more newcomers to green light big ideas."

The Takeaways

1) Get ahead of industry shifts.

When OpenAI announced plans to bring advertising into ChatGPT, Anthropic didn't wait to see how the story would unfold. They used the moment to define their position before the narrative could be defined for them. And the Super Bowl helped give that statement maximum visibility.

When your industry is undergoing a significant shift, there's an advantage to being the first brand to say something meaningful about it. Brands that plant a flag early can shape how the conversation develops. Those that wait often end up reacting to someone else's framing.

2) Turn a competitor's move into your moment.

Anthropic didn't need to name OpenAI to make their point here. By building a campaign around Claude’s own brand philosophy, they made a competitor's announcement work in their favor. And they did it in a way that didn’t come across as a direct attack.

When a competitor makes a move that cuts against your brand values, consider whether it’s worth responding. Is there an opportunity to reinforce what your brand stands for? If so, offering that contrast could serve your brand well.

3) Fuel creative strategy with brand philosophy.

Anthropic led with its brand's position on AI and advertising but humor was close in tow. On a Super Bowl stage, many bet on a feel-good story with broad appeal. Leading with a brand philosophy is the riskier move but humor helped that risk pay off.

If your brand has a clear point of view worth broadcasting, consider what makes it palatable at scale. Oftentimes, the tricky part of leading with philosophy is getting your audience to meet you there. Find a way to make your message entertaining so folks have a reason to engage.

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This week's boldest moves in marketing

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
New York wins, Fox buys Roku, and the White House pulls Mythos

This week's Brief covers a brand moment covering a historic championship, a string of major industry deals, and government intervention with AI.

Nike and Josh Safdie bottled 53 years of Knicks heartbreak into 39 seconds. Tootsie Roll blended nostalgia with a new face. And Timothée Chalamet became the spokesperson of a prediction market that spent all awards season trading his odds.

Meanwhile, Fox agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion, Anthropic was forced to pull its newest models offline by government directive, and EA turned its sports games into a formal media buy.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Nike

New York finally exhales

With the Knicks winning their first NBA championship in 53 years, Nike dropped a 39-second spot within minutes of the final buzzer. Created by Wieden+Kennedy and directed by filmmaker Josh Safdie (a lifelong Knicks fan who was courtside for much of the playoffs), the film follows a young fan in a Jalen Brunson jersey sprinting through the streets of Manhattan. He arrives at Madison Square Garden to find crowds already spilling outside and celebrating the championship win. Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" plays throughout, and Nike's caption read, "Sleep well, NY." Jordan Brand also released a companion video featuring Spike Lee in character as Mars Blackmon from the film She’s Gotta Have It. Blackmon is shown calling Michael Jordan to share the news of the Knicks win.

Why it stood out: The turnaround time on this ad went a long way in making it feel special. But the casting also does a lot of leg work. Safdie's signature style made the video feel less like an ad and more like a document of the moment. For marketers, it’s a reminder of how infrastructure can pay off in real-time marketing efforts.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Tootsie Roll

Mr. Owl gets a sidekick

Tootsie Roll Industries is back with a follow-up to last year's restored "How Many Licks" spot. This time, it introduced a new animated character alongside the iconic Mr. Owl: a playful, color-changing chameleon who showcases the brand's flavor lineup. Created by the Chicago-based indie agency Schafer Condon Carter with animation by Calabash, the new ad maintains the key elements of the original “How Many Licks” commercial. It’s got the same illustration style, the same announcer voiceover, and the same whimsical pacing. It even closes with the familiar line, "The world may never know." This latest spot marks the first time Mr. Owl has ever been seen eating a Tootsie Roll rather than a Tootsie Pop. It could be a signal about what the brand is focusing on in this new chapter.

Why it stood out: Brand mascots are an underused asset in the modern era that’s focused so much on influencer partnerships. Tootsie Roll is making a case for why they can still work. Rather than rebooting Mr. Owl or modernizing him, their team simply built around him. Adding this new chameleon character helps give the brand a narrative anchor to showcase its broader product range without abandoning the recognition it’s built over decades with Mr. Owl.

📖 Read more: LBB Online

Kalshi

Timothée Chalamet, professional spokesperson

The prediction market platform Kalshi named Timothée Chalamet as its first Hollywood brand face in a campaign released June 10. The ad, directed by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren, is deliberately surreal. Chalamet name-drops Kalshi to his dentist mid-procedure, bangs his head on the ceiling while beefing with upstairs neighbors, and tests keyboards at a Guitar Center. "KALSHI" is shown flashing across the screen after each segment. At no point does the ad explain what Kalshi actually does. The partnership has an interesting internal logic to it: during the 2026 awards season, Chalamet was Kalshi's most-traded entertainment figure. His Best Actor odds swung from 68 cents down to 51 cents as the race tightened before Michael B. Jordan ultimately won for Sinners.

Why it stood out: Celebrity endorsements for financial products are nothing new, but this one sits in new territory. Kalshi operates in the gray zone between finance and gambling, and Chalamet's fanbase skews young and parasocially invested. The backlash to their partnership was swift and loud, with fans calling Chalamet a "sellout" and flooding his comments with Obi-Wan Kenobi GIFs. But controversy aside, the casting logic is coherent. Few celebrities have been as literally quantified by a brand before signing with it.

📖 Read more: GQ

Smartphone Free Childhood

Your kid's algorithm, on VHS

As the UK government debates raising the minimum age for social media to 16, the grassroots movement Smartphone Free Childhood released a satirical film that makes its case. Created pro bono by Arts & Sciences London and directed by David Dearlove, the spot is set inside a Blockbuster-style video store where a father and his two kids browse for a rental. The employee's recommendations quickly reveal themselves to be thinly veiled versions of what children encounter online daily: content promoting misogyny, bullying, and predatory behavior. The film arrives as the UK government's consultation on raising the social media age limit recently closed, with ministers expected to announce next steps within weeks.

Why it stood out: With this spot, Smartphone Free Childhood showcased a setting where adults have clear instincts about what's appropriate. That helped reframe a complex policy conversation into something more obvious. It’s worth noting that the film made no reference to the many statistics on how social media impacts children, and instead opted to let the narrative do the heavy lifting. The pro bono production also indicates that the cause and the creative brief were weighty enough to attract serious talent without any payout.

📖 Read more: LBB Online

Industry news 🤝

Fox buys Roku for $22 billion

Fox Corporation announced that it’s acquiring Roku in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $22 billion or $160 per share. The transaction pairs Fox's live content portfolio—including sports, news, and the Tubi streaming service—with Roku's connected TV platform. The deal would make the combined company the third-largest player in US television by share of viewing, and one of the largest streaming businesses in the country. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch called it a "defining moment" for the company, framing it as a natural extension of a decade-long strategy. The acquisition follows Fox's 2020 pickup of Tubi and continues what Murdoch described as a disciplined approach to capital allocation. The company says it will maintain its investment-grade balance sheet and continue its shareholder return program uninterrupted. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approval. Fox has committed to continuing to operate Roku as a partner-friendly platform going forward.

What it signals: This can be read as a calculated bet from Fox that owning distribution platforms is a more defensible position than competing purely on programming. The combination of Tubi's ad-supported streaming with Roku's first-party data and 100+ million household reach gives the combined company a competitive position in the battle for connected TV ad dollars. It also puts pressure on legacy broadcasters without a direct-to-consumer pipe of their own. Many folks across the advertising industry are likely wondering what a vertically integrated Fox-Roku looks like as a media buy.

📖 Read more: Fox Corporation | Roku

Omnicom loses HP after 17 years

HP handed its global media account to Publicis Media, ending a 17-year partnership with Omnicom Media Group. The news follows a closed pitch between the two networks that concluded earlier this spring. Omnicom's PHD first won the business back in 2009, when it took home HP's global traditional media duties. Then it added digital media to its remit in 2017 and retained the account again in 2024 while HP managed a significant portion of its programmatic advertising in-house. The account is estimated to be worth around $250 million. HP spent $194 million on media globally in 2023, with 69% of that invested in digital channels, according to COMvergence data. The shift comes as HP has been increasingly focused on promoting its subscription services and leaning into digital-forward media strategies, raising questions about how much of the scope Publicis is inheriting versus how much remains managed internally.

What it signals: Seventeen years is a long time to hold any account and losing one of this scale is a significant blow to Omnicom. It comes at a moment when the holding company is navigating its own ongoing merger situation with IPG. For Publicis, it's the kind of win that reinforces its momentum in global media consolidation and signals continued strength in pitching integrated, tech-forward media solutions to major enterprise clients. A broader pattern to watch is what the in-house dynamic looks like going forward. Publicis could be stepping into a true full-service media remit or inheriting a more defined and bounded scope. Either way, the account shift is a reminder that longevity alone doesn't insulate a relationship from a competitive review.

📖 Read more: Adweek

CAA and TPG are building a creator holding company

CAA and TPG's Integrated Media Company launched Compound Creative Holdings, a $250 million holding company. It was built to acquire, operate, and grow businesses led by YouTubers and other creators. The venture will be led by Tucker Brown, a former partner at CAA Evolution with more than 15 years of experience advising entertainment, sports, and media companies. CAA and IMC will contribute combined resources to support the company, which will operate independently from CAA's existing creator representation business. The goal, as framed by CAA co-chairman Kevin Huvane, is to partner with creators who are already building full-fledged media companies and provide them with the capital architecture and operational infrastructure to scale.

What it signals: The talent agency-to-holding company evolution has been building for years. But a $250 million war chest from two institutions with CAA's creative relationships and TPG's capital infrastructure is a serious structural bet. It's a recognition that many valuable creator businesses have outgrown influencer deal-making. Rather than just brand partnerships, they now need M&A support, operational scaffolding, and long-term capital. It’s worth watching if this model attracts imitators quickly, as the creator economy matures.

📖 Read more: Variety

AI search is about to be a $100 billion business

WPP Media's midyear global ad spend forecast projects that generative search advertising revenue will surpass $100 billion by 2030, making it the fastest advertising channel to reach that milestone in history. This is also the first year WPP Media has broken out generative search as its own standalone category, defining it as advertising served within AI-mediated discovery environments including Google AI Overviews and standalone conversational AI products like ChatGPT. For 2026, generative search ad revenue is projected to reach $5.1 billion, or roughly 0.4% of total global ad revenue, growing at a compound annual rate of nearly 100% over the next five years. Overall, global ad revenue is expected to grow 8.9% this year, boosted by the FIFA World Cup, major sporting events, and continued AI investment acting as a countervailing force against geopolitical headwinds.

What it signals: The speed of AI search’s trajectory is worth paying attention to. Search advertising took decades to become a dominant channel. Generative search is projected to reach the same $100 billion threshold in roughly five years. The implication is that brands and agencies need to start treating AI agents and chatbots as media surfaces now, before the monetization infrastructure fully catches up. WPP Media uses a gold rush analogy in the report, claiming the picks and shovels moment is already here.

📖 Read more: Adweek

MarTech moves 🤖

The White House pulled Anthropic's newest models offline

On June 12, at 5:21 p.m. ET, Anthropic received a letter from the Commerce Department, signed by Secretary Howard Lutnick. It ordered the company to suspend all access to its two newest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for any foreign national, including Anthropic's own foreign-national employees. Because Anthropic said it had no way to reliably separate foreign nationals from other users in real time, the company pulled both models entirely for all customers worldwide to ensure compliance. The directive cited national security authorities but did not, according to Anthropic's public statement, provide specific details of its concern. The company's understanding was that the government believed it had become aware of a method of jailbreaking Fable 5. Anthropic reviewed what it understood to be the basis for the directive and said the capability demonstrated was already widely available from other publicly deployed models, including OpenAI's GPT-5.5. White House AI adviser David Sacks offered a competing account on X, stating that a trusted partner had identified a jailbreak in Fable 5's guardrails and that Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei had refused to fix the issue or withdraw the model before the export control was issued. The dispute arrives as Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO. It is also separately engaged in ongoing litigation with the Trump administration stemming from an earlier Pentagon blacklisting dispute, in which the company was designated a "supply chain risk" after refusing to allow autonomous weapons use of its models.

What it signals: This episode represents a significant government intervention in commercial AI deployment, and the two accounts of what happened are sharply at odds. Anthropic maintains the jailbreak was narrow, non-universal, and no worse than what other frontier models already allow. It also stated that applying this standard across the industry would effectively halt all new model deployments. Meanwhile, the White House says Anthropic prioritized commercial access over safety and was given the option to fix the issue before the directive was issued. The situation makes clear that the government now has both the willingness and the legal tools to pull a frontier AI model from the market on short notice and the terms of that power are being contested in real time.

📖 Read more: Washington Post | Anthropic

EA turned video games into a media buy

Electronic Arts launched its first formal advertising platform, opening up in-game inventory across EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, and College Football 26 as targeted, measurable media. Built on a proprietary ad server and SDK designed for EA's Frostbite game engine, the platform allows brands to serve placements that mirror the surfaces seen during real sporting events: stadium ad boards, scoreboards, jumbotrons, and broadcast-style overlays. They’re all dynamically served within the 3D game environment and measured against IAB impression standards. Targeting at launch is available by geography and flight date. EA is also pairing the platform with an EA Sports Official Partner Program, granting brands official designations and access to tentpole franchise moments like cover reveals, player ratings reveals, and the Madden Bowl during Super Bowl week. Early partners include Visa, Lowe's, Red Bull, Xfinity, Gemini, and Mountain Dew.

What it signals: The pitch EA is making to brands is fundamentally an attention argument: gaming audiences are large, concurrent, and deeply focused in a way that live broadcast viewers increasingly are not. By formalizing what was previously a patchwork of one-off sponsorship deals into a self-serve, data-driven media platform, EA is positioning itself as a legitimate channel alongside television and social. The question now is whether media planners start treating in-game inventory as a standard line item, or whether it stays in the experiential silos where it’s historically lived.

📖 Read more: Adweek

Disney, Adobe, and the NYT formed an AI accountability coalition

A new cross-industry coalition called the Alliance for Responsible Innovation in the Arts & Media (ARIAM) launched, bringing together Disney, Adobe, the New York Times, Condé Nast, the Financial Times, ITV, BBC, Cambridge University Press, and several other major content and media organizations. They coalesce under a shared framework for responsible AI development. The group is led by Victoria Furniss, a former Netflix executive who held legal and public policy roles at the streamer for nearly nine years before founding The Birdella Group. ARIAM's stated mission is to ensure AI is developed with accountability, transparency, and safety embedded from the start. The coalition is explicitly not anti-AI: Furniss has framed the group's goal as ensuring that responsible innovation is good for society and that AI supports human creativity rather than undermining it. The launch arrives as the entertainment industry has begun reaching fragile equilibrium on the issue, with the DGA, WGA, and SAG-AFTRA each securing AI protections in their most recent contract renewals.

What it signals: When Disney, Adobe, and the New York Times sit at the same table with a shared policy agenda, it's worth paying attention. It signals that the content industry is organizing itself into a coherent lobbying and standards-setting body on AI, rather than responding to developments reactively company by company. The group’s framing around child safety, creator protection, and IP rights is strategic: these are the pressure points where public sentiment and regulatory appetite are most aligned. ARIAM is positioning itself to help shape what responsible AI looks like.

📖 Read more: Deadline

An AI podcast studio is open to the public

Rebel Audio, the AI-powered podcast production platform backed by former Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, moved from invitation-only access into public beta. The Nashville-based startup allows creators to record, edit, and distribute podcasts directly to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. It also offers immediate clip generation for social distribution and allows them to translate content into more than 30 languages using a cloned version of the creator's own voice. The company came out of stealth in March and raised a $4.15 million seed round from investors including Launch Tennessee and Market Square Ventures. The platform was built in partnership with Lattice Partners, an AI consulting firm and product studio. Founder and CEO Jared Gutstadt is launching a companion podcast called "Rebels," with inaugural guests including David Arquette, Don Lemon, Nile Rodgers, Steve Levitan, and Neal Brennan.

What it signals: The podcasting space has been consolidating at the top end for years, with big platforms locking up premium talent through exclusive deals. Rebel Audio is betting in the opposite direction, signaling they believe the next wave of audio growth comes from lowering the production floor. Voice cloning for multilingual translation is a detail worth watching closely. It's a capability that dramatically changes the economics of reaching global audiences. If it works at scale, it makes the question of language-locked content feel suddenly very solvable.

📖 Read more: Variety

Editors Choice 👀

🏳️‍🌈 Corporate Pride sponsorship is quietly declining as brands pull back from public LGBTQ+ allyship. 📖 Read more: Ad Age

🌊 A Peter Thiel-backed startup wants to solve the AI data center power crisis by floating servers at sea. 📖 Read more: Forbes

📺 Mindy Kaling's new Hulu show sold out 13 brand partnerships before its premiere, with a record five in-show integrations. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

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Archives: Vol 18. Insights from Liquid Death’s VP of Marketing

Case Studied Experts — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Meet Greg Fass

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Greg Fass, VP of Marketing at Liquid Death.

Greg’s path to marketing started on a snowboard and took a detour through hip-hop blogs, PR agencies, and a startup that sold underwear by subscription. Today, he’s one of the minds behind Liquid Death’s earned media machine—launching ideas like Tony Hawk skateboards infused with blood and fake voodoo dolls of Steve-O.

Here are the need-to-knows about Greg:

Greg was the second hire at MeUndies, where he helped build the brand voice and handled everything from social to customer service to licensing.
He helped MeUndies secure national attention with campaigns like “Banned on Facebook.”
At Liquid Death, Greg and the marketing team have led a four-year streak of viral hits, churning out one new campaign every month.

Advice and takeaways

1) Be worth sharing—not just for a brand.

Greg and his team don’t aim to make “good branded content,” they aim to make good content, period. “We’re not just competing with other brands. We’re competing with memes, celebrity gossip, and viral TikToks,” he says. “If an idea can’t hold up against the rest of the internet, it’s not good enough.”

Before your next launch, pressure-test your concept like a comedian would test a joke. Is it actually funny—or just funny for a brand? Raise your bar, not just your budget. And consider this: if you weren’t being paid to share this campaign, would you still want to?

2) Let creative people make creative things.

Liquid Death’s creative team isn’t made up of marketers. It’s ex-Adult Swim writers, punk band frontmen, and stand-up comics. “I think when you get people like that into the room to make an ad, it's going to be way funnier than if you had ad people in the room because there isn't all this previous conditioning about what you should or shouldn't do.”

Consider the ways you can bring more creativity into your marketing strategy and your team. Build a space where creators can thrive and make sure leadership actually understands why the work matters. Otherwise, the best ideas can die before they’re born.

3) Keep showing up, but only with the good stuff.

Greg doesn’t believe in posting on social every day. He believes in posting when it’s actually worth it. “We’re quality over quantity,” he says. “If you keep filling the feed with mediocre stuff, your great work won’t stand out.”

Take a critical look at the content you’re putting out and the value it offers. Is it focused on building momentum or offering genuine value? If not, consider how you can change that. One killer campaign a month beats 30 forgettable posts.

Find Your Fit: Vendry connects marketing teams with top-tier creative agencies for brand, experiential, and content work. Brief once, get matched fast, and meet the right partners without endless searching. Book a call with our team and get a $100 Amazon Gift card.

The week's biggest swings in marketing

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
World Cups, a Knicks playoff run, and creepy chrome stalkers

This week's Brief covers brand moments built around live sports, AI news, and industry moves across media and tech.

Nike built a World Cup campaign designed to run the length of the tournament. Apple turned data trackers into characters that physically follow you. And Stella Artois set aside $100,000 to reimburse fans who work from the bar during World Cup matches.

Meanwhile, The Trade Desk lost another executive, NPR hired a YouTube veteran, and OpenAI filed to go public.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Nike

A studio full of football stars, no script

Nike launched "Rip the Script," which the brand describes as its largest football campaign in years. Timed to the 2026 World Cup, the centerpiece is a film set inside a fictional Hollywood mega-studio where Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, and Vini Jr. abandon their scripted roles and play on instinct. Legendary footballers including Eric Cantona, Ronaldinho, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Didier Drogba round out the cast, alongside cameos from LeBron James, Travis Scott, Kim Kardashian, and Channing Tatum. Beyond the film, the campaign includes additional content releases planned throughout the tournament, localized activations across six continents, and retail takeovers in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Nike is also refreshing more than 5,000 retail locations globally during the World Cup.

Why it stood out: Many World Cup campaigns are built around a single launch moment. Nike structured this one to unfold across the full tournament, with subplots seeded in the film (like Kim Kardashian's "soccer mom" character) that were made to be expanded in later content. Treating the World Cup as a content season rather than a one-time campaign flight could give Nike repeated chances to re-enter the conversation as tournament storylines develop.

📖 Read more: Nike Newsroom

OpenAI

An AI ad without the tech speak

OpenAI launched "Time to Fly," a brand campaign for its AI-powered coding tool, Codex. The work was created with agency Alto and directed by Mark Molloy through production company SMUGGLER. The concept came from qualitative research with developers around the world, where one phrase kept surfacing, unprompted, to describe building with Codex: "It feels like flying." The hero film stages that metaphor using large-scale, practical sets built on custom gimbals. The environments physically tilt and move around performers rather than relying on CGI. Alongside the film, OpenAI's in-house creative team produced "Workspaces," an out-of-home photography series. It features seven types of builders and the environments where they work. The campaign follows OpenAI's 2026 Super Bowl spot and builds on the premise that software creation is becoming more accessible to people other than traditional engineers.

Why it stood out: This campaign's central idea came from user research and the finished work used the language developers themselves supplied. The production choice is also worth noting: building physical sets instead of generating imagery for a campaign about AI software reads as a deliberate statement. Whether audiences pick up on that subtext is an open question, but it distinguishes the work from typical tech advertising that leads with product capability.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Apple

They turned data trackers into actual stalkers

Apple launched "Clingers," a global campaign for Safari created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab and directed by Ivan Zacharias through SMUGGLER. The spot personifies online trackers as characters in chrome-colored tracksuits who follow and physically cling to people as they browse the internet on other browsers. When the lead character switches to Safari, the clingers explode. The campaign runs across broadcast, out-of-home, digital display, social, cinema, YouTube, and Apple’s website. It’s one of the brand’s broadest media plans for a privacy-focused campaign to date. It continues Apple’s long-running strategy of using absurdist humor to dramatize data tracking.

Why it stood out: Data tracking is largely invisible to consumers, which makes it a hard subject for advertising. This campaign turns it into a physical experience without relying on technical explanations. The chrome-colored costumes have been widely read as a reference to a competing browser, though the campaign never names one, which keeps the spot in comparative territory without becoming attack advertising.

📖 Read more: Adweek

AB InBev

They made bars the hero

AB InBev launched "Cheers to Bars," a global platform timed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup that positions local bars as the center of the tournament experience. The campaign spans several of the company's brands and regional subsidiaries. It includes an anthem film created with agency GUT, 200,000 watch parties across more than 40 countries, and market-specific activations. In the U.S., AB InBev's Stella Artois is running "Work From Bar," which will reimburse up to $100,000 total for fans 21 and over who watch weekday World Cup matches at their local bar while drinking a Stella Artois or Stella Artois 0.0. In Brazil, Ambev—AB InBev's Brazilian subsidiary—is extending the platform beyond advertising with more than R$100 million in mentoring and financial support for the entrepreneurs who run bars and other points of sale. Two more AB InBev brands, Michelob ULTRA and Budweiser, are serving as official FIFA World Cup beer sponsors, giving the company visibility across multiple brand lines throughout the tournament.

Why it stood out: Sponsor campaigns often center the sport itself, but this one centers the venues where the company's products are sold and consumed. Since the campaign's premise is that bars matter, the R$100 million in direct support for bar owners serves as proof of the message. Meanwhile, the "Work From Bar" mechanic gives people permission and incentive to do something they already want to do.

📖 Read more: AB InBev

Industry news 🤝

The NBA Finals sold out through Game 4 before tip-off

Disney Advertising sold out its NBA Finals ad inventory through Game 4, driven largely by the New York Knicks' first Finals appearance since 1999. The Knicks' playoff run—which included 12 consecutive victories and an all-time-high margin of victory—has generated strong advertiser demand. Of the 88 total advertisers committed to the series, 62 are returning brands, the majority of which increased their spend over last year. Disney also reported first-time sellouts on TikTok Pulse Premiere and Meta Trending Reels tied to the broadcast. Hollywood is buying in as well, with 16 different films purchasing time across the series, including titles scheduled as far out as Thanksgiving. Third-party estimates put last year's Finals at between $250 million and $300 million in total ad revenue. Disney declined to comment on pricing for this year's series.

What it signals: Live sports with genuine narrative stakes continue to draw major advertiser demand at a level few media products match. The Knicks' run has turned this Finals into a cultural event that brands want to be inside. But the outcome on the court matters commercially, too. A shorter series usually means make-goods and lost inventory, while five games is generally break-even territory. Six or seven is where networks and advertisers both come out ahead.

📖 Read more: Deadline

The Trade Desk loses its CRO after 7 months

Anders Mortensen, The Trade Desk's chief revenue officer, is out after seven months on the job. Mortensen joined the programmatic ad company from Google last October. COO Vivek Kundra will absorb the CRO responsibilities in an expanded role. The company confirmed the departure with a statement framing it as a natural part of scaling a global technology company. The exit adds to a turbulent stretch for The Trade Desk: it’s cycled through three CFOs in roughly a year, lost senior executives including chief strategy officer Samantha Jacobson (who has since joined OpenAI), and seen four board members depart. Most recently, the company named Nate Olmstead as its fourth finance chief in under a year, effective July 9. The company's stock is down roughly 70% over the past year, and it faces growing competitive pressure from Amazon's DSP.

What it signals: Mortensen's exit is the latest chapter in a prolonged leadership shakeup at one of adtech's most prominent independent players. Revenue leadership instability has real consequences: client relationships, go-to-market consistency, and advertiser confidence typically run through the CRO seat. With competition intensifying and investors growing impatient, The Trade Desk's ability to stabilize its executive bench is becoming as important to watch as its product roadmap.

📖 Read more: Adweek

NPR bets on a digital-native to lead its content

NPR has named Nadine Zylstra as its new chief content officer, effective July 2026. She previously led original programming at YouTube, served as global head of programming and original content at Pinterest, and spent more than a decade at Sesame Workshop. She takes over from Edith Chapin, who served as interim chief content officer before leaving the organization last fall. Zylstra will oversee more than 600 journalists and storytellers across news, arts, podcasts, and NPR Music. She arrives at a difficult moment for public media: Congress rescinded hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for NPR and PBS. While a federal judge separately ruled that an executive order targeting public media funding violated the First Amendment, the congressional cuts remain in place. NPR has responded by mobilizing listener donations and securing philanthropic commitments, including a $113 million package anchored by an $80 million gift from Connie Ballmer. CEO Katherine Maher has said the organization's path forward runs through digital expansion, including video-first podcasts like Wild Card and Newsmakers.

What it signals: This hire is a statement about where NPR sees its future. Bringing in an executive whose career was built on digital platforms and audience development reflects a bet that distribution, discoverability, and meeting audiences where they already are now matter as much as editorial credibility. Zylstra herself drew parallels between NPR and YouTube, saying both are fundamentally about serving an audience. This could hint at how she may reframe the organization for listeners who don't tune in to linear radio.

📖 Read more: Variety

Netflix enters the World Cup without broadcasting a single game

Netflix is launching FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition, an exclusive interactive soccer game. It’s available starting June 11 across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and more than a dozen other countries. Players can manage any of the 48 nations in the tournament, compete in virtual versions of 16 real-world stadiums, and control any of the 1,248 players in this year’s World Cup. The game also syncs with the tournament in real time. So if a player is injured during a live match, that change is reflected in the game. Consistent with Netflix's broader games offering, there are no ads, in-game purchases, or sponsors. The game launched in limited release on June 4 in Brazil and Germany before its wider rollout. Netflix does not hold English-language broadcast rights to the Men's World Cup (those belong to Fox) but it does hold rights to the 2027 Women's World Cup. Ads president Amy Reinhard has signaled plans to build brand partnerships around that tournament.

What it signals: This is an example of how a platform can build a presence around a marquee sporting event without holding broadcast rights. Netflix isn't competing with Fox for the broadcast but it is competing for time and engagement in the spaces around the matches. The real-time sync mechanics blur the line between passive viewing and active participation. And with Women's World Cup rights already secured for 2027, this launch reads as a proof of concept for what Netflix's sports strategy could look like at scale.

📖 Read more: Adweek

MarTech moves 🤖

OpenAI filed confidentially to go public

OpenAI submitted a confidential S-1 registration to the SEC, the first formal step toward a public offering. The company said it expected the filing to leak so it announced the news itself, noting that timing remains undecided—there are moves the company wants to make that are easier to execute while private, and a public listing may still be a ways off. The filing comes amid an aggressive product expansion. OpenAI has rolled out GPT-5.5 and successive model updates, built out enterprise offerings, and expanded developer tools through its platform. The company has also been working through its restructuring from a nonprofit-controlled entity to a for-profit public benefit corporation. The transition has faced legal challenges as well as regulatory scrutiny. A public listing, whenever it comes, would rank among the most significant tech IPOs in years.

What it signals: Even as a distant possibility, OpenAI going public could change how the AI industry gets valued and scrutinized. Public markets bring disclosure requirements, quarterly pressure, and shareholder accountability that tend to change how a company operates and communicates. For the broader AI industry, it could also set a pricing benchmark. How Wall Street values OpenAI is likely to shape expectations for competitors, partners, and investors across the space.

📖 Read more: OpenAI

Google gives publishers and creators a dedicated home on Search

Google launched Search Profiles, a feature that gives publishers, creators, and brands a customizable space within Google Search to showcase their work. Publishers and creators with a sizable following on at least one major social or video platform can claim a profile and populate it with an avatar, bio, website links, platform handles, and their latest content. Audiences can follow sources directly from their profile, making it more likely that content surfaces on Discover, Google's personalized content feed on the Google app home screen. Profiles can be accessed through a creator's knowledge panel on Search, by tapping a publisher name on Discover, or via a direct URL. Claiming a profile may also trigger the creation of a knowledge panel for eligible creators who don't already have one. The feature is launching in the U.S. first, with plans to expand globally.

What it signals: This reads as an acknowledgment from Google that AI-generated search summaries have made organic discovery harder for publishers and individual creators. As AI Overviews increasingly answer queries without sending users to source websites, Search Profiles give content creators a way to maintain visibility and build audience relationships inside Google's ecosystem. For media brands and independent creators, it's a new distribution lever worth paying attention to.

📖 Read more: Google

Apple rebuilt Siri

Apple unveiled Siri AI at WWDC 2026, a rebuilt version of its voice assistant running on the next generation of Apple Intelligence. The new Siri is conversational, contextually aware, and integrated across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, CarPlay, and AirPods. It can draw on personal context from a user's messages, emails, photos, and calendar to surface relevant information, answer web queries in real time, and take actions across apps. Visual Intelligence (previously available only on iPhone) expands to iPad and Mac, letting users ask Siri about what's on their screen or in front of their camera. A dedicated Siri app syncs conversation history across devices via iCloud. On privacy, Apple says queries route to on-device models when possible and to Private Cloud Compute for more demanding tasks. Per the company, personal data is never stored or accessible by Apple or third parties during cloud processing. Siri AI is available for developer testing now across iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and visionOS 27, with a public beta later this year. It will not be available at launch in China or, initially, in the EU for iOS and iPadOS due to regulatory constraints.

What it signals: Apple has trailed ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in the AI assistant race for years. Siri AI is an attempt to close that gap by prioritizing device integration and privacy over raw model capability. For brands, the expansion of app actions, onscreen awareness, and third-party Spotlight integration opens new territory for how users reach products and services through a voice layer. Given the size of Apple's install base, even incremental adoption of Siri AI would represent a meaningful shift in how AI assistants get used day to day.

📖 Read more: Apple Newsroom

Anthropic wants a pause button on AI development

Anthropic published a blog post co-authored by co-founder Jack Clark and Anthropic Institute lead Marina Favaro calling for an industrywide mechanism to slow or temporarily halt AI development when necessary. The company argued that AI is advancing toward a point where it could make human labor far more efficient or replace it altogether. It went on to say that AI systems could begin improving themselves and building their own successors in ways that are difficult to predict or control. Anthropic pointed to international nuclear weapons regulation as a model for the kind of coordinated governance structure it’s envisioning, and said it would convene conversations with policymakers, researchers, and other AI companies to explore coordination frameworks. The call echoes a 2023 letter from the Future of Life Institute, which gathered over a thousand signatures (including Elon Musk's) urging a six-month AI pause. Anthropic itself has continued releasing advanced models throughout this period, including its Claude assistant family and the recently developed Mythos model.

What it signals: An AI lab calling for a mechanism to pause its own industry is an unusual move. It reflects the tension at the center of frontier AI development: Anthropic is both one of the companies pushing the technology forward and one of the most vocal about its risks. For brands, marketers, and businesses integrating AI into their operations, this kind of signal is worth tracking. It suggests that the governance conversation around AI is accelerating.

📖 Read more: Los Angeles Times

Editors Choice 👀

🎬 Agencies keep erasing the collaborators who actually make their award-winning work. 📖 Read more: LBB Online

⚽ EA Sports FC is surfing the World Cup wave through Visa, without ever saying ‘FIFA.’ 📖 Read more: Adweek

👻 “Backrooms” and “Obsession” offer brands valuable lessons on marketing to Gen Z. 📖 Read more: Ad Age

🏳️‍🌈 NYC Pride lost $750K in corporate sponsorships last year and budgeted even lower for 2026. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

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Vol 131. Clay: Mastering executive LinkedIn content ✍️

Case Studied — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Cracking the content code

More and more companies are building out executive content programs. But what benefits are the brands seeing from it?

For some organizations, the answer is clear. HubSpot has leaned on its co-founders and C-suite to amplify brand reach for years. Gong built a sizable following by putting its revenue leaders front and center. And recently, Clay revealed how they generated sizable outcomes from their executive content.

This week, Case Studied explores how Clay generated 6 million LinkedIn impressions in a single quarter by building a systematic executive content program.

The Brief

Clay is a data enrichment and automation platform. It’s primarily used by go-to-market teams to build and enrich prospect lists, automate outreach workflows, and connect data across the tech stack.

Since launching, Clay has carved out a strong position with a technical, operator-heavy user base. Think: revenue ops leads, growth engineers, and sales development leaders who want to build sophisticated outbound programs without relying entirely on engineering. But with every deal, they also have to sell to the marketing and revenue leaders that serve as executive buyers.

These distinct audiences posed a challenge to Clay’s marketing team. They needed to speak to the technical GTM practitioners who use the product hands-on, and the marketing and revenue executives who sign off on purchasing it. Reaching both those audiences with a single brand voice proved to be an uphill battle.

So, rather than trying to create content that served everyone, Clay created a way to speak to each audience in a new way.

The Execution

Clay built a distributed content program with their internal executives. It was based on the hypothesis that people want to learn from real operators. So the team mapped out several buyer personas and matched Clay’s internal executives to each one.

For the self-serve, technical end-user persona, Clay invested in the profiles of Everett Berry, their Head of GTM Engineering, and Davide Grieco, their Head of Growth.

For the executive buyer audience, the program centered on Clay’s Head of Marketing Bruno Estrella and the Head of Sales Development Rob Cook. Co-founders Varun Anand and Kareem Amin were also pulled in and organically attracted the founder-to-founder persona. The program started with a core group of executives and expanded as results came in.

The hard part of the program, according to Estrella, was getting executives to post consistently. Clay's solution involved some structural tactics. They hired Sarah Khasrovi to lead the Executive Brand and Content function. They made executive impressions a formal awareness metric with accountability attached to it. They brought in contractors to help scale content production, including Alec Paul and the agency, Good Content. And they built a weekly posting cadence that was enforced through regular meetings and ongoing Slack nudges.

Across all personas and authors, the content was held to a clear standard. As Estrella described it, the question every executive had to ask themselves was: "Am I actually learning anything from this? If the answer is no, you should not post it."

The Results

By April 2026, monthly impressions across Clay’s leadership team had grown to roughly 2.25 million, up from under 500K the prior October. Varun Anand's profile consistently drove the largest volume, but with multiple executives posting, total reach grew meaningfully.

The program also fed directly into Clay's product roadmap. The team's experience with managing LinkedIn audiences led them to build a native ads integration. It allows Clay to update ad audiences in real-time as new records come in, removing the need for recurring CSV handoffs.

Co-founder Varun Anand announced the product publicly, noting that customers like Slack, Anthropic, and Rippling were already hitting 90%+ match rates on LinkedIn and 60%+ on Meta. That translates to 2-4x what those brands were previously getting through manual audience uploads.

Over the course of roughly a year, Clay's executive LinkedIn program grew monthly impressions to over 2.2 million. The team collectively added 80,000 new followers across executive profiles and the program reached a quarterly run rate of approximately 6 million impressions.

The Takeaways

1) Map content to personas, not just to a brand voice.

Clay recognized that its brand account couldn't speak to a growth engineer debugging a data enrichment workflow and a CMO evaluating a new GTM platform at the same time. So it didn’t try to. Instead, the team identified which internal executives most naturally represented each buyer persona and invested in their individual profiles accordingly.

Take a look at your own buyer personas and ask whether your current content is genuinely relevant to each of them. If you serve multiple distinct audiences, consider whether a single brand channel is the right vehicle, or whether there are people inside your organization whose experience and perspective would resonate more directly.

2) Treat exec content as a function.

One of the most candid observations Estrella shared was that getting executives to post "will always be the bottleneck" and that the person running the program needs to be "borderline annoying" to keep it moving. The brand addressed this by making impressions a formal metric, assigning ownership to a dedicated person, and building a recurring weekly cadence with accountability built in.

If you're trying to launch a similar program, treat it with the same operational rigor you'd apply to any other channel. Assign a clear owner, define the goal, set a posting cadence, and track results. Content programs that are treated as a measurable business function are more likely to compound.

3) Let your marketing challenges inform your product.

On the road to building out their LinkedIn content program, Clay encountered the same audience management headaches their customers face every day: low match rates on ad platforms, manual CSV uploads, audiences that go stale as new contacts come in. That firsthand experience gave them the insight and conviction to build a native ads integration.

This isn't a replicable move for every marketing team, but the broader lesson is worth considering. The problems your team encounters while executing marketing may be similar to the ones your customers are dealing with. Staying close to those pain points (and being honest about where current tools fall short) can help surface real product opportunities.

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What’s shaping marketing right now

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Jingles, IPOs, and claymation

This week's Brief covers celebrity campaigns, impactful industry hires, and of course, AI news.

Lizzo remixed a jingle. Jason Momoa played with Legos. And NPR launched videos about human curiosity.

Meanwhile, Anthropic filed for an IPO, OpenAI brought on a B2B marketing veteran, and Walmart ended its exclusive deal with The Trade Desk.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Chili's

Lizzo said yes to the jingle

Chili's tapped four-time Grammy winner Lizzo to co-write and co-produce a new version of its iconic Baby Back Ribs jingle. The campaign debuted on YouTube and features Lizzo preparing to serve ribs, using kitchen tongs as a makeshift microphone, and playing a custom flute designed to look like a Baby Back Rib. She also recorded a full a cappella rendition of the original jingle. The campaign is anchored by a real product upgrade: Chili's revamped its ribs to include meatier portions with up to 50% more ribs and a new caramelized barbecue sauce crust.

Why it stood out: The partnership origin story is worth noting here. Lizzo dressed up, unprompted, as a Chili's mozzarella stick for Halloween last year. Fast forward seven months and she partnered with the brand on this jingle collaboration. Lizzo’s organic brand affinity is clearly reflected in the resulting creative. The rib-shaped flute and the a cappella rendition are a natural extension of Lizzo’s persona as a performer. The timing also lines up with Lizzo's new album dropping June 5.

📖 Read more: Fast Company

NPR

Ask more, know more

After its March debut in print and out-of-home, NPR's "For Your Right to Be Curious" campaign expanded into video. Created with Mischief @ No Fixed Address, three new spots tackle hard societal questions (think: birthright citizenship, grocery prices, technology's effect on kids). Each video opens with a quiet slice-of-life scenario and a voiceover capturing the inner anxiety of the protagonist. The spots close with real NPR audio clips addressing each topic directly. The campaign's first phase is already proving its worth. Post-campaign data showed 73% of respondents believe that NPR fights for the public's right to be curious, 75% felt NPR is fighting for independent journalism, and 65% said they were more likely to tune in after seeing the work.

Why it stood out: The structural decision to close each spot with real NPR audio is an interesting creative choice here. Rather than making claims about journalistic quality, the campaign demonstrates it directly by letting the actual reporting make the closing argument. The timing also adds context. NPR has faced a politically charged year, with significant federal funding cuts. The post-campaign data—particularly the 65% lift in intent to tune in—suggests the message landed with the audience the organization was aiming to reach.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Lego

Even Aquaman needs playtime

Lego tapped Jason Momoa as its newest "Playmaker" for its "Never Stop Playing" PSA campaign. Timed to World Play Day on June 11, the spot is built around a sobering tension: Lego's global research found that more than 60 million families don't play together at all. Fewer than half hit the five hours of weekly playtime that’s linked to improved family happiness and wellbeing. In the campaign, Momoa is on a mission to help families rediscover play through simple actions like linking two Legos bricks together. The campaign marks the continuation of collaborations between Momoa and Lego. He voiced Aquaman in The Lego Movie 2, has several mini-figure lookalikes of his past movie characters, and has spoken publicly about being a fan of the brand since childhood.

Why it stood out: The Momoa casting follows a similar logic to the Lizzo-Chili's partnership. The talent had a documented history with the brand prior to the campaign kickoff, which helps the creative feel more organic. It's also worth noting that the campaign is built around proprietary research. Anchoring the PSA to a specific data point helps give the message more weight, while tying the campaign to World Play Day gives it a natural news hook.

📖 Read more: Variety

Kaiser Permanente

Son Heung-min got a claymation checkup

Kaiser Permanente expanded its "A Better Idea for Health Care" campaign to the national stage. The healthcare provider partnered with LAFC star and South Korean national team captain Son Heung-min on a campaign ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Created with Droga5 New York, they created spots using stop-motion animation to follow an animated Son through Kaiser Permanente's integrated health care system. Along the way, he finds that physical, mental, and social health are treated as equally important and interconnected. The campaign spans film, social, digital, audio, and out-of-home, and builds on a pilot that launched in select markets last fall. The partnership is a clear fit: Kaiser Permanente already serves as the Official Team Physicians of LAFC, giving the collaboration genuine institutional roots rather than a surface-level celebrity deal timed to the tournament.

Why it stood out: This one has institutional roots that predate the campaign. Kaiser Permanente serves as the Official Team Physicians of LAFC, which means the Son Heung-min collaboration is an extension of an existing relationship (rather than a World Cup opportunity buy). Since healthcare campaigns tend to default to either clinical imagery or feel-good lifestyle footage, the use of stop-motion animation is also a notable creative choice. Meanwhile, choosing Son was a pretty straightforward casting call. He’s one of the most globally recognized footballers heading into the World Cup.

📖 Read more: Little Black Book

Industry news 🤝

OpenAI hired its first enterprise CMO

OpenAI brought on Colin Fleming, the former CMO of ServiceNow, to lead marketing for its business unit. Fleming spent just over two years at ServiceNow after a 13-year run at Salesforce, where he served as EVP of global marketing. He brings a deep bench of experience selling complex software to large organizations. Fleming announced his departure from ServiceNow on LinkedIn, calling the decision "gut-wrenching" but adding that he would have "regretted not taking the swing." The hire comes as OpenAI is actively building out its enterprise business and competing for corporate contracts against Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic.

What it signals: Bringing in a CMO with Fleming's specific background suggests OpenAI is no longer content to let product reputation do the selling for them at the enterprise level. Consumer awareness of ChatGPT is already near universal, so the growth frontier is now in corporate adoption. Hiring someone with Fleming's pedigree in SaaS and enterprise software tells you where OpenAI sees its next major revenue opportunity. It also suggests the company understands that selling to businesses requires trust, relationships, and sustained messaging.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

_Sponsored
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No vendor pitches. No generic panels. Just the people who've built AI visibility ecosystems.

What it signals: There's no shortage of AI "hacks" and generic webinars promising to fix your visibility. BreakingSilos 2026 brings together practitioners who've actually built visibility ecosystems where SEO, social, PR, content, and brand reinforce each other. And AI is citing them for it. Find out exactly how.

📖 Book your free spot

Ogilvy got serious about sports and NIL

Ogilvy expanded its Sports & Entertainment division through a strategic investment by parent company WPP in the social-first sports agency Article 41. As part of the deal, Article 41 co-founder Vickie Segar has been named Ogilvy's first-ever Global Chief Sports & Entertainment Officer. It’s a newly created role that puts her at the top of the agency's management team. Co-founder Ben Gildin joins in a senior strategy and client partnerships role, while Article 41 Managing Director Meredith Allen takes on the additional title of Ogilvy North America Influencer Lead. The move positions Ogilvy as a global creative network with end-to-end capability across brand strategy, fan engagement, creator marketing, and athlete NIL at scale.

What it signals: Agencies have been building out sports marketing capabilities for several years now, but the addition of NIL infrastructure is a telling detail with this deal. Since the NCAA began allowing athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness in 2021, the market has grown quickly and brands are still figuring out how to navigate it at scale. By bringing Article 41's expertise in-house, Ogilvy is positioning itself to help clients move faster in that space. The decision to create a C-suite role for Segar rather than folding Article 41 quietly into an existing division also says something about how seriously WPP is treating the investment. For brands that have been treating sports sponsorships and athlete partnerships as separate line items, this kind of full-service capability under one roof could change how those conversations get structured.

📖 Read more: Ogilvy

Anthropic filed for its IPO

Anthropic filed confidentially with the SEC for a U.S. initial public offering on June 1, becoming the first of the major AI labs to make a formal move toward going public. The company did not disclose the size or terms of the offering, but noted the filing gives it the option to go public once the SEC completes its review. A debut could potentially come as soon as this fall. The move comes on the heels of Anthropic's latest funding round, which valued the company at $965 billion, overtaking OpenAI's $852 billion valuation from March. The company is currently reporting annualized revenue of $47 billion, driven largely by enterprise and developer adoption of its Claude models.

What it signals: Anthropic’s filing could mark the start of a highly consequential stretch of tech listings. SpaceX is expected to begin its own IPO roadshow on June 4 and OpenAI is also preparing to file. It’s also a signal that the AI arms race is officially moving from private funding rounds to public markets. For the marketing and media industry, a publicly traded Anthropic means greater transparency, more pressure to commercialize, and almost certainly an accelerated push into enterprise and advertising products.

📖 Read more: New York Times

The Trade Desk names its fourth CFO in a year

The Trade Desk appointed Nate Olmstead as its new chief financial officer, effective July 9. Reporting directly to CEO Jeff Green, Olmstead is the company's fourth finance chief in roughly 12 months. His appointment follows the termination of predecessor Alex Kayyal after just six months on the job. Before joining The Trade Desk, Olmstead served as CFO of the AI company Penguin Solutions and he held the same role at Logitech. The hire comes during a difficult stretch for the company: TTD’s stock is down roughly 70% over the past year, several senior executives and four board members have departed, and the company faces growing competitive pressure from Amazon's DSP. Agency partners Dentsu and WPP have also reportedly pulled back from The Trade Desk's Open Path offering.

What it signals: Leadership churn at this scale is rarely just a personnel story. For one of adtech's most closely watched independent players, the CFO revolving door reflects deeper investor and partner anxiety about The Trade Desk's path forward. Olmstead's background in enterprise finance and AI companies could give Green a steady hand heading into the back half of the year. But the real test is whether stable leadership can address the competitive threats closing in around TTD.

📖 Read more: Adweek | Trade Desk

MarTech moves 🤖

Hightouch cut out the identity middleman

Agentic marketing platform Hightouch launched Exposure Log Matching for The Trade Desk. This new capability allows advertisers to directly match TTD campaign exposure data to their own first-party customer and household IDs, without routing through a third-party identity provider. The Trade Desk already gives advertisers detailed records of every impression, click, and conversion, but those events arrive behind anonymized identifiers like UID2s, mobile device IDs, and cookies. Historically, closing that gap meant exporting logs to a vendor, waiting several days, and receiving a file keyed to a proprietary ID. And after all that, it still required additional engineering to connect back to the brand's own customer model. Hightouch's Match Booster capability removes that intermediary entirely, resolving exposure logs directly in the brand's own data warehouse on a daily or hourly basis. The company reportedly plans to expand the capability beyond The Trade Desk to other ad platforms.

What it signals: The identity layer has long been one of adtech's most entrenched and expensive middlemen. Tools like Hightouch’s Exposure Log Matching represent a meaningful shift in where data power sits. When brands can tie campaign exposure directly to their own consented customer records without a vendor, they can gain cleaner measurement, faster reporting, and more control over their own identity model. As first-party data becomes the primary currency of digital advertising, the infrastructure that connects it to media platforms without leakage or delay will be a major competitive advantage.

📖 Read more: Adweek

NVIDIA and Microsoft reinvented the PC

NVIDIA unveiled RTX Spark, a new superchip built in collaboration with Microsoft that reimagines the Windows PC as a personal AI agent platform. The chip delivers 1 petaflop of AI performance, up to 128GB of unified memory, and the full NVIDIA CUDA and RTX technology stack. It all comes in the form of a slim laptop or compact desktop form factor. The partnership goes beyond hardware, too. NVIDIA and Microsoft are building new Windows security primitives and the NVIDIA OpenShell runtime to let AI agents run safely and privately on users' primary devices (with users controlling exactly what agents can and cannot do). Adobe is rearchitecting Photoshop and Premiere from the ground up for RTX Spark, promising up to 2x faster AI and graphics performance. Devices from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft Surface, and MSI are expected to launch this fall, with Acer and GIGABYTE to follow.

What it signals: RTX Spark is the clearest signal yet that the PC is being repositioned as an AI workspace rather than just a computing tool. For marketers and creative teams, the implications are significant. If local AI agents are capable of running 120-billion-parameter models, editing 12K video, and generating 4K AI content on a laptop, it changes what individual contributors can produce without enterprise infrastructure. The creative stack is getting faster, more private, and more powerful.

📖 Read more: NVIDIA

Walmart Connect is done being exclusive

Walmart Connect announced new offsite retail media partnerships with Yahoo DSP and Magnite. It marks the first time the retailer's first-party customer data can be activated outside of its own Walmart DSP through third-party platforms. Through the deal, advertisers using Yahoo's DSP can now access Vizio CTV inventory via Magnite, with Walmart's audience data and closed-loop measurement capabilities powering the buys. The move follows the end of Walmart Connect's four-year exclusivity agreement with The Trade Desk last fall, and signals a clear shift toward an open, multi-DSP strategy for the network. The expansion is currently in a closed proof-of-concept phase, with additional platform partnerships planned. For context, offsite retail media ad spending in the U.S. is forecast to top $17 billion in 2026, a nearly 30% year-over-year increase. Walmart Connect excluding Vizio already posted 44% year-over-year revenue growth in its most recent quarter.

What it signals: Retail media is moving from walled garden to open ecosystem, and Walmart is betting that broader distribution of its first-party data will accelerate advertiser spend more than exclusivity ever could. Connecting Walmart's purchase data to CTV inventory through established programmatic pipes is exactly the kind of full-funnel, closed-loop offering that advertisers have been asking for.

📖 Read more: Marketing Dive

Editors Choice 👀

📱Turns out, running a Cannes Lions beach activation is way harder than you might think. 📖 Read more: Adweek

⚖️ Florida sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, making it the first state to take legal action over AI safety and harm to minors. 📖 Read more: Variety

⚽ The NWSL has new execs that plan to turn World Cup buzz into lasting brand partnerships. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

📺 NBCU has data showing that cutting premium video for social is costing brands more than they think. 📖 Read more: Marketing Dive

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Vol. 130 Grubhub: The do-over meal 🍕

Case Studied — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
You snooze, you get a second chance

When food delivery apps want to reach college students, their first instinct is usually discounts. Think; $0 delivery fees, free first orders, money off for signing up. It’s a playbook about as predictable as a 2am pizza order.

This approach works when you have the budget to sustain it. But for brands that can't outspend category giants, a different kind of creativity has to do the heavy lifting.

This week, Case Studied explores how Grubhub converted the most Grubhub+ Student members ever in a single semester.

The Brief

Grubhub is a food delivery marketplace that connects diners with local restaurants. Founded in 2004, the company merged with Seamless in 2013. Since then, it’s operated as one of the country's largest delivery platforms.

But in the college delivery market, Grubhub faces a steep competitive climb. DoorDash holds 67% market share among students, and Uber Eats runs aggressive advertising campaigns across TV, social, and influencer channels.

Going into the fall 2024 semester, Grubhub was looking to get college students to sign up for Grubhub+ Student, a loyalty membership that's free for all four years of college. The problem was, many students didn't know the program existed. And those who did weren't convinced Grubhub had the deals or the selection to be their delivery app of choice.

Competing dollar-for-dollar with better-funded rivals wasn't a viable path to the brand’s goal. So instead, Grubhub found their angle in a specific, pervasive behavior among college students.

The Execution

Grubhub partnered with Golin to launch Snooze Insurance. The insight that drove the campaign came from a two-year social audit of student posts that surfaced one repeated behavior: the elusive missed late-night order.

Students consistently posted about waking up to cold food on their doorstep. They would set alarms for a Chipotle order placed at 3am, only to find it there in the morning. The app’s order data found that college studentsover-index on late-night Grubhub orders by 150%. Commissioned research backed this up further, finding that 72% of college students had missed a late-night delivery and woken up to it on the doorstep.

Once they uncovered this insight, Grubhub and Golin built an integrated campaign around a first-of-its-kind product benefit: a do-over meal for any Grubhub+ Student member who fell asleep before their late-night delivery arrived.

Every Saturday, Grubhub+ Student members could text "DELIVERY" to 1-844-954-OOPS to claim their replacement meal.

Rather than announcing the benefit through paid media, Golin took the story to college newspapers and local TV news first. The strategy was to approach student-focused outlets with a newsworthy angle before spending on amplification.

The targeting work that followed leaned on Grubhub’s order data. Their team identified the sororities and fraternities on campus that were most likely to place late-night deliveries and miss them. Grubhub sent custom mailers directly to those houses.

On the influencer front, the brand recruited roughly 40 creators for the campaign. Each one was chosen because they themselves had missed a late-night order before. The brief asked them to share their own real stories.

A physical presence on campuses rounded the promotion out. Coasters printed with the Snooze Insurance hotline number showed up in college bars. Postings of the number appeared in bathroom stalls. And the brand staged a spectacle of a student asleep outdoors on campus, surrounded by Snooze Insurance pizza boxes.

The Results

Snooze Insurance delivered Grubhub's most successful semester of Grubhub+ Student sign-ups on record. 41% of participating students were new diners, nearly 6x higher than benchmarks from a separate campus promotion running at the same time.

Post-campaign surveys showed influencer content drove a 4x increase in recall of the Snooze Insurance program. Grubhub also saw a 400% surge in search volume, a 25% lift in brand favorability, and a 93% increase in people who "strongly agree" that Grubhub has relevant deals."

On the earned media side, the campaign generated 335 media placements and 637.2M impressions (more than doubling their goal on both fronts). The campaign reached 11 of 12 priority campus markets with 100% favorable sentiment.

Owned social delivered 273.1K impressions with a 2.16% engagement rate and 74.5% positive sentiment. Influencer content generated an additional 23.7M impressions and Grubhub's social mentions spiked 4x year-over-year on key campuses.

The Takeaways

1) Think earned-first.

Golin built Snooze Insurance with earned media as the foundation. The announcement went to news outlets with credibility and direct reach into the target audience before any broader rollout. And looking at the results, the approach clearly paid off.

If your campaign has a surprising product benefit, an unexpected insight, or a data-driven targeting decision, lead with that story. Let it gain steam with the press before you invest in paid amplification. If it catches on, your paid spend can reach audiences that already encountered the story organically. The impact of both can then compound.

2) Lead with insight.

We’ve seen many campaigns work because they were rooted in behavioral data. Snooze Insurance is no different. The missed late-night order was something students were already posting about and commiserating over. The do-over meal product benefit was an answer to a problem students already felt.

Before you build your next campaign, look at what your audience is already saying, posting, or complaining about. The insight that can fuel your next win could be hiding in comment sections or social threads. Once you find it, get creative with it.

3) Build a benefit around a specific moment.

Snooze Insurance was designed for one very specific scenario, not a general need. That specificity helped make it memorable, giving users a concrete reason to engage in a particular moment. It also helped make students who had missed their late-night orders feel seen and heard.

The more precisely a benefit maps to a real customer experience, the more likely they are to remember it and tell someone else about it. Before building out your next loyalty or retention offer, ask whether it's attached to a specific situation your audience has experienced. If it isn’t, consider how you can make it more precise.

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Bold bets, AI moves, and creative collabs

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 28 May 2026 19:02:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Accessible recipes, $50 million sponsorships, and user-generated music

This week's Brief covers some well-played campaigns, industry moves that signal where the money is going, and a wave of AI infrastructure shifts.

Tesco tackled accessibility. Coinbase hid its brand message in plain sight. And StreetEasy let New Yorkers make dinner reservations for 2046.

Meanwhile, brands are cutting $50 million checks for World Cup sponsorships, OpenAI is hiring someone to sell the ad world on its ads, and Microsoft's longest-serving consumer CMO is heading for the exit.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Coinbase

The ad that rewards a second look

Coinbase's latest 60-second spot, "Hidden in Plain Sight," uses looping visuals with repeating patterns. The repetition is hard to catch at first, which is the point. The ad is built around the idea that the financial system is so entrenched that most people have stopped noticing its flaws altogether. Made in-house by Coinbase Creative Studio and directed by Steve Rogers, the video is part of Coinbase’s ongoing “Your way out of their system” platform. It marks the brand’s first major product-focused push that’s introducing a new suite of financial tools, including stock trading, prediction markets, and Coinbase One.

Why it stood out: Where most fintech brands default to features and rate comparisons, Coinbase leaned into the growing frustration individuals have with financial institutions. As the brand tries to position itself as a counterpoint to traditional finance, "Your way out of their system," gives each new product a consistent ideological frame. In a fintech industry where differentiation can be a huge hurdle, that approach will likely be more sticky than a standalone sales message.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Tesco

Now everyone's cooking

After winning Channel 4's 2025/26 Diversity in Advertising Award, Tesco unveiled "Now We're Cooking” with BBH London and EssenceMediacom. The campaign was built around the insight that 60% of disabled people face barriers when using online recipes. Directed by Alan Masferrer, the ad is set in a test kitchen and stars a cast of cooks with a range of disabilities. Together, they showcase practical ways to make cooking more accessible. The finished film features 70-foot screens displaying open captions, high-contrast visuals, and audio description. Even the pace of editing is carefully considered for accessibility. In tandem with the ad, Tesco also launched 100 recipes that were adapted to inclusive standards (think: screen-reader compatible, audio files for Alexa-enabled devices, and Braille editions). To ensure inclusivity was engrained in every part of production, BBH London worked alongside The Diversity Standards Collective and the disability-founded production agency With Not For.

Why it stood out: Tesco identified a specific, practical problem that millions of people face every day. Usually, brands tend to stop there and build their campaigns using the typical formula. But in this case, Tesco extended their commitment into the production itself. They used open captions, high-contrast visuals, and deliberate pacing, showing they were putting their production where their message was. The 100 adapted recipes further reinforced that the campaign has a functional component beyond the ad itself.

📖 Read more: Little Black Book

e.l.f. Cosmetics

Beauty won immunity in Season 50

E.l.f. Cosmetics debuted a first-of-its-kind partnership with Survivor during the live three-hour Survivor 50 finale on CBS and Paramount+. The brand aired a vignette series that shows three of the brand's hero products being used in Survivor-style challenges. The spots starred content creator Delaney Rowe alongside Survivor contestant Tiffany Ervin. The partnership comes at a buzzy moment for the show. Survivor 50 averages nearly 10 million viewers and the premiere earned the most social interactions of any Survivor episode in history. Plus, this finale marked the first live winner reveal since Season 40. Beyond the broadcast spots, e.l.f. also launched a limited-edition Survivor Buff Bundle.

Why it stood out: The timing here does a lot of work. Attaching to Survivor's 50th season finale and its first live winner reveal in a decade meant the partnership landed at a particularly engaging time. The vignette format also fits natively into Survivor's challenge-based format, helping to lower the friction between ad and content. And the limited-edition Buff Bundle rounds it all out by tying the brand’s hero products to the show's most iconic physical item, giving fans something to physically engage with.

📖 Read more: e.l.f. Beauty

Street Easy

Reservation for your future self

StreetEasy, Zillow's real estate brand built for New York City, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a campaign called "Reserve Your Future." Developed with Mother New York, it lets New Yorkers book real reservations at some of the city's most iconic institutions in the year 2046. Partners include Roberta's, Russ & Daughters, the Guggenheim, and Playwrights Horizons. It’s all bookable through a dedicated microsite and yes, everything is already fully booked. The campaign is an extension of StreetEasy's existing "Be a Forever New Yorker" platform that encourages people to put down roots in the city.

Why it stood out: This campaign turns an abstract idea—committing to New York for the long haul—into something tangible and interactive. Booking a real reservation 20 years out is a concrete act that reinforces the "Forever New Yorker" platform. The partner selection also does specific work here. Roberta's, Russ & Daughters, the Guggenheim, and Playwrights Horizons are all institutions with their own deep roots in the city, which reinforces the campaign's theme without needing to say it directly.

📖 Read more: New York Times

Industry news 🤝

Brands are cutting $50 million checks for the World Cup

The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in June and the event is commanding some of the most expensive advertising rates in the history of sports media. Premium sponsorship packages on Fox, the English-language broadcaster, are running anywhere from $15 million to $50 million. Fox and Telemundo together are projected to pull in as much as $850 million in ad revenue from the tournament, more than double the $384 million generated during the last summer World Cup in 2022. Ad inventory on Fox is effectively sold out, with CPMs for in-game spots running at roughly double what competing packages on streaming and virtual pay-TV platforms command. The tournament spans 48 teams, over 100 matches, and 39 days of coverage, with the U.S. as co-host for the first time.

What it signals: The World Cup is one of the few remaining media events that reliably delivers live viewing at scale. The sell-out of Fox inventory this far in advance narrows the options for media buyers that held off, pushing them toward streaming and vPTV packages that command less reach. The $850 million revenue projection also reveals that sports rights are not just holding their value, but appreciating at a head-turning rate.

📖 Read more: Ad Week

Microsoft's consumer CMO is leaving after 35 years

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, announced he will leave the company after 35 years. The Microsoft veteran will step down officially on June 30, 2027 in what he's calling his "final season." Mehdi has been one of Microsoft's most visible executives, overseeing product marketing for Windows, Surface, Bing, Xbox, and most recently Copilot. He started as an intern in 1991 and has been present for nearly every major consumer platform shift the company has navigated. From the rise of Windows and the early internet era to search, gaming, Mehdi has been there. His priorities for his final year include repositioning Windows for the agentic era, scaling Microsoft 365 consumer toward 100 million subscriptions, and building out the "One Copilot" vision across work and personal life. Microsoft has not named a successor, and Mehdi is working closely with CEO Satya Nadella and CMO Takeshi Numoto on the transition plan.

What it signals: Mehdi's departure is an indicator that the executives who built the consumer internet era are making way for a new generation shaped entirely by AI. The fact that he's staying a full year to help Microsoft navigate the agentic transition says something about how seriously the company is taking this moment. Whoever replaces him will inherit one of the most consequential marketing briefs in tech: selling consumers on AI tools in everyday life.

📖 Read more: Business Insider

OpenAI is building its pitch for the ad industry

OpenAI posted a job listing for a Head of Ads Enterprise Marketing.The role is designed to shape the company's reputation among CMOs, agency executives, and media buyers, while also expanding OpenAI's presence at major industry events including Cannes Lions, CES, Advertising Week, and Possible. The hire will build programs to position OpenAI as a "leading voice on the future of advertising, AI, creativity, and measurement." The listing is the latest development in what has become a rapid and deliberate buildout of OpenAI's advertising business. The company has been expanding its ads pilot internationally, opening ChatGPT advertising to the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea. And it’s simultaneously hiring marketing leads across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. All of this comes after CEO Sam Altman once described advertising as a "last resort" for AI companies, a position that has clearly changed as OpenAI faces projected cash burn of $15 billion in 2026.

What it signals: OpenAI is building the full commercial infrastructure of a major ad platform, one senior hire at a time. The decision to hire a dedicated enterprise marketing leader to court CMOs and show up at Cannes signals that OpenAI wants a seat at the table where ad budgets are actually decided. For brands and agencies, this is worth paying close attention to. ChatGPT has over 500 million weekly users so if OpenAI gets the ad product right, it becomes one of the most significant new media buying opportunities in years.

📖 Read more: Ad Week | Open AI

Viant built a bias meter for CTV news

The demand-side platform Viant announced a partnership with Ad Fontes Media that brings news reliability and political bias scoring to CTV ad buying. The integration is live now in Viant's platform, powered by IRIS_ID content identifiers, and allows advertisers to target individual news shows based on content-level quality thresholds. This is a departure from the blunt instruments of app-level or domain-level blocking that have defined brand safety in news for years. Ad Fontes Media rates news sources across both reliability and political bias using a blend of human analysts and AI. With 2026 on track to be the most expensive midterm cycle in U.S. history, it’s a crowded and consequential time for brands navigating the news environment.

What it signals: Brand safety in news has long been handled with a sledgehammer: broad blocklists, topic exclusions, and outright category avoidance. This partnership moves the needle toward precision, giving buyers the ability to make show-level decisions based on content quality data. As news consumption on CTV continues to grow and political advertising floods the airwaves ahead of the midterms, the brands that can navigate news environments with confidence are likely to find themselves with a meaningful competitive advantage.

📖 Read more: Business Wire

MarTech moves 🤖

Gemini is expanding its search presence

At Google Marketing Live, Google announced new AI-powered ad formats built with Gemini that will fundamentally change how ads work inside Search. The headline formats include Conversational Discovery Ads, where Gemini builds custom ad creative tailored to a specific search query in real time, and Highlighted Answers, where high-quality ads appear directly within AI Mode's recommendation lists. For shopping, Google is launching AI-powered ads that automatically generate custom explainers for why a specific product matches what someone is searching for. Google is also expanding its Direct Offers pilot to include promotion bundling, native checkout for eligible merchants, and travel deals through partners like Booking.com and Expedia. Underpinning all of it is Google's data that 75% of people report making faster, more confident decisions using AI Mode in Search.

What it signals: Google is quickly rebuilding the architecture of search advertising around AI. The shift from keyword-matched ads to Gemini-generated, query-specific creative marks a significant change to the search ad model. For brands, the implications are massive: the creative and targeting decisions that used to require human strategy are increasingly being made by Google's models in real time. That evolution marks both an efficiency gain and a loss of control. Figuring out where to trust the machine and where to intervene is becoming one of the defining challenges of modern media buying.

📖 Read more: Google Blog

Zoom's $51 million AI bet is now worth $1.27 billion

Back in May 2023, Zoom invested $51 million in Anthropic through its investment arm, Zoom Ventures. It was part of a product partnership to integrate Anthropic's Claude models into its platform. Three years later, that stake is now carried at approximately $1.27 billion on Zoom's balance sheet, a nearly 25x return. The figure is based on Anthropic's February 2026 fundraising round, which valued the company at $380 billion. It's likely to climb further as Anthropic nears completion of another round that could value the startup at close to $1 trillion. Zoom also made an additional $46 million investment in Anthropic preferred stock during its most recent quarter, bringing its total carrying value to $1.2669 billion. The news landed alongside a strong quarterly earnings report where Zoom beat Q1 estimates, raised full-year guidance, and authorized a $1 billion share buyback. Analysts at Baird estimated the stake could ultimately be worth between $2 billion and $4 billion depending on dilution, calling it the company's "hidden gem."

What it signals: Zoom didn't necessarily set out to become an AI investor. It wrote a strategic check to bring Claude into its products and ended up with one of the most valuable private stakes in tech. It's a striking illustration of how the AI investment cycle is rewarding early movers. For companies still sitting on the sidelines of AI partnerships, Zoom's balance sheet makes a compelling case for moving sooner rather than later. The line between strategic partnership and investment thesis is blurring fast and the companies that recognized that early are now reaping the rewards.

📖 Read more: Bloomberg

An AI music deal that’s asking for permission

Spotify announced a licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will allow premium subscribers to use AI to create covers and remixes of songs from participating artists. It’s the first time the streaming platform has enabled users to produce AI-generated content using licensed music. The feature will launch as a paid add-on for Spotify Premium subscribers, with a revenue share going directly to participating artists and songwriters for any AI-generated music based on their work. Universal Music Group's roster includes Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Drake, and Billie Eilish, though Spotify has not yet disclosed which artists have agreed to participate. The deal was announced at Spotify's 2026 Investor Day alongside a broader suite of AI-powered features, including AI-generated personal podcasts and prompted playlists. Spotify stressed that these deals will involve “upfront agreements, not asking for forgiveness later." No pricing or launch date has been announced.

What it signals: This deal addresses a major issue in the music industry. By providing a licensed, consent-based framework for AI music creation that compensates artists, Spotify is positioning itself as the responsible player in the AI music landscape. This approach is clearly distinct from startups like Suno and Udio that have faced lawsuits for training on copyrighted material without permission. For brands and marketers, it’s worth watching the advertising and partnership opportunities that materialize on a platform where fans are actively creating and sharing music

📖 Read more: The Guardian

Pomo wants to think for your marketing team

A team of former engineers from Google, Adobe, and DeepMind launched Pomo, a new agentic marketing intelligence platform built for mid-market companies. The platform raised $4.5 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, plus angel investors including former Google and Adobe AI and product leaders. The company is designed as a closed-loop intelligence and decision support system. It monitors competitors and performance trends, surfaces daily priorities, and helps execute actions within brand-safe guardrails. The core problem it's trying to solve is one that's become endemic in modern marketing teams: too many channels, too much data, too little time to make decisions that actually matter. Early pilots with D2C businesses have shown the platform can detect demand and competitor signals days before they appear in a team's existing tools and deliver prioritized action plans with less need for manual research.

What it signals: Pomo is an early example of what the next generation of marketing platforms may look like: less dashboard, more intelligence layer. The fact that it's targeting mid-market companies is significant too. Enterprise brands have had access to sophisticated intelligence tools for years. But if agentic platforms like Pomo can deliver that same level of precision to smaller teams, it could reshape how mid-market brands compete against larger players with bigger budgets and bigger tech stacks.

📖 Read more: Marketing Tech News

Editors Choice 👀

🔍 AI is quickly changing the way people search, shop, and engage with the internet. 📖 Read more: CNN

📺 Ciara Miller landed Sephora and L'Oreal deals, showing that Bravo drama can pay off. 📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

🤖 PR firms are quietly being pressured to rebrand basic automation as AI technology. 📖 Read more: The Guardian

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Vol. 129 Hellmann's: A garlic-scented novel 🧄

Case Studied — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
A flavor that needed a second act

Using limited-edition packaging is a proven enough tactic to bolster an underperforming product. But for this method to be effective, the packaging has to realllllly stand out.

We saw this happen when Coke pulled the logo off their bottles and replaced it with 250 of the most common teen names. We also saw it when Starbucks started giving away limited-edition reusable red cups (which customers now treat as annual collectibles). And recently we saw Hellmann’s pull a rather unexpected stunt with packaging too.

This week, Case Studied explores how Hellmann's used a limited-edition, garlic-scented novel to revive a struggling product among Gen Z audiences.

The Brief

Hellmann's has been a fixture in American refrigerators since 1913. Owned by Unilever since 2000, the brand built its identity around its flagship product: mayonnaise.

But mayo isn’t the only product in its repertoire. Over the years, Hellmann’s expanded its lineup to include a range of flavored varieties. Among them was Garlic Aioli, a flavor that launched in 2023 and struggled to find its footing.

To change that, Hellmann’s turned its attention to Gen Z, meaning TikTok was a natural fit. 71% of the platform's users are under 30 and they also over-index for buying flavored condiments. But the audience is also highly fluent so Hellmann’s had to demonstrate an understanding of both fandom and BookTok culture to effectively engage.

Social listening pointed Hellmann’s toward the vampire romantasy category. Specifically, the ‘Blood and Ash’ series by author Jennifer L. Armentrout emerged as a strong pair for the brand. The genre was surging on the platform, and Armentrout's latest release, The Primal of Blood and Bone, was generating significant anticipation. Plus, garlic's centuries-old association with warding off vampires gave Hellmann’s a creative bridge: a product baked around garlic entering a vampire fiction universe.

The Execution

Hellmann’s partnered with Edelman to create the Bestsmeller, the world's first garlic-scented novel.

A special-edition version of Armentrout’s The Primal of Blood and Bone, was printed with garlic-infused ink. It also featured a custom cover incorporating garlic cloves. Alongside it, the brand released a limited "Craven-Proof" version of its Garlic Aioli, a nod to the vampire creatures at the center of the series.

Copies were shipped in coffin-shaped mailers to a select group of creators. In addition to the collector’s item, they were given character-themed garlic aioli recipes that were designed for book clubs. The unboxing content was made to land natively and playfully position Hellmann’s Garlic Aioli as “something to protect readers from creatures of the night while they consumed this dangerously delicious novel.”

The Results

The Bestsmeller campaign drove +22.5% sales velocity. Unit sales increased by as much as 17.5% compared to 2024 and Hellmann’s saw 39% growth in weekly dollar sales of Garlic Aioli within three weeks of the Bestsmeller launch.

The campaign also led to 1.6 billion earned media impressions, over 850 earned placements, and 130+ broadcast segments. 100% of the campaign’s key messaging was included in the coverage, and it was picked up globally across the U.S. Brazil, Canada, and the UK.

On social, Hellmann’s saw 759,000 total views on owned content, with 804,000 on creator content. User-generated content views reached over 1.4 million and the brand saw over 270 UGC posts across platforms.

The campaign also helped boost The Primal of Blood and Bone. It reached #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

The Takeaways

1) Find the cultural bridge.

Hellmann's didn't just show up on BookTok because Gen Z was there. They found a specific connection between their product and a thriving content ecosystem built around vampire fiction. The garlic-vampire link is centuries-old, but deploying it in the context of a buzzy new romantasy release made it feel fresh and specific.

Before identifying a platform or community for your brand to enter, look for an insight that makes your product feel like it genuinely belongs there. Consider your product's distinctive attributes and where those attributes already have meaning in culture. The more specific and unexpected the connection, the harder it is to dismiss as a marketing stunt.

2) Take absurd ideas seriously.

On its face, the Bestsmeller was an absurd idea. The garlic-infused ink? The mayonnaise brand publishing a novel? Either of those ideas could’ve been dismissed for being too weird. But they're exactly what made the campaign hard to ignore. A more polished, conventional execution would have blended into the content feeds it was trying to break through.

When evaluating creative ideas, the instinct to sand down the strange edges is understandable. But it's worth considering whether those edges are essential. If a concept makes people say, "Wait, really?", that's not a red flag. That reaction drives earned media, UGC, and engagement.

3) Get to know the niche.

Hellmann's was intentional about building its campaign on what BookTok audiences value: special editions, unboxings, book club moments, author partnerships. The result was content that felt native rather than sponsored, which is partly why the UGC spread as widely as it did.

When entering a niche community, spend time getting to know it. Look for formats and rituals that generate organic participation. From there, you can figure out how your brand can contribute something additive and eye-catching.

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Vol. 128 BERO: Loyalty from first launch 🍺

Case Studied — Thu, 21 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Rewarding fans wherever they buy

Most loyalty programs are built around a simple exchange: take certain actions, earn points, and redeem them for rewards (if you can figure out what they're worth). But somewhere between “earn 500 points per dollar” and “redeem 12,500 points for $1 off”, the math gets complicated. And that complexity fuels apathy and plummeting engagement for the program.

A few brands have tried to break that mold. Starbucks shifted toward star-based rewards with a clearer path to free drinks. Apple Card's Daily Cash offers automatic cash back, no redemption required. And when Tom Holland’s non-alcoholic beer company launched, they took a similarly straightforward approach.

This week, Case Studied explores how BERO built an omnichannel loyalty program before the brand even launched.

The Brief

BERO launched in October 2024 and from the jump, it had the kind of visibility that most new brands spend years working towards. It was built around the idea that premium NA beer should fit any occasion, from a post-workout hang to a night out.

From the start, BERO was designed to live across multiple retail channels (think: the brand website, Amazon, Target, etc.). That multi-channel ambition was both an opportunity and a challenge. With sales spread across so many touchpoints, most brands have limited visibility into who is buying and where. Without a direct relationship, retail purchases rarely feed back into a brand's understanding of their customer.

BERO also had a clear ethos around community and connection. The brand wasn’t just selling NA beer, but building a group of people who genuinely loved it. That meant a loyalty program was a natural part of the brand and they decided to build it right out the gate.

The Execution

BERO tapped the Ocean’s 11 of eCommerce agencies, pb+j, to help architect the brand's digital experience ahead of launch. The loyalty program, Club BERO, became one of their most collaborative and consequential pieces of work together.

The agency's original brief was broad: build the website, create the email flows, the usual brand launch world-building to-dos. But when the topic of loyalty came up, pb+j suggested an alternative to the typical points-based program.

"We pitched this new era of loyalty that had immediate reciprocity. It was rewards-based, something that people can actually use without jumping through arbitrary hoops to get points that they don't understand and don't know how to use," said pb+j co-founder Tom Collver.

The result was an omnichannel membership program built on credits rather than points. They work like cash back: you buy a 6-pack and earn a specific dollar amount that’s added into your Club BERO account. It’s available to spend immediately on the brand’s site—no conversion math required.

"There's something so simple and powerful about logging into your account and seeing $10 in credits," said Hyojin Park, Senior Director of eCommerce Solutions and Growth at BERO. "You’re not wondering if ten thousand points equals $1 or $10. You just know the amount and that it’s yours to spend."

The program has two tiers. The free tier earns 50 cents per 12-pack purchased, includes a lower threshold for free shipping, and is open to anyone who signs up. The paid tier, called BEROMASTERS, earns $1 per 12-pack (aka double the rewards), gets 10% off every order, free shipping on all orders, and exclusive access to a periodic Q&A with Tom Holland. Paid members also get first access to new product releases.

To make the program truly omnichannel, pb+j and the BERO team developed a QR code system printed on the inside of every box. It’s unique per unit, hidden from anyone who hasn't opened it, and links directly to a customer's BERO account when scanned. Whether someone buys a six-pack at Target, orders a case on Amazon, or checks out directly on BERO's site, they can scan the code to earn. For online orders, credits are applied automatically.

"We wanted to make sure that people who love BERO could feel rewarded, wherever they buy from," Park said. "We didn't want to be channel-specific or selfish about online."

BERO’s program launched simultaneously with the brand in October 2024. Collver acknowledged that this move goes against conventional wisdom. "Even when we're working with new-to-world brands, we often tell them they shouldn’t over-invest into a loyalty program upfront; it’s something to build towards. After all, who's going to be loyal to something they don't know yet?” he said.

“But for BERO, loyalty was a big part of the brand launch. Their ethos is about connection and community, so if loyalty wasn't part of the DNA at the very beginning, it would feel a lot more transactional."

The Results

Club BERO's early numbers reflect strong organic adoption. They captured over 13,000 emails pre-launch and crossed 2,000 loyalty members in the first week. Orders on launch day cleared 2,000 in week one. The variety 12-pack sold out on launch day.

Over time, the free tier grew to the current figure of about 25,000 members. Meanwhile, the paid BEROMASTERS tier reached nearly 1,000 members, a notable feat for a brand that's less than two years old.

Paid members also convert meaningfully. BEROMASTERS’ repeat purchase rate is 80%—nearly 5x higher than non-members. BERO noted the program has delivered at least a 500% ROI. Customer lifetime value and repeat purchase rates among loyalty members have also outperformed expectations. BERO has since expanded to the UK and grown its retail footprint across major U.S. retailers; Club BERO has expanded seamlessly along with it.

The Takeaways

1) Make sure your program matches where customers buy.

Most loyalty programs are implicitly—or explicitly—DTC-only. You earn when you buy through the brand's website, full stop. For BERO, where retail and Amazon are significant channels, a DTC-only program would have meant leaving a large portion of their customer base unrecognized and unrewarded.

The omnichannel QR code system wasn't simple to build but Park noted that it was wholly worthwhile. The system gave BERO visibility into retail purchases and allowed the brand to recognize customers wherever they shop. If your product is sold across multiple channels, consider how your loyalty program can reach customers at each one. What mechanisms can tie those touchpoints back to a central customer record?

2) Simplify the loyalty math.

One of the main throughlines of Club BERO's design is credits over points. It provided an immediate, straightforward reward, not one that vests after accumulating over months. They removed the elements that lead customers to disengage and their program numbers reflect the impact of those decisions.

If your loyalty program requires an FAQ, a conversion table, or a walkthrough, you may have friction to remove. The best programs work like a refund: customers feel like they're getting something back, immediately, with no strings attached.

3) Let your brand values drive your program structure.

Club BERO's design decisions—the credits, the QR code system, the paid tier with exclusive access—weren't made in isolation. They all flowed from the brand belief that BERO should meet customers wherever they are and reward them for being fans. The program's structure was both an expression of the brand values and a commercial strategy.

When building or revisiting a loyalty program, start with what your brand stands for and work backward to the mechanics. A brand built around enjoyment should have a frictionless redemption experience. A brand built around community should have ways for members to truly connect. The mechanics matter, but they should serve the story.

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The marketing moves worth paying attention to this week

Case Studied Brief — Tue, 19 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Crocodiles, Charli XCX, and a $2.5 billion data deal

This week's Brief covers World Cup campaigns, major agency shake-ups, and AI infrastructure moves impacting how advertising is bought.

Columbia Sportswear put Robert Irwin up against 100 crocodiles. Visa turned a tap-in goal into a global campaign with Jason Sudeikis. And Charli XCX bought into a tech brand instead of just signing with it.

Meanwhile, Publicis wrote a $2.5 billion check for LiveRamp, TikTok handed the keys to AI agents, and DoorDash brought in new marketing leadership as it outgrows its food delivery roots.

Here's what you need to know.

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Campaigns of the week 📺

Columbia

Robert Irwin vs. 100 crocodiles

Columbia Sportswear tapped conservationist Robert Irwin, son of the legendary Steve Irwin, as its newest ambassador. The partnership launched with a stunt called "Robert vs. 100 Crocs." The centerpiece is a film that shows Irwin fending off 100 crocodiles—only they aren’t real animals but people in inflatable crocodile costumes. Irwin dramatically dodges them while wearing Columbia's new Tellurix Titanium OutDry trail shoe. The campaign leans into Irwin's charisma and his connection to the outdoors. He’s built a massive following across social media through his wildlife conservation work at Australia Zoo. The campaign spans video and social, with a dedicated landing page featuring shoppable gear from the shoot.

Why it stood out: The importance of casting is on full display here. Robert Irwin is one of the most likable and culturally relevant figures in the outdoor and wildlife space. Columbia led with an interesting, sharable hook with the 100 crocs headline. Then, it surprised and delighted viewers with a satirical video that nods to their product without squashing the humor.

📖 Read more: Columbia Sportswear

Nothing

Charli XCX turns Nothing into something

Consumer tech brand Nothing announced Charli XCX as its first ever Global Brand Ambassador. And unlike most celebrity partnerships, this one comes with a stake in the company. Charli invested in Nothing, joining an investor roster that already includes The Weeknd, Casey Neistat, and Swedish House Mafia. The launch campaign, titled "Nothing (Charli XCX)", centers on the proof point that Charli wore Nothing's Headphone (a) for five consecutive days to demonstrate its 135-hour battery life. Nothing is a London-based hardware startup valued at $1.3 billion after a $200 million Series C raise. And Charli XCX, the architect of Brat summer, was apparently on the company's radar from the very beginning. Nothing's chief brand officer revealed that Charli was mentioned in the brand's very first strategy presentation as "this embodiment of rebellious creativity."

Why it stood out: Nothing is betting on cultural alignment as well as celebrity reach here. Charli's entire brand is built on rejecting the polished and the expected, which maps perfectly onto Nothing's positioning against the minimalist monotony of mainstream tech. By making her a shareholder rather than just a face, the partnership carries a different kind of credibility than a standard endorsement. It also signals a potential shift in how ambitious challenger brands are thinking about celebrity partnerships.

📖 Read more: Vogue

Visa

One tap to pay, one tap to score

Visa launched its official campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2026, anchored by Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis. The campaign, titled "Tap In," is built around a double meaning: "tap in" refers to both the simplest goal in football (scored from close range with minimal effort) and the act of tapping a Visa card to pay. Sudeikis stars in a hero film that follows him across all three host countries, the US, Mexico, and Canada, using his Visa card to navigate every moment of his World Cup experience. The broader campaign roster includes Spanish soccer star Lamine Yamal, Mexican legend Jorge Campos, and Argentine commentator Andrés Cantor. As part of the campaign, cardholders have chances to win match tickets and prizes triggered by real tap-in goals during the tournament. The brand is also committing $600,000 to nonprofit partners across all three host countries through a "Tap In to Impact" initiative.

Why it stood out: Visa has been a FIFA World Cup sponsor since 2007 and this campaign puts that experience on full display. The "tap in" metaphor effectively connects Visa's core product function to one of the most universally understood moments in football. Sudeikis is also a smart choice following his successful run on Ted Lasso and his widely beloved deadpan humor. Incentivizing with cardholder prizes and having nonprofit partners helps round out the campaign.

📖 Read more: Forbes

Industry news 🤝

A new CMO steps in as DoorDash thinks bigger

DoorDash announced today that Tim Castree joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer, effective May 18, 2026. Castree comes from Amazon, where he led EU Prime and Marketing across more than 15 markets, overseeing brand, performance, and growth marketing. Before Amazon, he spent years building large global marketing organizations at GroupM and Wavemaker, working across some of the world's biggest consumer brands. He replaces Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, who spent seven years building DoorDash's marketing function into an industry-recognized operation before stepping back for personal reasons. Castree's appointment comes as DoorDash is actively pushing beyond its core food delivery identity and expanding into reservations, grocery, and everyday essentials.

What it signals: CMO transitions at companies undergoing a platform shift can be worth watching, especially when the hire comes with a specific skillset. Castree's experience helping brands evolve beyond a single-category relationship with customers lines up with DoorDash's current challenge of convincing users it's not just a food app anymore. The hire signals DoorDash is ready to compete hard in an increasingly crowded delivery and local commerce space.

📖 Read more: DoorDash

Omnicom's top creative voice exits

Javier Campopiano, global chief creative officer for Omnicom Advertising, is stepping down at the end of May. The move comes just six months after Campopiano took on the role as part of Omnicom's $9 billion acquisition of IPG in December 2025. He came from McCann Worldgroup where he spent three years as global chief creative officer leading award-winning work for brands like Xbox and L'Oréal. He also helped the network land major clients like Ferrero, IKEA, and LinkedIn. Omnicom said publicly it has no plans to replace his role. That decision lands against the backdrop of sweeping agency restructurings. Omnicom already cut 4,000 jobs post-merger, retired the DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe brand names, and consolidated its creative operations down to three global networks: BBDO, TBWA, and McCann.

What it signals: When a holding company eliminates a global creative leadership role rather than refilling it, it's a signal about how they see the future. The Omnicom/IPG integration is still very much in motion, and Campopiano's exit suggests the new structure is leaning on its individual agency networks for creative leadership rather than maintaining a layer above them. For the broader agency world, it's another data point in the ongoing question of what creative leadership actually looks like inside the holding company model as consolidation accelerates.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

Congress wants to pull gambling ads off kids’ feeds

Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced the Gaming Advertisement to Minors Enforcement (GAME) Act this week. The bill would place a federal ban in the United States on sports betting and prediction market ads targeting minors on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The FTC would be responsible for enforcement starting one year after enactment, with civil penalties for violations and repeat offenders referred to the Department of Justice. Fines could reach $100,000 per ad shown to a minor. The legislation arrives against a backdrop of a 2024 study that found that people who begin gambling before age 18 are 50% more likely to develop a gambling problem. A Common Sense Media report also found that 36% of boys aged 11–17 reported gambling activity in the past year. Nearly 60% of those exposed to gambling content said it appeared in their feeds without them ever searching for it.

What it signals: The explosion of sports betting advertising is now drawing the same regulatory heat that alcohol and tobacco ads faced before it. If the GAME Act passes, it would force sportsbooks and prediction market platforms to fundamentally rethink how they target and acquire users on social media. It would also put platforms like Meta and TikTok on the hook for enforcement. For anyone buying or planning digital advertising in regulated categories, this is a preview of where ad accountability legislation may be heading.

📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

MarTech moves 🤖

Publicis just spent $2.5B to own the data layer

Publicis Groupe announced it will acquire the global data collaboration platform LiveRamp in an all-cash deal worth $2.55 billion. LiveRamp connects over 25,000 publisher domains and 500+ technology and data partners. This gives brands the infrastructure to unify and activate first-party data across the ecosystem securely without exposing raw customer records. The deal adds LiveRamp's data connectivity capabilities directly into Publicis's existing stack alongside Epsilon and Publicis Sapient. The company said it’s building the ability to combine data across partners and generate new proprietary data assets that neither party could build alone. Publicis says this is the missing piece for brands trying to build smarter AI agents, pointing to research showing 93% of companies currently lack the right data to do it effectively. LiveRamp will continue operating as a neutral, open platform post-acquisition, meaning existing clients and competitors who rely on it won't be locked out. The deal is expected to close before the end of 2026.

What it signals: The race to own the data infrastructure layer is accelerating and holding companies aren't waiting. Publicis already made a major bet on first-party identity when it acquired Epsilon in 2019. LiveRamp is the next piece: the connective tissue that lets brands pool and co-create data across partners without handing it over to walled gardens. As AI agents become the new execution layer for marketing, whoever controls the data pipeline feeding those agents holds some serious leverage.

📖 Read more: Publicis Groupe

OpenAI bought a startup that can clone any celebrity's voice

OpenAI acquired Weights.gg, a small AI startup behind a consumer app called Replay. The app allows users to clone voices including those of Taylor Swift, Samuel L. Jackson, Kanye West, Donald Trump, and members of Blackpink with striking accuracy. The deal, which happened earlier this year but was only recently reported by the New York Times, included the startup's intellectual property and small team, though financial terms were not disclosed. Weights.gg shut down its services on April 1, weeks before the acquisition became public. OpenAI says it has no plans to launch a standalone voice cloning product, and the Weights.gg team has been distributed across internal divisions to support broader audio and multimodal AI initiatives. The move is notable given OpenAI's own stated caution around voice replication technology. The company developed advanced voice cloning capability back in 2024 but chose not to release it publicly over concerns around impersonation, misinformation, and copyright.

What it signals: OpenAI is building out its voice infrastructure quietly and carefully, acquiring the talent and technology without taking on the reputational risk of a public-facing product. For brands and marketers, the broader story here is the accelerating tension between AI voice capability and consent. As synthetic voices become cheaper and more convincing, questions are being raised around whose voice can be used, for what, and with whose permission. Anyone using AI-generated voices in advertising or content or considering it is operating in an increasingly scrutinized space.

📖 Read more: New York Times

TikTok just let AI agents take the wheel on ad campaigns

At TikTok World, the brand’s sixth annual global ad product summit, TikTok announced the launch of its Ads Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This infrastructure lets third-party AI agents like Claude and ChatGPT connect directly to TikTok's ad platform and autonomously plan, launch, and optimize campaigns without human intervention. That means the laborious, click-heavy work of running campaigns can now be handed off entirely to AI agents rather than managed manually by a media buyer in an ads dashboard. TikTok also opened the platform to third-party API agents, letting advertisers build custom AI infrastructure for their own unique workflows on top of TikTok's ad stack. The move makes TikTok the last of the four major platforms to build this infrastructure layer. Google, Meta, and Amazon all launched comparable MCP servers earlier this year. TikTok paired the announcement with a broader slate of new ad products, including Branded Buzz, which enables advertisers to collaborate with creators on large-scale campaigns to drive mass awareness.

What it signals: Major ad platforms are racing to build MCP infrastructure and the reason goes beyond automation convenience. As one adtech expert put it, whoever controls the MCP controls the data. Routing agent traffic through your own server means you keep visibility into how brands query your platform, what they compare it against, and what drives conversion. That signal is enormously valuable in an agentic world, which is why big tech is moving fast to establish their own standards before someone else's becomes the default. For media buyers and marketing teams, it’s clear that AI agents are becoming the operational layer of paid media. The question is no longer whether to adopt them but which platforms and workflows to build around.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

Editors Choice 👀

💄The co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics gave up his fortune and is being ordained as a Catholic priest this month. 📖 Read more: USA Today

📺Brands are still buying late night TV and NBCU's upfront numbers show why it still works. 📖 Read more: AdWeek

⚖️ A jury sided with OpenAI and Sam Altman, tossing Elon Musk's lawsuit in under two hours of deliberations. 📖 Read more: New York Times

📸 Instagram wants to be casual again — Instants lets you share unedited, disappearing photos with Close Friends. 📖 Read more: Instagram

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Vol. 127 Clorox: Going organic 🧼

Case Studied — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Todays’s Case Studied is brought to you by Myoutreach

Case Studied
From squeaky clean to unhinged

More and more, we’re seeing brands experiment with different social media strategies. And it’s both entertaining and enlightening.

Duolingo and Ryanair both lean into absurdity. Nutter Butter's TikTok account looks a lot like a fever dream. And all of them saw strong organic engagement from it. Recently, Clorox launched a similar strategy.

This week, Case Studied explores how Clorox restructured its marketing team and built an organic social-first strategy that's generating millions of impressions.

The Brief

The Clorox Company is one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the United States. Founded in 1913, it's home to a wide portfolio of household brands including Pine-Sol, Brita, Hidden Valley, Glad, Kingsford, and its flagship Clorox cleaning line.

For most of its history, when Clorox's brands showed up on social media, they did so through paid placements. Organic content was an afterthought relative to the company's larger media strategy.

But heading into late 2024, Clorox was facing an 8% drop in net sales in its fiscal third quarter. The decline was driven by what CEO Linda Rendle described as a "tougher consumer environment.” The company began taking a hard look at how it was building relationships with consumers.

In this challenge, the company's senior VP and CMO Eric Schwartz saw an opportunity to change direction. Rather than treating social purely as a paid media channel, he wanted to build a presence that consumers would actually seek out, engage with, and return to. To test whether that kind of connection was possible, the company began piloting an organic social-first approach with a handful of brands in the fall of 2024.

The Execution

Clorox began testing its new organic social approach with three brands: Pine-Sol, Brita, and Clorox. Rather than broadcasting product messaging, the initial pilots leaned into the absurdist, playful content formats that are native to TikTok.

Pine-Sol's TikTok presence became the clearest expression of this new direction. The account developed a visual identity built around illustrated wizards, neon colors, and poor-on-purpose graphic design. A nonsensical phrase, "oh em gee da Pine", became the brand's unofficial TikTok slogan.

Brita pursued a similar tone, with autotuned jingles and content engineered to get stuck in your head. This included a video about what it means if your partner doesn't refill the Brita filter (their answer ➡️ divorce).

When those pilots started gaining traction, Schwartz restructured the company's marketing organization. The social media practitioners scattered across Clorox's individual brands were consolidated into one centralized social team, housed within Clorox's in-house creative agency, Electro Creative Workshop. The team works alongside external agency partners including VaynerMedia, Interpublic's FCB, and Ketchum.

The company calls the strategy behind this content "cohort targeting." Rather than organizing content around demographics, Clorox's senior director of marketing Rita Gorenberg and her team created content based on shared experiences and interests of different cohorts.

One of Brita's top-performing posts, for example, targeted married couples who share domestic chores. The team identified upwards of a dozen such cohorts per brand and continuously evaluated which ones are sticking. Gorenberg said, "As you see what [content] works, you keep a cohort or you evolve a cohort. For ones that aren't sticky, you replace it with another insight—a new cohort."

Today, the centralized team produces between 300 and 400 pieces of content per month across Clorox's entire brand portfolio. In addition to TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, the team is also experimenting with Reddit as part of a broader social search strategy. Gorenberg noted that nearly half of Clorox's organic video views now begin in social platform search bars.

The Results

The organic social pivot produced measurable results quickly. Halfway through the Pine-Sol pilot, the brand had already surpassed its original impression goals twice. Posts that previously required paid support to gain traction were now generating 2 to 3 million impressions organically.

On the Brita side, a video targeting the “married couples who share domestic chores” cohort accumulated nearly 450,000 views and more than 62,000 likes on TikTok. A separate post featuring a refrigerator drawer filled with matcha generated enough buzz to earn media coverage—an outcome Gorenberg described as the "flywheel" the social team had been working toward.

The jingles developed for both Pine-Sol and Brita performed well across demographics, resonating not just with Gen Z but with millennials and older consumers as well. Demand for a Spotify playlist collecting all the brand jingles came directly from consumers.

The Takeaways

1) Build for the platform, not the brand guidelines.

Clorox's success with organic content came, in part, from giving its social team permission to make things that looked and felt native to TikTok. They did this even when it meant misspelling "Brita" as "Bwita,” which some executives of a certain mindset might’ve immediately nixed. Schwartz specifically noted the importance of insulating the social team from internal pressure to default to traditional advertising norms.

If your brand has a presence on social platforms, take an honest look at whether it reads as platform-native content or repurposed ad content. The two are easy to tell apart. Platform-native content tends to be more reactive and rooted in the specific humor and formats of that channel. Repurposed ad content is polished and more on-the-nose. If yours is leaning towards the latter, consider how you can adjust your approach.

2) Target audiences based on experiences, not demographics.

Clorox moved away from demographic targeting and started building content for groups of people who share a specific experience or relationship. While it breaks from traditional marketing standards, this allowed the brand to speak more directly to these audiences and the engagement quickly followed.

Think about who your customers are in terms of the experiences they share, not just the attributes they share. An experience-based approach asks different questions than a demographic one. It’s the difference between “who buys our product" and "how does our product show up in people’s lives." Even a handful of well-defined “cohorts” can generate a significant content roadmap.

3) Give organic content room to breathe.

Schwartz acknowledged that experienced CPG executives, himself included, tend to reach for measurement frameworks before strategies have had time to develop. He deliberately shielded the social team from that impulse in the early stages of Clorox’s social revamp. So instead of worrying about proving ROI, the team had room to develop a jingle, define an absurdist visual identity, and iterate on cohorts.

When testing a new content strategy or channel, give yourself time to evaluate its stickiness. Too much measurement too soon tends to kill experiments before they find their footing. You can build a testing roadmap that has both proper runway and accountability.

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The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief — Tue, 12 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Chalamet, ChatGPT ads, and potato chips

This week's Brief covers World Cup campaigns, a digital twin marketplace, and plenty of AI news.

Adidas and Lay’s both tapped into serious star power. The Guardian put a modern twist on a 40-year-old commercial. And IKEA told stories from a unique perspective.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is piloting its ad platform across the globe, Old Navy got a new Chief Customer Officer, and The Trade Desk lost a top strategist.

Here's what you need to know.

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Campaigns of the week 📺

adidas

Chalamet built a dream soccer team

To promote the 2026 FIFA World Cup, adidas dropped a five-minute cinematic short film called "Backyard Legends.” Directed by Mark Molloy and developed by agency Lola USA, the film stars Timothée Chalamet as he assembles a football team to play against a local team of “backyard legends” who haven’t lost a game since the 90s. Chalamet’s crew is made up of Jude Bellingham of Real Madrid, Lamine Yamal of Barcelona, and Trinity Rodman of the US Women’s National Team. The film includes flashbacks to the 90s, showing CGI-generated versions of Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, and Alessandro Del Piero. Bad Bunny and Lionel Messi also make appearances.

Why it stood out: Most World Cup ads revolved around match footage, stadium energy, or star players. Adidas took a unique approach here by focusing on football’s street culture. The casting also does a lot of work here. Pairing current stars like Bellingham and Yamal with a Hollywood lead like Chalamet and a musician like Bad Bunny helps extend the film's reach beyond typical sports audiences. And the CGI recreations of Zidane, Beckham, and Del Piero help give the story a generational thread that further extends its audience reach.

📖 Read more: adidas

The Guardian

A 40-year-old ad got a sequel

The Guardian revived its iconic 1986 "Points of View" ad with a new film called "The Whole Picture." The original spot used a single scene shot from multiple angles to argue that context changes everything. The new version opens with the same footage as the original, before actor Kathy Burke (who appeared as a bystander in the original) steps out of the scene and breaks the fourth wall. Filmed on the same street with the original director Paul Weiland, Burke delivers a pointed update: "I just want the truth, told by real people, not an AI robot or some dodgy billionaire." The campaign, created with agency Lucky Generals, runs across the UK and US, where the Guardian has been expanding aggressively.

Why it stood out: The "Points of View" spot was considered one of the best ads in history and every creative decision in its sequel reinforces that original message. It’s on the same street, with the same director, and the same cast member. In a media moment defined by distrust, AI-generated content, and billionaire-owned outlets, the campaign carries just as much relevance and resonance as it did in the 80s (if not more).

📖 Read more: The Guardian

Lay’s

No chips, no invite

To promote the World Cup, Lay’s launched ‘The Epic Watch Party’ with Slap Global, hungryman, and Washington Square Films. The spot shows Messi, Beckham, Thierry Henry, Alexia Putellas, and Steve Carell venturing to a Florida supermarket where they asked real customers leaving the store what they bought. If they’d bought a bag of Lay’s, the customers could go to a World Cup watch party with the stars. If not, they were sent on their way. The video is part of the ‘No Lay’s, No Game’ campaign, which is in its fourth year running.

Why it stood out: This year, Lay’s is a global sponsor of the World Cup for the first time. And it's clearly aiming to appeal to the dedicated soccer fans as well as the casual consumers. The celebrity casting in this spot was deliberate. Messi provides global reach, Beckham offers North American crossover, and Putellas extends reach to the women's game. Meanwhile, Carell helps make the ad feel approachable for the folks who are down to watch the World Cup, but aren’t die-hard football fans.

📖 Read more: Little Black Book

IKEA

Think inside the bag

IKEA Sweden and agency NoA Åkestam Holst turned the brand’s iconic blue Frakta bag into a camera. "FRAKTA Point Of You" is a national OOH, DOOH, and print campaign running across Sweden this spring. Every single ad in the campaign is shot from the bottom of the bag looking up. Think: picnics, laundry runs, beach days, last-minute airport dashes. The Frakta frames them all, capturing the everyday moments where the bag shows up. The campaign builds on last autumn's "Wherever life goes" platform, which already drew attention for its stripped-back approach.

Why it stood out: The Frakta bags cost a few bucks, making it one of the cheapest items you can buy at IKEA. But its accessibility and ubiquity are what made it a compelling subject for a national campaign. The perspective of the bag is visually distinct and aligns with the brand’s recent approach of understated storytelling.

📖 Read more: AdAge

Industry news 🤝

Old Navy taps a retail heavyweight

Gap Inc. announced that Michael Francis was appointed Chief Customer Officer at Old Navy and Head of Marketing Shared Services across Gap Inc. Francis brings a highly decorated résumé: former CMO at Target, President of JCPenney, and Chief Global Brand Officer at DreamWorks Animation. He was already advising Old Navy before the hire was formalized, so he knows the brand and its challenges coming in. In his new role, Francis will lead Old Navy's end-to-end customer strategy, brand storytelling, and customer experience. As Head of Marketing Shared Services for Gap Inc., he'll also oversee media strategy and execution across the full portfolio that includes Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta.

What it signals: Old Navy is an $8+ billion brand with massive reach, but it's been searching for a sharper cultural identity for years. Bringing in Francis suggests the brand is serious about elevating how it shows up beyond promotions and price points. His dual mandate is notable, too. By giving Francis responsibility across the entire Gap Inc. marketing infrastructure, the company signals potential ambition. Beyond Old Navy, it may be looking to build a more coherent house of brands.

📖 Read more: Gap Inc.

The Trade Desk's top strategist is heading to OpenAI

Samantha Jacobson, Chief Strategy Officer at The Trade Desk, is departing the programmatic advertising giant to join OpenAI. Jacobson spent more than five years at The Trade Desk, rising to CSO for one of the largest independent demand-side platforms in the world. Before that she held senior roles at Oracle, eBay, and American Express. Her specific title and start date at OpenAI haven't been disclosed, but she will retain a seat on The Trade Desk's board of directors while the company conducts a search for her successor. The move comes as OpenAI has been aggressively expanding its advertising business, signaling a serious push to compete for brand and agency budgets.

What it signals: OpenAI is actively building the infrastructure to become an advertising platform and hiring someone with Jacobson's pedigree suggests it wants to do that with credibility. As AI platforms push deeper into advertising, we may see them do more recruitment from established programmatic giants. For The Trade Desk, losing a CSO to an AI company is the kind of talent signal the industry will be watching closely.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

WPP approved a $14.8M pay package for its new CEO

WPP shareholders voted to approve a maximum pay package of $14.8 million per year for CEO Cindy Rose at the company's annual general meeting in London. Rose's base salary is set at $1.7 million, with total compensation rising substantially if short- and long-term bonuses are paid in full. The package significantly exceeds the maximum $10.8 million earmarked for her predecessor Mark Read before his exit in September 2025. There's also an upside scenario. If Rose manages to boost WPP's share price by 50%, her annual payout could climb as high as $19.3 million. The approval comes as WPP navigates a difficult stretch. Q1 revenue fell 8.9%, and Rose notably opted out of the earnings call entirely, leaving the CFO to face investors.

What it signals: WPP is in the middle of a genuine turnaround effort. Its revenue is declining, its clients are reassessing, and its holding company model is under pressure from a rapidly changing agency landscape. Approving this pay structure—with such significant upside tied to share price performance—can be interpreted as the board's way of prioritizing results. Whether Rose can deliver those results and what WPP looks like on the other side is the bigger story worth watching.

📖 Read more: Adweek

MarTech moves 🤖

ChatGPT ads are going global

Just two days after OpenAI launched its self-service ads platform in the US, the company announced it's expanding the ChatGPT ads pilot to the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico. The pilot was previously limited to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ads are now appearing in categories like shopping, retail, and travel. They target users in what OpenAI is calling a "conversational, intent-driven environment." The expansion comes the same week it was reported that OpenAI has updated its privacy policy to formally share user data with advertisers.

What it signals: OpenAI is moving from an AI company to an advertising platform at a pace that should get the attention of every media buyer and brand strategist. The combination of 500 million monthly ChatGPT users, high-intent search behavior, and a self-service buying platform puts OpenAI in direct competition with Google and Meta for ad dollars. The question many brands are asking isn’t whether they should test this platform, but when to start.

📖 Read more: Adweek

A startup wants to be the marketplace for your digital twin

Twinnin, a UK-based AI platform backed by Google and Nvidia, launched its first seed funding round targeting $3 million at a $25 million post-money valuation. The platform lets actors, performers, and anyone else license their digital likeness. It creates a blockchain-secured "identity record" that studios and brands can then purchase for use in films, shows, and ads. Actors pay $14.99 per year to list their digital twin, while studios and brands subscribe to access them. Founder Katrien Grobler said her goal is that by 2030, half of the human-looking figures in AI-generated content are licensed digital twins (rather than fully synthetic AI-generated faces). The platform has already met with the actors union Equity and the casting platform Spotlight, though Equity was careful to note it doesn't endorse any specific platform.

What it signals: For marketers, Twinnin represents an early look at where talent licensing in advertising may be heading. Brands already navigate NIL deals for athletes and influencers. Twinnin is essentially proposing the same framework for digital likenesses. If this model gains traction, it could give brands a more straightforward path to licensing real human likenesses for AI-generated campaigns, rather than relying on fully synthetic faces.

📖 Read more: Deadline

Apple Music wants to label AI content

Apple Music rolled out a new metadata system called Transparency Tags, requiring record labels and distributors to disclose when AI was used in the creation of music uploaded to the platform. The tags cover four categories—artwork, track, composition, and music video—and apply whenever AI contributed a "material portion" of the work. Labels can begin applying them immediately, and will be required to use them for all new content going forward. There's a significant catch though: Apple defers entirely to labels and distributors to determine what qualifies as AI-generated, and there's no visible enforcement mechanism or cross-verification process.

What it signals: The Transparency Tags system is an interesting contrast to Spotify’s Verified by Spotify badge. While Spotify developed their own criteria for authenticity and trust, Apple Music is essentially relying on labels to adhere to the honor code. For brands and advertisers using music in campaigns, this is an early signal that AI content provenance is becoming a tracked and regulated space.

📖 Read more: Forbes

Editors Choice 👀

📺 Dua Lipa is suing Samsung for $15M after her face ended up on TV boxes without permission. 📖 Read more: Variety

📊 Brand and agency execs went on record about Google, The Trade Desk, and Meta's black box ad platforms. 📖 Read more: Digiday

🎬 Marc Jacobs, Crocs, and MCoBeauty are all making branded microdramas and it's working. 📖 Read more: AdAge

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Vol. 126 Pop Mart: The toy that took over 🧸

Case Studied — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Lessons from Labubu

The blind box is one of the most reliably compelling retail tactics. The concept is simple: you know what you're buying into, but not exactly what you're getting.

That gap between anticipation and reveal has driven repeat purchases across categories for decades, from baseball card packs to Japanese gashapon capsule toys to LEGO's collectible minifigure series. And one of the most successful recent examples of this approach came from Chinese toymaker Pop Mart.

This week, Case Studied explores how Pop Mart turned Labubu into a global cultural phenomenon.

The Brief

Pop Mart was founded in Beijing in 2010, initially as a general retailer before pivoting to designer toy collectibles. In 2016, the company launched its signature blind box model, in which customers purchase a sealed package not knowing which figure they'll receive from a themed set. The model introduced elements of surprise, scarcity, and collection-building that helped grow a passionate fan base in China.

The character at the center of this story, Labubu, originated outside of Pop Mart entirely. Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung created the character in 2015 as part of an art series called The Monsters, which drew on Nordic folklore. Pop Mart licensed the character in 2019 and introduced it into their product lineup.

For years, Labubu remained a modest performer within the company's wider portfolio. That is, until 2024.

The Execution

Pop Mart didn't engineer Labubu's breakthrough through a single campaign. They created the conditions for it through a combination of real-time data monitoring, product iteration, and aggressive resource reallocation when signals emerged.

The first major signal came in early 2024, when K-pop star Lisa from Blackpink was photographed with a Labubu keychain hanging from her bag. The image spread rapidly across social media, particularly in Southeast Asia, where Lisa has a massive following.

Pop Mart's team was monitoring social and commerce data closely and when they registered the surge in engagement, they moved fast. The team reallocated product development and marketing resources to amplify Labubu.

Part of this pivot included a key product decision: the creation of a "soft vinyl plush" that combined expressive molded rubber faces with plush bodies. The format was a direct response to consumer engagement data showing that tactile, soft dolls generated more social sharing than their hard-shell counterparts. This new format made Labubu more shareable by design.

Pop Mart also invested in the retail experience. Unlike competitors who distributed primarily through e-commerce and third-party retailers, Pop Mart built flagship stores with distinct visual identities. For many fans, going to a Pop Mart store became an event, not an errand.

On the community side, Pop Mart cultivated a shared vocabulary among fans that deepened belonging. Terms like 端盒 (buying a full set to find a specific figure) and 娃友 ("friends of dolls") spread through online communities and became markers of insider status. User-generated content like unboxing videos and haul posts flooded TikTok, Instagram, and RedNote.

Exclusive collaborations reinforced the toy’s scarcity and cultural cachet. A Louvre-exclusive Labubu collection in Paris featured figures inspired by iconic artworks including the Mona Lisa and Girl with a Pearl Earring. And at one point, Pop Mart UK paused Labubu sales entirely to manage supply issues, which only stoked demand further.

The Results

Pop Mart's total revenue more than doubled in 2024, reaching approximately $1.81 billion USD. International sales grew by more than 700% year-over-year, with business outside mainland China accounting for nearly 40% of total revenue. The Monsters product line, anchored by Labubu, brought in over RMB 3 billion and accounted for roughly 23% of total company revenue.

Plush toy sales, driven primarily by Labubu's breakout, increased more than 1,200%. The company's market cap grew to approach $40 billion, surpassing legacy toy companies including Hasbro and Mattel.

Secondary market prices also reflected the demand. Labubu figures that retail between $13 and $16 in Asia were reselling online for up to $700. In June 2025, a four-foot-tall Labubu sold at auction in Beijing for approximately $172,800 USD.

The Takeaways

1) Monitor signals and act accordingly.

When Lisa's post with her Labubu went viral, Pop Mart was watching. They were tracking engagement signals across social platforms and commerce channels to identify what was gaining traction. So when Labubu spiked, they didn't wait for a planning cycle. They reallocated resources, scaled production, and leaned into the momentum while it was still building. The organic moment became a major commercial one because the infrastructure to respond was already in place.

Most brands have access to real-time signals, but how many of those signals do they actually act on? Social listening tools, engagement data, and search trend monitoring can surface genuine consumer interest. The hurdle is usually in organizational speed. Consider whether your team has the ability to move resources quickly enough to capitalize on emerging momentum.

2) Design for sharing.

The decision to create Labubu in a soft vinyl plush format was a direct product response to sharing behavior. Pop Mart's data showed that tactile figures generated more user-created content than hard-vinyl ones. Fans posted more when they could cuddle, carry, and interact with the toy so the product format itself was engineered for social media performance.

Think about the physical/experiential properties of your products or campaigns. Do they translate into something a customer would naturally want to share? Shareability is a design decision you make at the beginning. And when done strategically, the organic reach tends to follow.

3) Build community language, not just community.

Pop Mart supported the emergence of a shared vocabulary that made belonging to the community feel distinct. Fan-generated terms spread through social platforms and became part of how collectors identified themselves. Knowing the terminology was also part of how fans identified with one another.

Are your brand’s most loyal consumers using a specific language? If so, consider how you can bring that language into the brand's identity by putting it on merch or including it in marketing materials. Leaning into consumer language can be a subtle but strong way to support your brand community.

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The marketing news worth your attention

Case Studied Brief — Tue, 05 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Todays’s Case Studied Brief is brought to you by HubSpot

Case Studied Brief
GameStop, Bezos, and the fall of Spirit Airlines

This week's Brief covers brand comebacks, billionaire backlash, and more AI news for advertisers.

Skittles got weird on purpose. PETA riffed on an iconic movie scene. And Ford turned a pricing promotion into a patriotism play.

Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines shut down for good, GameStop made a $56 billion play for eBay, and Amsterdam banned burger ads from its streets.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

PETA

Gird your loins and ditch the leather

PETA debuted a new theater spot running before screenings of The Devil Wears Prada 2 across 100 U.S. cinemas for two weeks. Created with creative director Chris Carl, the ad spoofs the original film's iconic "gird your loins" scene. It shows employees frantically hiding leather accessories and wool sweaters as a Miranda Priestly-esque editor issues a memo banning all animal skins from a fictional magazine. The spot closes with the line, "A change of heart could change everything."

Why it stood out: Cause-based advertising often defaults to guilt or shock but PETA took a different approach here. Placing an anti-leather message alongside a film about the luxury fashion industry is well-played contextual advertising. The spoof format also helps PETA earn goodwill through nostalgia and humor while still landing a pointed message.

📖 Read more: Variety

Skittles

Soft the rainbow

Skittles is back in its weird era. TBWA\Chiat\Day's new campaign for Skittles Gummies leans hard into absurdist discomfort. The spots feature real puppetry and puppeteers that show oddities like a kangaroo man cradling teens in his pouch and jellyfish giving massages. Mars describes it as turning softness into a "distinctly Skittles universe: unexpected, immersive and pleasantly perplexing." It's built specifically for Gen Z, a demographic increasingly driving the gummy and fruity candy category. Riffing on the brand's iconic tagline, the campaign is titled "Soft the Rainbow” and rolls out across linear, CTV, OLV, and social.

Why it stood out: With cocoa prices rising, gummy candy is increasingly taking over the confection category and this campaign widens Skittles’ presence there. Soft the Rainbow plays on Skittles’ exaggerated absurdist branding, helping the product feel like a natural evolution. Creative directors at TBWA\Chiat\Day said, “To make ourselves stand out in a saturated gummy market, we pushed past ‘softness’ and into the realm of the uncomfortably soft.”

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Vue

A love letter to the big screen

European cinema chain Vue launched "Feel It Forever," its first major brand campaign since 2020. It consists of a two-minute film directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi and created by agency Hijinks. The spot follows a young couple heading to the cinema for a first date, each trailed by a growing line of movie characters from every film they've ever seen: neo-noir detectives, fantasy princesses, 80s VHS-textured figures, Wild West silhouettes. Shot across New Zealand and London with 148 actors, 74 wigs, and a crew that includes the colorist behind Black Mirror, the film airs before all screenings at Vue's European estate. It rolls out across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Poland, and Lithuania throughout May, alongside social, OOH, and CTV.

Why it stood out: Streaming has made film watching easier, cheaper, and increasingly forgettable. This campaign makes a genuine emotional case for why the big screen still matters without once mentioning seat upgrades, sound systems, or ticket prices. The central metaphor is simple enough to feel familiar and cinematic enough to earn its placement on the very screens it's celebrating.

📖 Read more: Vue

Ford Motor Company

Employee pricing for all

Ford launched "American Value. For American Values" on May 1. It offers employee pricing to all U.S. customers on most new 2025 and 2026 Ford and Lincoln vehicles through July 6. The program lets buyers pay what Ford employees pay, which sits below MSRP and can save anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the vehicle. Timed to America's 250th anniversary, Ford framed the campaign as a direct gesture of gratitude to American workers, small business owners, and families. The messaging leans heavily on Ford’s domestic manufacturing credentials, including being the largest employer of hourly U.S. autoworkers. A similar employee pricing campaign launched last year during tariff uncertainty. This one arrives as Ford navigates an 8.8% year-over-year U.S. sales dip in Q1.

Why it stood out: With this campaign, Ford is using a pricing promotion to make a values statement. By anchoring the campaign to America's 250th anniversary and framing employee pricing as a gesture, Ford sidesteps the race-to-the-bottom optics of a typical sales event. Whether the patriotism lands depends on the audience, but it’s worth watching how much this campaign impacts sales.

📖 Read more: Ford

Industry news 🤝

The Met Gala's Bezos problem

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez served as the primary sponsors and honorary chairs of this year's Met Gala. The move ignited immediate backlash online. Social media users calling for a boycott. Protest groups, including Amazon workers and labor unions, staged a counter-event called "Ball Without Billionaires" in downtown New York on the day of the gala. The museum's director defended the Bezos partnership as consistent with the institution's longstanding approach to philanthropy. Historically, the gala raises enormous sums for the Costume Institute, bringing in a record $31 million last year. Several high-profile stars skipped this year’s event, including Zendaya, Meryl Streep, Bella Hadid, and NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani.

What it signals: Billionaire-brand association is not neutral or inherently positive, especially at high-visibility cultural moments. When a sponsor's presence overshadows the event itself, the PR calculus changes. For brands thinking about sponsorship, naming rights, or high-profile philanthropic partnerships, the Met Gala situation with Bezos is a useful case study in how quickly cultural goodwill can curdle.

📖 Read more: CNN

The meme stock that wants to buy eBay

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen made an unsolicited $55.5 billion offer to acquire eBay on May 3. He proposes $125 per share in a 50-50 cash-and-stock deal, which translates to roughly a 20% premium to eBay's Friday close. Cohen has quietly built a 5% stake in eBay since February and secured a $20 billion debt financing commitment from TD Bank to back the bid (supplemented by GameStop's $9.4 billion cash pile). The offer is non-binding and subject to eBay board, shareholder, and regulatory approval. Cohen stated he's willing to take the bid directly to shareholders if the board resists. He’s pledged $2 billion in annualized cost cuts within 12 months of closing, with $1.2 billion of that coming from eBay's own sales and marketing operations. Both companies share growing overlap in collectibles and secondhand goods.

What it signals: This is a brand reinvention story as much as a business deal. GameStop has been quietly transforming from a dying retail chain into a cash-rich holding company under Cohen, and eBay would give it instant scale in e-commerce. Of course, the $1.2 billion proposed cut to eBay's marketing budget is the detail worth watching. It's a reminder that when financial engineers take the wheel, marketing is often the first line item on the chopping block. However, many would argue that eBay's brand—including buyer trust, seller reputation, and category authority—is one of its most valuable assets.

📖 Read more: Bloomberg

Versant sheds a good business to build a better brand

Versant, the media company spun off from NBCUniversal, sold its youth sports management platform, SportsEngine, to PlayMetrics for an undisclosed sum. It’s reported to be in the $400 to $500 million range. SportsEngine provides software and payments tools for youth sports clubs, leagues, and tournaments, and had been part of the NBCUniversal portfolio since 2016. The sale is part of Versant's deliberate strategy to sharpen its identity around four core pillars: business news and personal finance, political news and opinion, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. Versant's portfolio includes CNBC, Golf Channel, USA Network, E!, Fandango, and Rotten Tomatoes. Now PlayMetrics, backed by Genstar Capital, becomes one of the dominant operating platforms in youth sports tech, combining its existing tools with SportsEngine's five product lines across clubs, leagues, and governing bodies.

What it signals: With this move, Versant is showing that it’s willing to sell a profitable, growing business that simply doesn't fit its identity. By all accounts, SportsEngine was a good asset. It was projected to stream 200,000 events in 2026, up from 9,000 just three years ago. However, it’s clear the brand didn’t fit the story Versant is trying to tell. For marketers, it’s a clear example of strong brand discipline.

📖 Read more: Variety

MarTech moves 🤖

Spotify has an answer to AI music

Spotify launched "Verified by Spotify," a new badge system that distinguishes authentic human artists from AI-generated content and functional music factories. Marked by a green checkmark, artists can earn the badge by showing consistent listener engagement over time, complying with platform policies, and demonstrating a real-world presence through things like concert dates, merch, and linked social accounts. AI-persona artists are explicitly excluded from verification at launch. Spotify says more than 99% of artists that listeners actively search for will be verified at launch, covering hundreds of thousands of artists across genres and career stages. The rollout also includes a new artist details section that shows career milestones, release activity, and touring history across all profiles, regardless of verification status.

What it signals: As AI-generated music floods streaming platforms, verification is becoming a trust infrastructure play. With this badge rollout, Spotify is building a credibility layer into its product that protects both listeners and legitimate artists. In a world where content farms can generate thousands of tracks overnight and game algorithmic discovery at scale, the green checkmark is a consequential line in the sand. The question now is whether other platforms follow, and how quickly authenticity becomes a baseline expectation.

📖 Read more: Spotify: For the Record

OpenAI quietly rewrote the rules on user data

OpenAI updated its U.S. privacy policy on April 30, formalizing the advertising infrastructure it’s been building behind the scenes. The changes explicitly acknowledge that OpenAI now receives purchase data from advertisers and their partners to measure ad effectiveness. It also shares user information with marketing partners for third-party ad targeting and leverages user data to market its own products. Additionally, the company renamed its vendor disclosure category to include "marketing partners." The update comes as ChatGPT uninstalls are reportedly on the rise, raising questions about whether users are growing wary of the platform's expanding commercial ambitions.

What it signals: Formalizing ad data-sharing changes the dynamic between ChatGPT and its users. This infrastructure change wasn't announced with a press release or a product launch. It was buried in a privacy policy update, which is exactly how platforms tend to formalize things they'd rather not make a headline. The AI assistant is becoming an ad platform and questions around the data that powers it are only going to get louder.

📖 Read more: Adweek

USA Today is making real money from AI licensing

USA Today Co. reported that its "other" digital revenue—which includes AI licensing deals with Meta, Microsoft, and Perplexity—grew 125.6% year-over-year to $33.75 million in Q1 2026. It marks the first time the publisher gave a clear signal that AI licensing is a meaningful growth driver. The news comes alongside less rosy figures for USA Today. Digital advertising revenue dropped 3% year-over-year, page views declined from 195 million unique visitors in Q1 2025 to 180 million in Q1 2026, and programmatic revenue softened. CEO Mike Reed cautioned that AI licensing revenue would be "lumpy" going forward rather than consistently rising, but expressed confidence in its long-term value.

What it signals: Publishers have spent years watching AI companies scrape and summarize their content for free while their own traffic and programmatic revenue declined. AI licensing changes that equation by allowing publishers to charge AI companies for formal, legal access to it. USA Today Co. is one of the first to show that these licensing deals can actually move the needle financially. A 125% year-over-year jump in that revenue category is hard to ignore, even with the CEO's own caveat that it will be "lumpy." What makes this moment more significant is the shift in what AI companies want. Reed noted that real-time content is becoming more valuable than archived material, which means publishers with live, high-frequency news output may have more leverage than they think.

📖 Read more: Digiday

Editors Choice 👀

🌍 Amsterdam just officially became the very first capital city to ban meat and fossil fuel ads today. 📖 Read more: BBC

🤖 Coca-Cola, Hershey, and United are using AI to finally prove marketing's real worth to the C-suite. 📖 Read more: Ad Age

🏀 The Dallas Wings keep doubling sponsorship revenue and the right brands are taking notice. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

🍎 While rivals spent billions on AI, Apple held way back and somehow quietly still came out on top. 📖 Read more: Bloomberg

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Case Studied

This week's smartest moves in marketing

Case Studied BriefRobots play soccer, Adidas switches sides, and Fable 5 returns

Campaigns of the week 📺

HyundaiAtlas steals the halftime show

PolymarketA prediction market ad with no odds in sight

WhoopRonaldo's data does the talking

JeepA tire's journey, entirely AI-generated

Industry news 🤝

Omnicom takes the Adidas account from WPP

Getty walks away from its $3.7B Shutterstock merger

Walmart buys its way deeper into streaming ads

Sky buys ITV's networks in a $2.1B British TV shake-up

MarTech moves 🤖

Fable 5 comes back online with tighter guardrails

Instagram wants your TV, not just your phone

Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs as Xbox absorbs the worst of it

Editors Choice 👀

Vol 134: Audible: Love at first listen 🎧

Case StudiedWhen a genre has a moment

The Brief

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The Execution

The Results

The Takeaways

This week's moves in marketing

Case Studied BriefCannes wraps, ranch goes viral, and OpenAI hits pause

Campaigns of the week 📺

DoorDashThe "intern mistake" that was never a mistake

SkimsWill Ferrell's fictional golfer is now a Skims model

SpriteSprite put hip-hop's greatest songs up for debate

KraftRanch dressing's unexpected World Cup moment

Industry news 🤝

France made creativity a national strategy

The merger is working, and Wren wants you to know

The trillion-dollar company that isn't ready to go public

A24 took Google's money and lost loyalists

MarTech moves 🤖

Alexa’s ads take you straight to checkout

A tariff threat that reaches straight into ad budgets

Adobe just bought the tool professionals already use

The government decided who gets the most powerful AI

Editors Choice 👀

Vol 133. Skims: Campus rush 🏫

Case StudiedBuilding around rush

The Brief

SponsoredDelegate your 2027 marketing agency hiring to us today. For free!

The Execution

The Results

The Takeaways

Biggest moves in marketing this week

Case Studied BriefWorld Cup wins, media consolidation, and AI that means business

Campaigns of the week 📺

VerizonThe least telecom-looking telecom ad

HeinzEven censored, the label still wins

EtsyMeet the Jeffs who actually make things

Industry news 🤝

PMC swallows Vox and rewrites digital publishing

SponsoredThe brands scaling influencer marketing in 2026 aren't bigger. They're running a better system.

WPP and AWS bet big on agentic AI for brands

Senators move to block the Paramount-WBD merger's July close

MarTech moves 🤖

Disney and Adobe are building theme parks with AI

Broadcast radio finally gets digital targeting

ChatGPT ads just got a lower barrier to entry

Nexxen opens its ad platform to external AI agents

Editors Choice 👀

Vol 132. Claude: Ads about ads 📺

Case StudiedRaising the question

The Brief

SponsoredFind the perfect marketing agencies in 15 minutes!

The Execution

The Results

The Takeaways

This week's boldest moves in marketing

Case Studied BriefNew York wins, Fox buys Roku, and the White House pulls Mythos

Campaigns of the week 📺

NikeNew York finally exhales

Tootsie RollMr. Owl gets a sidekick

KalshiTimothée Chalamet, professional spokesperson

Case Studied Brief
Robots play soccer, Adidas switches sides, and Fable 5 returns

Hyundai

Atlas steals the halftime show

Polymarket

A prediction market ad with no odds in sight

Whoop

Ronaldo's data does the talking

Jeep

A tire's journey, entirely AI-generated

Case Studied
When a genre has a moment

Sponsored
Delegate your 2027 marketing agency hiring to us today. For free!

Case Studied Brief
Cannes wraps, ranch goes viral, and OpenAI hits pause

DoorDash

The "intern mistake" that was never a mistake

Skims

Will Ferrell's fictional golfer is now a Skims model

Sprite

Sprite put hip-hop's greatest songs up for debate

Kraft

Ranch dressing's unexpected World Cup moment

Case Studied
Building around rush

Sponsored
Delegate your 2027 marketing agency hiring to us today. For free!

Case Studied Brief
World Cup wins, media consolidation, and AI that means business

Verizon

The least telecom-looking telecom ad

Heinz

Even censored, the label still wins

Etsy

Meet the Jeffs who actually make things

Sponsored
The brands scaling influencer marketing in 2026 aren't bigger. They're running a better system.

Case Studied
Raising the question

Sponsored
Find the perfect marketing agencies in 15 minutes!

Case Studied Brief
New York wins, Fox buys Roku, and the White House pulls Mythos

Nike

New York finally exhales

Tootsie Roll

Mr. Owl gets a sidekick

Kalshi

Timothée Chalamet, professional spokesperson

Smartphone Free Childhood

Your kid's algorithm, on VHS

Sponsored
100+ ChatGPT Prompts to Revolutionize Your Day

Sponsored
The takes no one else will publish.

Case Studied Brief
World Cups, a Knicks playoff run, and creepy chrome stalkers

Nike

A studio full of football stars, no script

OpenAI

An AI ad without the tech speak

Apple

They turned data trackers into actual stalkers

AB InBev

They made bars the hero

Case Studied
Cracking the content code

Sponsored
Claude for Marketers: 60+ Prompts That Do the Heavy Lifting

Case Studied Brief
Jingles, IPOs, and claymation

Chili's

Lizzo said yes to the jingle

NPR

Ask more, know more

Lego

Even Aquaman needs playtime

Kaiser Permanente

Son Heung-min got a claymation checkup

_Sponsored
BreakingSilos 2026 is a free online conference on June 9th.

Case Studied
You snooze, you get a second chance

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The only way to win at B2B marketing in 2026