☕ Local angles

The local spins on World Cup marketing campaigns.

It’s Monday, and marketing synergy will carry us right into music festival season. Ahead of the first weekend of Coachella, Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode announced a new set of products called Rhode x The Biebers, which her husband, who is headlining the festival, helped design. Busy guy!

In today’s edition:

—Alyssa Meyers, Jasmine Sheena

SPORTS MARKETING

Screenshots from two World Cup-related ad campaigns, Lay's and Telemundo

Morning Brew Design, Photos: Lay’s, Telemundo

With 16 host cities across three countries, it’s safe to say there’s no one-size-fits-all marketing plan for this summer’s FIFA Men’s World Cup.

Given the scope of the tournament, the leagues, host committees, media rights partners, and sponsors seeking to contribute to the growth of soccer fandom in the US while also hitting their own marketing goals have approached the tournament differently than they might with smaller-scale sponsorships. That hasn’t always been easy.

“It took a while for those brands to wrap their heads around, ‘How are we going to do this in this many markets, how do we prioritize what we want to do, and how do we think through this market versus that market?’” Kim Scates, VP of commercial partnerships for the Houston 2026 host committee, told Marketing Brew. “The planning process has been a bit of a beast.”

After months—or, in some cases, years—of prep, marketers have landed on a range of different approaches to tailor activations down to the local level, such as homing in on specific host cities, changing their creative based on markets, and partnering with local organizations to make their mark in communities.

Continue reading here.—AM

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BRAND STRATEGY

Connor Storrie with a cell phone showing the Verizon logo in his back pocket.

Verizon

Great glutes never killed anybody…Except, perhaps, in Verizon’s latest ad campaign.

The spot, a four-and-a-half minute short film directed by filmmaker Nia DaCosta, has all the hallmarks of a horror story: low lighting, a house in the woods, jump scares, knives, and ominous phone calls to—gasp—a landline.

The film, titled “Look Behind You,” also features Connor Storrie, whose performance—and glutes—in the HBO drama Heated Rivalry helped him rise to superstardom.

The project is a first in terms of brand film work for both Storrie and DaCosta, who’s known for her work directing movies including The Marvels and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. For Verizon, the campaign was designed to achieve something many brands strive for: mass reach by means of “living culture and conversation,” leveraging arguably one of the most talked-about assets in culture this year, CMO Leslie Berland told Marketing Brew.

“It was a bringing together of what we all know about Connor and all the things that he’s famous for, and the Verizon network,” Berland said. “There was a real spark of excitement around this idea of, ‘What if we bring together this famous butt with the…Verizon 5G network and create really fun, interesting, compelling storytelling around that?’”

Read more here.—AM

TV & STREAMING

Kelly Perone, SVP of technology and product at Comcast Advertising, during Comcast Advertising's IAB NewFronts presentation

Comcast Advertising

While performance marketing is being souped up with generative AI, it’s suffering from a lack of robust measurement of CTV marketing spend, which only continues to grow.

That can make proving performance marketing’s worth a challenge. Many companies at this year’s IAB NewFronts, like Comcast Advertising, DoubleVerify, and Future Today, touted CTV performance-focused offerings to woo marketers who are obsessed with performance.

“Historically, a lot of credit has been given to those that are closer to last-click attribution,” James Rooke, Comcast Advertising president, said during a mock interview with Seth Meyers that aired during the company’s NewFront presentation. “Premium TV has been under-credited for the value that it delivers.”

Continue reading here.—JS

Sponsored By The Ibotta Performance Network

FRENCH PRESS

French Press

Morning Brew

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Not a mirage: What this year’s Coachella billboards suggest about the direction of music marketing in 2026.

Tried and true: Tips from the founders of Flamingo Estate on staying true to brand vision.

Small but mighty: A guide to TikTok advertising for small businesses.

Let’s go, SEO: Everything you publish on WordPress.com is structured for search engines, shareable across platforms, and readable by AI agents. Keep your content working long after it’s published. See what you can build.*

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IN AND OUT

In and Out Marketing Brew

Francis Scialabba

Executive moves across the industry.

  • Babylist has hired its first CMO, H&R Block marketer Jill Cress, ahead of a possible IPO next year, WSJ reported.
  • OpenAI CMO Kate Rouch has exited the company to focus on her health.
  • Paramount Skydance president Jeff Shell has left the company amid a legal dispute with a professional gambler.

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