| Why Lay’s embraced bandwagon fandom for the World Cup. |
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Today is Thursday. Hailey Bieber is the latest celebrity to collab with Gap, this time on a ’90s-inspired denim line based around Bieber’s birth year, 1996. As far as we can tell, though, she won’t be dancing. In today’s edition:
—Alyssa Meyers, Kelsey Sutton |
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WORLD CUP From insult to invitation  Lay’s |
Call someone a “bandwagon fan” in the US, and you can usually expect to be met with some hostility. But during the men’s World Cup, some people seem willing to own up to their bandwagon fandom—especially now that Team USA has been knocked out. While soccer has been gaining popularity stateside in recent years, its fandom still doesn’t hold a candle to that of leagues like the NFL or the NBA—meaning there are plenty of viewers who have only recently become obsessed with Norway’s Viking Row or Cabo Verde goalkeeper Vozinha. That’s why the marketing team at Lay’s made the call to embrace the bandwagon for its World Cup campaign. “We decided to turn what is normally an insult into an invitation,” Denise Truelove, SVP of marketing for Lay’s US, told Marketing Brew. Given the negative connotation that can surround the term, the campaign was rooted in plenty of consumer research and testing, Truelove said. But no amount of research could have predicted just how overflowed the bandwagons of teams like Norway, Scotland, and Cabo Verde would become this summer, a twist that so far seems to be boding well for Lay’s, she said. Continue reading here.—AM
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Sponsored By impact.com Search is now a team sport  |
If you want to get your brand seen on AI search, then you’ll need to recruit some brand partners to help you out. Strategic partnerships go a long way in influencing AI-generated recommendations. impact.com’s article breaks down how you can develop a search strategy based on partnerships, with insights like:
- AI search is shifting discovery from clicks to mentions, and consumers are now getting most of their answers directly from AI tools.
- Being cited in AI-generated answers can increase trust, awareness, and purchase intent—even when users never click through.
- Third-party mentions matter more than owned content because AI systems often prioritize trusted sources like publishers, review sites, and partner content.
Get ready for the big game. Build a partnership ecosystem that gets your brand seen on AI search. |
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AGENCIES More than a game  &friends |
Soccer is best played in the grass. Or is it the mud? The concrete? Wherever it’s played, the sport is inherently grassroots. And while soccer is on display at the highest, most professional level this summer during the World Cup, the majority of play around the world is much more casual. Think Adidas’s World Cup campaign film, where Timothée Chalamet tells the fictional tale of a 3v3 street soccer team that’s been undefeated since 1996—even against legends like David Beckham. That’s the vibe Malcolm Buick, executive creative director and partner of Brooklyn-based branding agency Athletics, is celebrating with his project “&friends,” a digital archive that documents New York City’s soccer culture. The project was not made for a client, though Athletics has done work for brands including Nike, Google, IBM, and MLS Go. It’s not funded by—or has raised money from—any investors. It’s simply a passion project for Buick, who grew up playing soccer in a small town on the east coast of Scotland. “That’s where football was less about the football and more about your pals,” Buick told Marketing Brew. “We would play anywhere—find a patch of grass, jumpers for goalposts, a battered ball…What stayed with me was the friendship.” Continue reading here.—AM
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SPORTS MARKETING Invited to the game  Morning Brew |
As part of its efforts to expand globally, the drinkware and lifestyle brand has released a collection of Argentinian-blue tumblers, bottles, and mate mugs in collaboration with Leo Messi, along with additional themed merchandise and pub takeovers centered on matches. The push into the sport goes beyond the tournament: Stanley 1913 has also inked partnerships with football clubs like Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, and Juventus. “Football is one of those components that connect so many people around the world, and there’s this throughline of food and beverage that obviously also connects so many people around the world,” Ben James, Stanley 1913’s EMEA GM, told us. “How do we leverage sport performance, connect it to a premium lifestyle brand like Stanley 1913, and then give the consumers new products?” James recently sat down with Marketing Brew to tell us about the brand’s sports partnership strategy and pushing the 113-year-old brand forward. Here are a few highlights. On soccer’s importance in the brand’s growth goals: Football, for most people, is not just a sport. It’s a way of life—and it also supersedes just playing the game. It’s at home watching the game with their kids or their family. It’s at a pub, watching it with their best mates. They’re recording it, they’re watching it after work, or maybe on the metro on their way home…Football, just the partnerships, it’s the highest-generating new-consumer acquisition partnership group that we’ve created thus far. For one…it gives us a nice expanse into [men] as a consumer. It [also] tells more of a comprehensive story from how they’re watching the game, where they’re watching the game, what they’re eating and drinking during the game. Hopefully, Stanley 1913 can definitely be there in the middle of it. See more from our conversation here.—KS
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french press  Morning Brew |
There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those. Pillars galore: A guide to using content pillars to bolster a social strategy. By the numbers: Nearly a dozen social media analytics and reporting tools. AEO insights: Understanding the difference between Profound and Peec AI. |
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Jobs  |
Real jobs shared through real communities. CollabWORK brings opportunities directly to Marketing Brew readers—no mass postings, no clutter, just roles worth seeing. Click here to view the full job board.
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WISH WE WROTE THIS  Morning Brew |
Stories we’re jealous of.
- The New Yorker wrote about the “as seen on TikTok” stickers showing up on book covers and the marketing strategy behind them.
- Bloomberg wrote about the long lines forming in cities like New York and Paris as consumers queue up to try the next viral food item.
- Business Insider wrote about Meta’s AI tools and how they are complicating advertising on the platform.
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