| Why a hotel brand sponsored a musician-centered docuseries. |
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It’s Wednesday. Mariska Hargitay, the longtime star of Law & Order: SVU, is set to host the Emmys in September—a shift away from comedians who have hosted the past few years. Last year’s broadcast marked a four-year viewership high, so we’ll have to see if Olivia Benson fans deliver an even bigger audience. Dun dun. In today’s edition:
—Jennimai Nguyen, Jasmine Sheena, Kelsey Sutton |
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TV & STREAMING Feeling hospitable  Coachella/MGX Creative |
Global girl group KATSEYE went from watching Coachella performers from the crowd to taking the stage themselves in just two years. For Eyekons wanting a behind-the-scenes account of the transformation, the docuseries Arrival puts it on screen. Made by creative agency MGX Creative and distributed on Coachella’s YouTube account, the second season of the docuseries follows Coachella artists KATSEYE, Gigi Perez, Holly Humberstone, and Levity in the lead-up to their debut festival performances. Marriott Bonvoy signed on as presenting sponsor for Season 2 of the series, and Tonia Constable, VP and head of global sponsorships and experiences at Marriott International, told us the hospitality brand aimed to infuse its ethos of creating lasting memories throughout the four episodes of the season. “[An artist’s] first appearance on the stage at Coachella, that becomes a pivotal moment for them, and that becomes a part of their lifelong journey,” Constable said. “Both from a music perspective, as well as being able to tell that authentic brand story, we just thought that there was a really, really unique fit there.” MGX Creative co-founder and CEO, Karam Gill, said docuseries formats are key to creating a powerful emotional journey—one that can be attractive to audiences and advertisers alike. In other words, when brands want “something that really can resonate more than a traditional advertisement,” a docuseries like this one might be the way to go, he said. Plus, amid the rise of AI, distinct, human emotional storytelling is more in demand than ever, he told us. “Coming back to a sense of reality where you’re grounded in actual humans and human experiences and human storytelling, it has become so popular,” Gill told us. Continue reading here.—JN
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Sponsored By Tremendous Send out that gift card—stat  |
Your incentive programs offer a ton of value to your customers, but they can also be a huge hassle to manage. Tremendous can help you send out your incentives. Their platform is built to handle loyalty rewards, referral incentives, affiliate payouts, and any other gift card or payout programs your brand is cooking up. Grab the overview guide to explore how the platform can help streamline global reward sending so there’s less manual work and way less stress for your team. Learn more about how you can send incentives at scale. |
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AD TECH & PROGRAMMATIC Look before you leap  Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images |
OpenAI is moving toward accepting more regulated verticals to its ChatGPT ads pilot, but advertisers and their agencies are looking before they leap. The company, which has been steadily building out its ads offering, began opening its ads pilot more widely to financial services brands in May and has made some recent changes to its ads policies that reflect a loosening of restrictions on highly regulated verticals. But as OpenAI is moving toward expanding the brands that can run ads on ChatGPT, those often-risk-adverse advertisers aren’t necessarily ready to dive in at scale. Finance clients in particular are “curious with a big dose of caution,” Amy Winger, global client lead at VML, told Marketing Brew. But healthcare brands are looking for ways to get in on the action, she added. What changes has OpenAI made to its ads policies? In April, the company added language stating that “medical, legal, and financial advice contexts are no longer categorically blocked from ads by default.” It also added language stating that the company “may approve ads from approved advertisers within the financial services, healthcare and medicine, and legal services categories…manually on a case-by-case basis,” according to a review conducted by Marketing Brew. The company confirmed that it has updated its ads placement policy to be more precise regarding ads in regulated categories, Taya Christianson, an OpenAI spokesperson, told Marketing Brew. She reiterated that the company isn’t widely including ads in financial, legal, or medical conversations, but noted that ChatGPT may show ads in limited circumstances in those verticals when they make contextual sense. Contexts the company deems non-sensitive for ads in those verticals, she added, may include general queries around exercise or diet, or recommendations for budgeting or financial education tools in response to broad financial questions. Read more here.—JS
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BRAND STRATEGY Human-centric  Morning Brew |
If a group of chief strategists get together at Cannes Lions to judge creative strategy, it’s pretty much guaranteed that no stone will go unturned. “We were all having a bit of a joke at dinner one night, where we were saying, what do you call a table full of Cannes jury strategists? We don’t know—we’re still talking about it,” Ellie Bamford, chief strategy officer, North America, VML, told us. This year, Bamford served on the festival’s Creative Strategy jury, awarding work including Heineken’s “The Pub that Refused to Die” documentary campaign highlighting a community’s effort to save a pub in rural Ireland and the movement it inspired to train other locals to run their own pubs. We spoke to Bamford about some of the takeaways from the winning work, and about the different ways that human-centric marketing is showing up. See more from our conversation here.—KS
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Sponsored By Snapchat  |
Stop the scroll. Consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted from public broadcasting to more private, intentional communication. Endless scrolling is creating fatigue, while consumers increasingly seek authentic connection in private and trusted spaces. As platforms begin to look and behave the same, Snapchat explores potential solutions for brands and how Snap stands out. |
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EVENTS Pin this idea  Morning Brew Inc. |
Get ready to level up your strategy with Sara Pollack, global head of consumer marketing at Pinterest. Join us at the Marketing Brew Summit on September 30 to hear how she turns creative inspiration into real brand impact. Don’t just save these insights for later—see them live. Grab your ticket now. |
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french press  Morning Brew |
There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those. Maximum performance: Tips on using AI to help with campaign optimization. Shop till you drop: Five steps to improve shopping performance on Pinterest. Prove it: A guide to creating a social media report to track performance.
Send out your payouts: Streamline gift card and payout sending with help from Tremendous. Read the guide to learn how they can help automate your loyalty incentives, referral rewards, and more. Get your incentives out in minutes.*
*A message from our sponsor. |
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PODCAST Cannes Lions 2026: The biggest takeaways and trends  |
In this episode, we’re coming to you live from Cannes Lions 2026! Editor Kelsey Sutton and reporter Jennimai Nguyen recap some of the convos they’ve had with execs across the week, detail the activations they got to see IRL, and share their biggest takeaways from the year’s most memorable marketing event. Listen to the episode |
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METRICS AND MEDIA |
Stat: $1.5 billion. That’s how much revenue the scent Japanese Cherry Blossom has brought into Bath & Body Works in the last two decades, according to the New York Times, reporting on the company’s hunt to find its next billion-dollar scent. Quote: “You don’t need to be ‘unhinged’ to earn attention. You just need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Depending on who you are as a brand and where you are in your journey, the attention you’re chasing usually lives in the discomfort zone.”—Nick Gallo, founder and CEO of creative agency Loop, speaking to Ad Age about his thoughts on creativity in advertising Read: “Life after Labubu” (The Cut) |
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