| Inside ‘Outside Tonight’ and the brands behind the internet’s late-night show. |
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Today is Thursday. Where else would you find Major League Soccer’s CMO and Netflix’s brand team on the same agenda? Marketing Brew Summit, September 30, NYC. Grab your ticket. In today’s edition:
—Jennimai Nguyen, Alyssa Meyers, Erin Cabrey |
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SOCIAL & INFLUENCERS Up late  Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Jason Mendez/Getty Images, Screenshots via @OutsideTonightJSB / Youtube |
Julian Shapiro-Barnum doesn’t know if he’s going to save late night. But he does know that it’s fun to say. It’s a standout line in his opening monologue in the very first episode of Outside Tonight, the YouTube-based internet late night show that debuted in June. The first season consists of nine weekly episodes, which follow the typical late-night script: a headliner guest, supplemental skits and bits, and a musical performance. Viewers may ask: How is Outside Tonight—which does practically the same thing as a traditional late night show—going to save the genre? After all, the greats are suffering: CBS controversially pulled Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show off the air, and the audience for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon declined 64% over the last decade, dropping from 3.6 million viewers in 2015 to 1.3 million in 2025, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! was down 13%, going from 2.3 million to 2 million viewers in the same time period, according to Forbes. (With that said, the ratings for Jimmy Kimmel Live! have shot up almost 25% following Colbert’s cancellation.) Perhaps the answer is a small dose of existentialism. The thing that arguably sets Outside Tonight apart from the shows that paved the way (besides literally placing the desk outside) is Shapiro-Barnum’s framing of each episode around a question; for instance, “When is the right time to leave a party?” or “What’s so wrong with letting our insecurities define us?” “I have a lot of opinions about the celebrity chat show thing,” Shapiro-Barnum told us. “With this, we tried to, more so than a traditional late-night show, give a framing device for every episode and at least have a conversation topic, so it wasn’t just like we’re talking about anything you want to. His passion project is made possible by brand sponsorship. In the first episode, Shapiro-Barnum states plainly that Outside Tonight is entirely brand-supported, which he said allows him to “call a spade a spade” and acknowledge the brand integrations that appear in every episode. Shapiro-Barnum doesn’t think his questions (or skits or interviews) will revolutionize late night immediately. Making Outside Tonight is a work in progress—he’s listening and learning, as they say, from both his peers and his predecessors, and he hopes to do so for a very long time. Continue reading here.—JS
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Sponsored By impact.com Make the most of your partnerships  |
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SUPER BOWL Wait, already?!  Ishika Samant/Getty Images |
The NFL season has yet to begin, but Disney is already sold out of Super Bowl ad inventory, the company announced Wednesday. Disney—which plans to air the 2027 Super Bowl on ABC and, for the first time, ESPN—shared the sellout news about a month earlier than NBCUniversal did last year, when the company announced in early September that it was out of 2026 Super Bowl inventory. The sellout happened “earlier than ever” for NBCU, Peter Lazarus, EVP, NBC Sports and Olympics, advertising and partnerships, said in a press release at the time. The Disney Advertising team sold out the Super Bowl during its 2026-2027 upfront period, during which time “total volume commitments” increased by double digits compared to last year’s upfront, according to a press release. The Super Bowl and the NFL took center stage during Disney’s upfront presentation this year. The details: Super Bowl advertisers will represent 58 brands across 34 categories, including financial services, candy, personal care, and software, according to Disney. Nine of those advertisers will be brand new to the Super Bowl. Altogether, the group makes up “one of the broadest advertiser and category mixes in Super Bowl history,” per Disney. Upcoming Super Bowl activations will stretch beyond the broadcast, with interest in assets like Disney’s ESPN Beach on the Santa Monica Pier, the company said. Read more here.—AM
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BRAND STRATEGY Back down  Miragec/Getty Images |
Amid tariff refunds, shifting commodity costs, and a challenged, bifurcated consumer, retailers and brands are wondering—is the price right? After several years of elevating prices, many are now evaluating the benefits of bringing them back down. Many food CPGs—including PepsiCo and General Mills, eager to jumpstart sinking unit sales—have reduced some of their prices over the last few months. Several others, from retail giants like Kroger and Walmart to beauty brands like E.l.f. Cosmetics, have also reconsidered their pricing strategies as a lever to drive up velocities and attract—and keep—customers. Dime Beauty, a prestige skin care and fragrance brand sold at Ulta Beauty, permanently dropped prices by an average of 20% across 17 of its SKUs on May 31. Consumers “feeling the pinch” of beauty prices was a contributing factor in the decision, Dime’s Chief Brand Officer Bernice Merlini told Retail Brew. “We’re prioritizing that long-term brand trust and customer loyalty rather than short-term margin potential,” she said. Read more on Retail Brew.—EC
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french press  Morning Brew |
There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those. Rules of the game: How CMOs are thinking about influencer marketing in 2026. The new blue text site: Tips on when to post on Bluesky. That’s what makes you beautiful: A report from Reddit on how beauty and skin-care communities discuss products and trends on the platform.
The partnership playbook: As performance-based marketing gains popularity, managing partnerships gets trickier. impact.com’s partnership automation playbook explores how marketers can use automation to save time + take advantage of more opportunities every week. Learn more.*
*A message from our sponsor. |
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Quiz What do you know?  Amelia Kinsinger |
The week’s biggest Marketing Brew stories, now in quiz form. Test yourself on the latest headlines in brand strategy, social media, influencer trends, sports marketing, and more in a quick, competitive challenge built for marketing pros. Challenge your coworkers and see how your score stacks up! Ace the quiz |
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WISH WE WROTE THIS  Morning Brew |
Stories we’re jealous of.
- Bloomberg wrote about the internal and external factors challenging Lululemon’s future success.
- The Verge wrote about the backlash to OpenAI’s recent influencer trip.
- New York Magazine wrote about how admitting to struggling is social media’s “last taboo.”
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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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✳︎ A Note From Nift *Nift customer conversion rates consistently perform above 6%, 3x the standard industry rate of 2%. |
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