SOCIAL & INFLUENCERS

818 Tequila

Brides are saying “I do”—to free tequila.

To celebrate what it calls 818 Day, 818 Tequila tapped into its Happy Hour broadcast channel on Instagram to see which of its 12,000 members were getting married or throwing a bachelorette party around August 18 (or 8/18). As a result, five brides received sponsored bachelorette parties or weddings. The Kendall Jenner–founded brand also partnered with the jewelry brand Ring Concierge to give away additional items to bridal parties for bridesmaid proposal kits, ranging from merch to diamond studs.

“It seems like all the internet’s favorite influencers are getting married this year, and so we’re seeing so much bachelorette and wedding content in our feeds, and how some of our favorite influencers are having brands tap into their special days,” Jenny Brown, executive creative director at 818, told us. “We really wanted to, instead of rewarding creators, reward our community.”

The bridal giveaways mark the end of 818’s “Best Summer Ever” campaign, which featured 10 giveaways total. The campaign netted more than 13 million impressions and 34,000 engagements on top of the 3,000 entries, according to 818 data shared with Marketing Brew.

It’s the latest way the brand is seeking to democratize the influencer experience, starting with those who engage with the brand most intimately via its Happy Hour channel.

“We really rely on that community channel,” Brown said. “Being a member of that community means you like us, and we want to reward that.”

Continue reading here.—KH

      

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AI

Adobe Stock

OpenAI is continuing its ad platform buildout in an effort to court advertisers.

Fresh off announcing a ChatGPT ad rollout in 31 countries, the AI platform is rolling out a redesigned campaign onboarding experience for advertisers launching new campaigns.

The new onboarding experience, which was detailed as part of a webinar for marketers that took place earlier this month, also included what is likely a familiar incentive for most marketers: $500 in matching ad credits for $500 in ad spend for new advertisers.

OpenAI’s pitch to advertisers comes at a pivotal time for the company. The company recently told investors its revenue grew by 18% quarter over quarter, but its losses also increased, posing challenges for the business, according to the Wall Street Journal; the company is aiming to go public amid considerable interest in AI from investors.

As it looks for a path to profitability, OpenAI is looking for new ways to persuade marketers, who according to Emarketer are on track to spend more than a trillion dollars in 2026, to direct some of that spend to it. Central to the pitch is that ChatGPT is an attractive place to advertise as users flock to the platform with a variety of queries at various stages of intent.

“People are using [ChatGPT] to discover new products, explore their options, and ultimately decide what to buy,” Christin Klein, a global ad solutions team member who cohosted the webinar, said during the presentation. “What is different is that what was once a fragmented journey across different websites, reviews, [and] offline and online channels is now consolidated in ChatGPT. This creates a really unique opportunity for marketers.”

Read more here.—JS

      

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SPORTS MARKETING

Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images

You’d be hard-pressed to find a soccer club in America that hasn’t looked to leverage the World Cup for their own audience gains. From rec teams, to pro organizations that global superstars Leo Messi and Son Heung-min call home, to the governing body, it’s been front and center—even at the clubs that didn’t send any players to the tournament.

For the LA Galaxy, one of the original Major League Soccer (MLS) teams, that was the case. But with a long history in the league, the team wanted to honor its legacy, serve soccer fans in the greater LA area during the tournament, and give them a place to direct their fandom afterward, which remains a key focus for soccer organizations around the world.

Without a national team player to hinge their World Cup campaign on, the Galaxy took a different approach, placing heavy emphasis on community initiatives like watch parties to drive attendance that ideally continues with the MLS season, Tom Braun, president and COO of the Galaxy, told Marketing Brew.

And skipping a player-first approach, even in the case of necessity, certainly has its perks.

“It worked out really well for us, because you can create a plan around an individual player with the hopes that that player advances really far, but if he doesn’t, then you’re kind of left with no plan,” Braun said. “For us, it was more about local relevance and being in the community.”

Continue reading here.—AM

      

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EVENTS

Morning Brew Inc.

Three weeks out from the Marketing Brew Summit, and the lineup, the sessions, and the city (NYC, Sept. 30) are all locked in. If you haven’t grabbed a ticket yet, now’s the moment. Get your ticket before the countdown gets a lot shorter.

french press

Morning Brew

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

Question everything: Considerations for marketers about machine bias in AI-assisted ad buying.

Good vibes: Guidance from Pinterest on building visual discovery and appeal to the customer preference journey.

Down under: TikTok stats from Australia to help inform strategy targeting the Aussie audience.

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Monica Tailor

McCann’s chief social marketing officer joins Marketing Brew’s recurring Coworking series to talk about leading global social strategy for one of the industry’s biggest agencies.

METRICS AND MEDIA

Stat: $4.76 billion. That’s how big the domestic summer box office was this year, according to measurement company Rentrak and reported on by Variety, breaking the all-time record for the season and cementing that movies are so back.

Quote: “PepsiCo had already become increasingly promiscuous on the creative side, regularly working outside Omnicom…Omnicom tolerated those infidelities because media planning and buying was the far bigger prize. Now that prize is gone—and with it, a partnership that lasted decades.”—An unnamed former PepsiCo executive, speaking to Ad Age about the company’s recent decision to move global media to competitor Publicis Groupe

Read: “Whispering complaints into your phone may be the future of customer feedback” (Wired)