SPORTS MARKETING

Just Salad

Jalen Brunson is following in the footsteps of NBA stars like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Steph Curry—and not only by securing a championship ring.

Those all-time greats are also pros at building their business portfolios, and after leading the New York Knicks to the 2026 NBA championship, Brunson is doing the same. In June, the reigning Finals MVP announced he was joining fast-casual chain Just Salad as a partner and equity owner.

Brunson is also playing a role in Just Salad’s brand strategy, including by starring in the company’s latest campaign, which is rolling out today. Marketing Brew got an exclusive look at the filming of the ads and spoke with Brunson and Just Salad execs about the future of the collaboration, which is rooted in shared tristate roots.

“We really wanted a relationship that was more than just marketing, and we really want him to be a true partner,” Just Salad CMO Jennifer Lally told us. “We were really excited about the possibility of making this a long-term partnership.”

Continue reading here.—AM

      

Sponsored By Life360

Brands can often get stuck thinking solely in audience demographics, but real people live in real routines, not generalized clicks.

So a persona deck that just says “active family of five” might not cut it anymore.

On the flip side, Life360 says: “Tired family looks at a package of thawing chicken thighs at 5:52pm, looks at each other, and gets in the car.” Your brand has until 5:53pm to be where that car goes.

That’s the difference between knowing your audience and knowing when to matter to them.

100 million monthly Life360 members open the app 6x a day on average, giving brands a permissioned view into real-life movement and context that helps them build awareness before these decisions get made.

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AD TECH & PROGRAMMATIC

Pinterest

Pinterest equals performance. Or at least that’s what the company wants marketers to think.

At its Pinterest Presents advertiser event in New York last week, the platform introduced a slew of performance marketing offerings, including Visual Search Ads, which allow advertisers to show up in search results on the platform or when a user expands a Pin.

It’s the latest performance marketing offering for advertisers that are facing pressure to show results from their advertising spend in a challenging economic reality. Pinterest, which has been emphasizing intentional time spent online in its consumer marketing, also used the event to tout its leveraging of AI to personalize algorithms more closely to users, making it the latest tech company looking to use AI to power user customization.

“For much of our history, Pinterest was a great place to build awareness, but not to drive results,” Bill Ready, Pinterest CEO, said onstage. “I’m proud to say that Pinterest is now a performance platform.”

Read more here.—JS

      

Sponsored By Diageo

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BRAND STRATEGY

Amelia Kinsinger

In October 1995, about three months after Amazon went live as an online bookstore, customer reviews displayed alongside a product were such a strange notion that the company endeavored to explain what they were in a press release: “Amazon.com allows readers to share their thoughts on particular books and exchange ideas with other readers around the world on its users’ reviews page.”

Today, those reviews are not just ubiquitous for retailers and retail brands, they’re an obsession. How can stores get more reviews, especially ones with four- or five-star ratings? When a product gets one-star reviews, should brands try to bury them or post chirpy responses? When products have an abundance of reviews, including bad ones, can that actually help reduce the likelihood that they’ll be returned?

While consumers may not depend on the kindness of strangers as much as Blanche DuBois, they certainly depend on their opinions. When it comes to purchase decisions, 96% of consumers value ratings and reviews, significantly more than those who value recommendations from family and friends (72%) or TV commercials (11%), according to a 2025 survey by PowerReviews, a ratings and reviews technology company.

The survey also found that 95% of consumers regularly read reviews, and when products have no online reviews, 57% say, “Fuhgeddaboudit,” and don’t purchase them.

Read more on Retail Brew.—AAN

      

Sponsored By Profound

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In and out

Executive moves across the industry.

• Target brought on board former Hilton global CMO, Mark Weinstein, as chief marketing and guest experience officer.
• Perelel, a vitamin brand, tapped former Rare Beauty marketer Ashley Murphy as CMO.
• Disney made several executive changes on its streaming side: Adam Smith will become chairman of DTC for Disney Entertainment, while former DTC co-president Joe Earley will become president of Disney Entertainment Television franchise and content strategy.