TV & STREAMING

Disney/ABC

“Live from Hollywood, it’s Dancing with the Stars!”

A ballroom fan would recognize that phrase anywhere, and last week, those words ushered in the return of ABC’s hit competition dance show for its 35th season—this time with the most advertiser interest it’s ever seen and overall ad revenue up 5x year over year, according to John Campbell, SVP of streaming, entertainment, and multicultural solutions at Disney Advertising.

Season 35 is supported by four season-long sponsors, including AT&T, Paris Baguette, Sephora, and Olipop, as well as seven custom sponsors, including financial services brand Thrivent, the upcoming film The Cat in the Hat, Gatorade, Panera, and several others, according to Disney.

In fact, while assembling Season 35’s advertiser roster, Campbell faced a challenge, he told us: He was facing too much brand interest.

“Even before the cast announcement, even before we knew what the 16 pairs were going to be, we actually at one point had to take an inbound pause with our production partners because we just needed time to be able to figure out who we can and can’t take,” he said.

The brand excitement comes from last season’s commanding viewership and engagement numbers, which reached more than 9 million viewers at the time of the Season 34 finale and more than 72 million votes cast, a 125% increase compared to Season 33, according to Campbell. As Season 35 kicks off, executives are hoping for a similar success story, and to keep its advertisers dancing right along.

Continue reading here.—JN

      

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Autumn vibes are high…and so are those 2026 acquisition costs for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the entire holiday season—which you can plan ahead for, btw.

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SPORTS MARKETING

Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

During the first week of the NFL season, the matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers averaged 18.5 million live viewers, a smaller audience than the opening night game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, which averaged 25.1 million viewers.

But notably, the Rams v. 49ers game was played in Australia—marking a first for the league, which has been emphasizing international audience growth in recent years.

To help maintain personalized relationships with NFL fans around the world, the league has partnered with Adobe to leverage the company’s AI products in the NFL content pipeline. The organizations had previously worked together for over a decade, according to Chi Ogbuehi, the NFL’s VP of marketing technology and consumer products, but an official partnership wasn’t announced until last year.

In the second year of the deal, Adobe and the NFL are focusing on quickly creating personalized content for fans at an international scale, execs told Marketing Brew.

“Our fans are expecting us to engage with them in ways that are relevant, in ways that are timely, and in ways that are tied to what’s happening in the moment,” Ogbuehi said. “To deliver that value at the speed of need that our fans are expecting, our traditional, manual processes can no longer sustain that.”

Read more here.—AM

      

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DATA & TECH

Anna Kim

Corporate America is filled with cautionary tales of what not to do as an employer—and companies might do well to heed them.

Forty-five percent of Gen Z consumers said employee treatment affects their trust in a brand, according to an FTI Consulting report, making the issue more important than a company’s sustainability efforts (41%) or stance on social issues (37%). This will be especially important as Gen Z consumers enter their “peak spending years.”

“People are very keyed in, and they care, and, so, it’s not just about what you say in the moment and that immediate response to an incident that gets their attention,” said Rachel Rosenblatt, senior managing director at FTI Consulting. “It’s a show-me story.”

Gen Z may be more likely than previous generations to form opinions on companies based on their actions as employers because social media has given them access to information that hasn’t been readily available before, Tara Ceranic Salinas, a business ethics professor at the University of San Diego, told HR Brew.

What’s changing for HR? Over the past decade, HR has reckoned with the social media capability of “the world is your megaphone,” Rosenblatt said, as some workers have documented their employee experiences on public platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and TikTok. On the latter, for example, a former CloudFlare employee gained notoriety after sharing a recording of herself being fired, while a former SHRM employee created a series of videos detailing what he claimed was a disconnect between the employer’s stated mission and treatment of its workforce.

“[It’s] just this view into a corporation that people have really never seen before from the outside,” Ceranic Salinas said. “A lot of the things that used to be in what we thought of as a black box is now really a glass box.”

Continue reading on HR Brew.—MC

      

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

Time it right: When to post on Instagram for max engagement, according to an analysis.

Down the (pipe)line: Tips on building audience segments for generating leads.

Whittle it down: A look at Google Analytics’s latest data filter additions.

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Summit

The countdown just got real

The Marketing Brew Summit is September 30 in New York, NY, and tickets are almost gone. Join 300+ marketers comparing notes on what’s actually working right now—not what’s trending on LinkedIn. And once the room’s full, it’s full. Grab your ticket now and check out the full agenda today.

Wish we wrote this

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Bloomberg wrote about the history of polyester and why an increasing number of brands are advertising their use of natural fibers in lieu of the fabric—for now.
• The New York Times wrote about Gen Z’s current fascination with gems and the word “whimsy.”
• The Atlantic wrote about Match Group’s decision to go all-in on “traditional” dating norms with its newest app, Upward.

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.

• Senior Branch Office Administrator at Edward Jones
• Community Manager at Morgan Properties
• Public Relations Specialist at Allegis Global Solutions
• Senior Director for Global Media Relations, University Communications and Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University
• Principal Product Manager, Tech and Social Advertising at Amazon