SPORTS MARKETING

Oura

Oura has been circling the sports marketing space for years, but this year, the wearable tech company formed ties with several iconic properties to further cement its presence with increasingly health-conscious fans.

Oura started the year with Olympic-sized partnerships with Team USA and Team Finland and then announced a long-term deal with US Soccer a couple of months later, just in time for the World Cup. By late summer, Oura was diving into its first year as the official wearable of the US Open, and before the tournament had concluded, it also formalized a multiyear sponsorship with reigning World Series champs the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, the New York Knicks, one of Oura’s only formal, consumer-facing sports partnerships prior to this year, won the NBA championship.

While the company’s push into sports sponsorships has been more organic than predetermined, it’s a shift that lines up with increasing sports viewership, team valuations, and a general societal pivot toward healthier living. It also comes at a crucial time for the company: Oura filed for its initial public offering on Monday, targeting a $2.2 billion fundraise, and recently hired longtime sports marketer Julia Cheney from Google to help lead its sports and brand partnerships.

The strategy of teaming up with major teams, leagues, and athletes around the world will continue at Oura heading into the FIFA Women’s World Cup and LA28, according to CMO Doug Sweeny. By working with elite athletes and teams, Sweeny said he hopes to tell brand stories and engage with fans in a way that positions Oura as a leader in the health and wearable tech markets.

“Consumers are so engaged in sport, and I think we’re seeing that as a trend level, culturally, and we want to be a part of it,” Sweeny told Marketing Brew. “We’re not an airline or a credit card. We are on athlete bodies, or a spectator’s body, so…we felt like we should make some really big, strategic moves and cement the relationship with some of these iconic global brands.”

Continue reading here.—AM

      

Sponsored By PwC

AI’s been around the block. It’s grown from a buzzword to a measurable integration. In short: It’s not exactly accurate to say AI is still in its experimentation phase.

But while expectations are rising, results can still be uneven. PwC shares that nearly half of organizations are seeing measurable gains from AI, while an equal share are still struggling to unlock value.

Because it’s not about how much AI you deploy. It’s about strategy.

Organizations that prioritize high-impact use cases and align them to business strategy can pull ahead of the competition, and that’s what PwC can help your organization do. At this inflection point, team up with PwC to learn how data, workflows, and decisions can operate as one so AI becomes part of how your business runs—not just a decorative addition.

Cut through the AI noise with an outcome-focused approach with PwC.

THE STATE OF THE CMO

Morning Brew Inc.

As more responsibilities pile onto a marketer’s plate, leaders say they are feeling weighed down.

According to Marketing Brew’s survey, 79% of respondents agreed with the statement that marketing leaders are held to shorter timelines to prove results than other executives. Sixty-nine percent agreed with the statement that they feel pressure to prioritize short-term performance metrics over long-term brand-building.

Four in 10 respondents agreed with the statement that CMOs find it difficult to prove the value of their marketing work to other executives, which is why marketer tenures are stubbornly short—an average of 4.3 years in 2025, according to the executive search and advisory firm Spencer Stuart.

That mirrors other research highlighting a trust gap in the C-suite. According to a 2026 survey of CEOs and senior business executives conducted by Gartner, only 16% of CEOs said they would choose the CMO to “spearhead new initiatives.”

Many CMOs are under pressure to prove their worth to the rest of the C-suite and beyond, especially considering the expectations of transformation combined with the lingering belief among many executives that marketing is a cost center rather than a profit center.

“Marketing has felt for a really long time that the enterprise just doesn’t get it,” said Ewan McIntyre, VP analyst and chief of research for Gartner for Marketers, who has been conducting the firm’s annual CMO Spend survey for over a decade.

Read more from our State of the CMO report here.—KS

      

Sponsored By Bloomreach

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BRAND STRATEGY

Morning Brew Inc, Photo: Getty Images

Clean Creatives, a collective of PR agencies and professionals who have pledged to not work with fossil fuel companies, is known for exposing the agencies that do in their annual F-list.

This year is the list’s sixth, and it counted 1,321 contracts—a nearly 9% increase from last year’s list and the highest number the group has found since its initial research in 2021. All seven major advertising holding companies have “significant contracts” with large fossil fuel companies—Omnicom-owned agencies had the most, at 118, and WPP-owned agencies had the second-highest number, 88. Publicis, Dentsu, Havas, Stagwell, and DJE Holdings were also on the list, but their agencies had far fewer contracts overall, according to Clean Creatives.

That said, independent agencies made up more than three-quarters of the contracts, according to the analysis.

Because the group has built up year-over-year data, Clean Creatives can now analyze a fuller picture of the trends in worldwide petroleum marketing—one that includes changing ad narratives, contracts in the Global South, and agency sustainability reports.

“The fossil fuel industry sees that we don’t need it for our future. It sees that the end of the road is coming for its industry,” Clean Creatives Head of Research Nayantara Dutta told Morning Brew. “So we are seeing very advanced manipulation tactics in campaign messaging these days.”

Continue reading here.—TC

      

Sponsored By Profound

Visibility is the new ranking. Knowing isn’t the same as doing, and brands that don’t do something about their AI search may fade away. Profound can show you exactly how AI describes your brand across every answer engine. Then, your AI Marketer can surface the gaps and do the work to close them. See where you stand.

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

Cowrite with me: Tips on making collaborative LinkedIn posts.

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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.

• Digital Marketing Specialist, SEO at Relias US
• Regional Account Director, Automotive Digital Marketing at Team Velocity
• Digital Marketing and AI Manager at Firematic
• Digital Marketing Manager at Buzz Franchise Brands
• Digital Marketing Lead at Freshworks

WISH WE WROTE THIS

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Bloomberg wrote about how medical scrubs brand Figs is reaching mass audiences through vehicles like The Pitt.
• The New York Times wrote about how protein has taken over nearly every grocery store aisle.
• Business Insider wrote about how the retail media boom is “causing headaches for CMOs.”