BRAND STRATEGY

Morning Brew Inc, Photo: Ford

After Ford debuted a new advertising campaign promoting its vehicle service business in June, the automaker’s marketing executives saw promising signs that the messaging was paying off.

But it wasn’t enough—so they decided to add star power.

Enter stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze, known for his clean, apolitical humor. Bargatze was the highest-grossing comic of 2024, and in 2025 he hosted the Emmys and had the highest-grossing comedy tour of the year.

Ford announced Sept. 28 that Bargatze (a Ford Bronco owner) would be the face of the automaker’s “Real Parts. Real Pros. Real Easy” campaign, starting with the Oct. 1 launch of two ads starring Bargatze, with more to come.

“We’ve seen very positive results, both in terms of improving the perception of what it’s like to service your vehicle at a Ford dealer, and also driving shopping activity and driving traffic to our dealerships,” Phil O’Connor, Ford’s global head of marketing communications, said during a media roundtable. “So we’ve decided to amplify our effort in this space by partnering with Nate Bargatze.”

For more on why Ford decided to lean on star power, continue reading here.—JG

      

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BRAND STRATEGY

Jonathan Heisler

In 2026, CMOs are under immense pressure to prove their worth, according to a recent Marketing Brew survey shared at the fifth annual Marketing Brew Summit last week in New York. Almost half of respondents (42%) said CMOs are having difficulty communicating their value to other executives.

In such an intense climate, some CMOs may be feeling the pressure to make their marketing dollars work harder. Marketing leaders from Oatly, SharkNinja, and Pinterest were among those who appeared onstage at the summit to share how they’re building innovative campaigns that seek to stand out and prove the power of marketing.

We’ve compiled some of their advice below.

Gen Z, IRL: In a world where AI is proliferating, younger consumers are craving offline experiences, Michael Lee, EVP executive creative director at Oatly North America, said onstage. The brand recently hosted an activation to debut its Oatly Matcha product in Toronto at the same time as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), creating a faux hotel suite activation modeled after the VIP parties hosted in hotel suites that take place around the festival. At Oatly’s space, attendees could get “matcha manicures” and sip on matcha-flavored drinks to celebrate the premiere of the drink in Canada.

“There was a line where people were waiting two and a half hours to get into this space, and it just tells you that people love this in-real-life activity,” he said. “It’s something that you can’t really experience on your phone.”

Rethink creator strategies: Creators are doing more for some brands than just creating sponsored posts. Take SharkNinja, which is using creators to help craft the strategy for various products, Kaitlyn Hebert, SharkNinja CMO, said onstage.

“We are really ideating at the beginning before a product is even a prototype. What is the concept? What are we solving for? What are the insights?” she said. “We don’t do that in isolation. We bring creators in to help us develop it…They’re coming upstream with us to develop the stories.”

Read more of our takeaways from our fifth annual Marketing Brew Summit here.—JS

      

DATA & TECH

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Nearly 3 out of 4 (74%) consumers think retailers collect too much personal information, according to a new report from ThoughtSpot, which sells data analytics software to retailers and other businesses.

Asked to choose up to two entities they distrust most with their personal data, 30.8% chose retailers. More distrusted with personal data were tech companies (56.4%) and governmental bodies (41.8%), but retailers were more distrusted than banks/financial services (19.9%), healthcare providers (16.7%), and small or local businesses (14%).

“Personalization built on explicit information customers have knowingly provided feels like service,” Miya Knights, a ThoughtSpot retail technology analyst, wrote in a foreword to the report. But “personalization inferred from implicit data, such as tracked behavior, location, or prediction, feels like surveillance.”

The distinction consumers make between information they’ve willingly provided and what retailers sleuthed is reflected in their responses.

• Only 27.8% responded that they objected to information they knowingly provided, less than half of the 57.6% who objected to retailers using behavior they tracked from other websites or apps.

Respondents didn’t trust AI recommendations much either: Only 13% responded that they trust them, with 47% distrustful of the recommendations and 34% neutral.

Continue reading about the results and what it means for retail brands on Retail Brew.—AAN

      

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IN AND OUT

Executive moves across the industry.

• Fleet Feet promoted COO Jason Jabaut to the role of president, where he will oversee duties including marketing and digital.
• Netflix parted ways with Pam Levine, VP of marketing and publicity in the US and Canada.
• Xbox tapped Kayleen Walters, alum of Minecraft video game studio Mojang Studios, as president of its new film and TV division, XP.