Ask twenty-something-year-old women what they think The Cut’s brand is, and their responses might echo what one Redditor put succinctly: “The Cut has been posting insane articles (among some very good journalism) forever.”

The publication came onto the fashion scene in 2008 as a section of New York before later expanding into covering wider women’s lifestyle topics on its website and twice-yearly print edition. These days, online chatter about The Cut often ignites when an unpredictable personal essay is published, or when it chooses a particularly poignant cover star, like Savannah James or GloRilla.

But the publication isn’t solely relying on written content to define its brand or place in culture, especially as online creators’ impact and reach continues to grow.

Enter Tefi Pessoa. Earlier this year, after serving as a red-carpet correspondent at the Academy Awards for The Cut, Pessoa officially joined the publication as a special contributor, writing an advice column. She also became the host of Tefi Talks, a podcast produced by Vox Media (The Cut’s parent company) in partnership with The Cut and sponsored by Dove and Macy’s.

It’s a partnership that seems beneficial for all parties involved. The Cut gets to align itself with an established-but-still-exciting internet persona, not only signalling to its audience that it knows what’s up, but potentially gaining new audience members along the way, too. Dove, which has previously worked with Pessoa, gets to deepen its relationship with the creator. And Pessoa gets to legitimize and expand, proving to anyone that still thinks influencing is not a real career that she’s got the chops to partner with a legacy media brand and go beyond just social media.

“Being partnered with The Cut allows her to [reach] a really rich and even bigger and broader audience than what she has on her social media platforms,” Nishat Kurwa, SVP and executive producer of audio at Vox Media, told Marketing Brew.

Continue reading here.—JN

AG1, the supplement brand formerly known as Athletic Greens, was founded 15 years ago with natural ties to sports. But it wasn’t until about eight years into the company’s existence that it started inking official sports sponsorships, choosing to take a slow and steady approach to the deals.

“The last step in a sports community-building approach is to sign a check,” AG1 CMO Paulie Dery told Marketing Brew, later adding that this sponsorship strategy can involve years of legwork before deals come to fruition. “I think a lot of brands don’t want to invest that time, that manpower on the ground, to build those relationships, but we do.”

Despite being slightly unorthodox, his philosophy of selecting and measuring sponsorships seems to be paying off this year as AG1 ramps up its involvement with sports: In 2025, the company has announced partnerships with England Rugby, the US SailGP team, and the LIV Golf League’s Ripper GC team.

Read more here.—AM

A puzzling question came on day four of the remedy phase of United States vs. Google LLC, in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, when the Google team questioned Jon Weissman, a computer science professor at the University of Minnesota.

Google’s lawyers asked him if he knew whether AdX, Google’s ad exchange, is involved with Google Docs, among other Google properties (it is not).

Before the day’s end, each legal team asked questions about the feasibility of potential remedies. Thursday’s questioning was a departure from the earlier days of the remedy phase, when buy-side advertiser perspectives were in the spotlight and broader concerns, like generative AI and transparency into Google’s ads business were the focus.

Marketing Brew broke down a few key moments from Thursday’s proceedings below.

Rocket science: Weissman, a key DOJ witness, seemed to say that from an engineering perspective, a divestiture of AdX or DFP is feasible.

• Weissman said that Google’s use of the “separation of concerns” design principle in its code, which makes it so that changes made in one part of a system won’t affect other parts, could support a successful divestiture.
• When it comes to open-sourcing final auction logic, the DOJ has proposed open-sourcing remedies regarding DFP. He pointed to Google’s Android system, which is already open-source.

Continue reading here.—JS

Executive moves across the industry.

• Wawa, a gas station and convenience store chain, tapped General Mills alum Doug Martin as CMO.
• Shake Shack brought on board its first chief brand officer: Michael Fanuele, a General Mills and Havas vet.
• Allison Worldwide tapped VML alum Hank Kosinski as chief creative and marketing officer.