This past weekend was a big one for jewelry brand Gorjana. Mothers and daughters are a major part of its audience, and with Mother’s Day on Sunday, the company was in the midst of a marketing push.

The campaign highlighted Gorjana’s recent move into athlete partnerships, with Portland Thorns FC forward Reilyn Turner and her family making an appearance. The brand’s growing roster of athletes also boasts tennis, volleyball, and basketball players, including Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink and 2026 No. 4 overall draft pick Lauren Betts, who tipped off their WNBA seasons over the weekend as well.

The athletes are part of the Gorjana Sports Club, an initiative that formally kicked off last summer as a multichannel effort to build brand awareness, according to Director of Marketing Jennifer Darrow. After seeing sports content overperform for the brand, Darrow said she’s responding by doubling down on women athletes, with the potential for broader sponsorships to come.

“We are partnering with athletes as our brand ambassadors,” Darrow told Marketing Brew. “We don’t do a lot in the media and entertainment space. We don’t have a lot of celebrity or influencer partners…these are the women who we want to be speaking on our behalf, and so we see that as a long-term relationship.”

Drafting: The Gorjana marketing team didn’t actively recruit its first athlete partner; she reached out to the brand. In 2023, pro tennis player Jessie Pegula, a finalist at the 2024 US Open, approached Gorjana and said she wears its jewelry when she plays, according to Darrow, who joined from Nike last year. Pegula became Gorjana’s first athlete ambassador from there, and has since starred in ads and created social content with the brand. Women tennis players around the world are popular picks for brand endorsements.

“It was a huge, eye-opening opportunity” for the Gorjana team, Darrow said. The Gorjana Sports Club officially rolled out in August with a campaign headlined by Pegula and Brink.

Continue reading here.—AM

At NBCUniversal, age isn’t just a number.

The media giant, which is celebrating 100 years this year, kicked off upfronts week at Radio City Music Hall Monday morning by emphasizing that getting older is its biggest strength in an ever-competitive television and streaming marketplace.

“Our legacy is our greatest competitive advantage,” Mark Marshall, NBCU’s chairman, global advertising and partnerships, NBCU, told attendees onstage at Radio City Music Hall, “because our legacy is built on evolution, innovation, and a relentless focus on consumer behavior.”

And a birthday at NBCU wouldn’t be a birthday if it didn’t also come with a business opportunity.

“This fall, NBC is doing something that no other network has ever done—a stunt not even a real housewife of Beverly Hills has had the audacity to attempt,” Tina Fey said onstage after a live orchestra played her on to the theme music from 30 Rock. “We are throwing ourselves a huge birthday party so we can sell ads during that birthday party.”

Throughout its two-hour presentation, the network tapped into its deep bench of talent from some of its most recognizable film and television programming across genres, including comedians Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Jane Krakowski; reality-show legend Andy Cohen; morning-show mainstays Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, and Joe Scarborough; NBC Sports’s Bob Costas and Mike Tirico; and actors Vin Diesel and Jamie Lee Curtis.

There were some new faces, too, like Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, whose Las Culturistas podcast recently spawned an irreverent star-studded and brand-integrated awards show on Bravo. “What you do must be top secret, because we have no idea what it is,” Rogers joked onstage with Yang. “Who are you guys? What’s LinkedIn like?”

And, as marketers increasingly look for ways to measure the outcomes of their ad spend, the network has some additional tools in the pipeline, including a full-scale rollout of its Performance Insights Hub measuring campaign delivery, audience insights, and in-flight performance; new updates to its retargeting tool Live Total Impact; and AI-powered live contextual ad options, all of which will be available in Q4.

Read more here.—KS

Katie Gohman is CMO of hair-care company Olaplex. She spoke at Marketing Brew’s event, The Next Phase of Social & Creator Marketing, earlier today.

Ahead of the event, we caught up with her to hear how the brand is scaling its creator partnership work.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What signals do you evaluate to determine whether creator partnerships are successful? We evaluate success through a multilayered measurement framework that balances immediate engagement with long-term brand health. While creator partnerships have typically been measured on upper-mid metrics such as reach and engagement, we’re now able to layer in lower-funnel metrics too, thanks to our recent launches on TikTok Shop and ShopMy.

We will set the objectives of our creator partnerships up front, which will drive how we determine success. This could be direct views and engagement, or search lift on key platforms such as YouTube or TikTok. We also look at nCPA (new-customer acquisition cost) and direct ROI for lower-funnel objectives.

Continue reading here.

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Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Smoothie King is partnering with Grillo’s Pickles for—you guessed it—a pickle smoothie.
• Adidas tapped Timothée Chalamet, Bad Bunny, and a roster of soccer stars, including Leo Messi and Trinity Rodman, for a World Cup ad.
• Jameson, the official whiskey of MLS, teamed up with J Balvin for its summer soccer campaign.
• Lenovo selected Becky G for its World Cup work, which is focused on local artists.