Athletes tend to be front and center in most brands’ sports campaigns. But how many pro athletes regularly use accounting software?

The answer is likely very few—with the exception of the ones who have also started their own businesses. That’s why QuickBooks, the Intuit-owned accounting software company, chose to focus on leaders from the business side of women’s sports in its “Power Moves” campaign, which is geared toward driving consideration among small-business owners, according to QuickBooks VP of Marketing Cathleen Ryan.

“QuickBooks will always try to tap into culturally relevant moments with authenticity, and nothing says that more than female sports right now,” Ryan told Marketing Brew.

The playbook: The “Power Moves” campaign consists of five videos focused on various women entrepreneurs in the sports industry talking about their businesses and how they use QuickBooks’s software. The episodes are about two minutes long and were shot at women’s sports bars around the country. The series debuted March 3 with an episode featuring Jax Diener, the owner of Watch Me! Sports Bar, and Tobin Heath and Christen Press, the USWNT icons who co-founded lifestyle brand and media company re—inc.

The episodes are being distributed across digital media company She Media’s platforms, which include websites like parenting outlet SheKnows and entertainment publication TVLine and which reach about 74 million unique viewers a month, according to She Media. QuickBooks is further amplifying the content with a media buy across The Gist, a sports media company whose founders, Jacie deHoop and Ellen Hyslop, are featured in the campaign.

Continue reading here.—AM

How do you like them apples?

For the fourth year in a row, Apple was named by Kantar as the most valuable brand in the world.

The tech giant earned the top spot with a brand value of $1.3 trillion, according to Kantar’s annual BrandZ report, which ranks companies around the world based on factors like consumer perceptions and financial valuations. That’s up 28% from last year, when it was also Kantar’s most valuable brand.

Apple is the only company in the report with a brand value in the trillions, accounting for 12% of the total value of the 100 brands on the list, per Kantar.

When Kantar released its first BrandZ report in 2006, Apple came in at No. 29. The following year marked the debut of the iPhone, “forever changing” the consumer tech industry, Kantar wrote in the report.

The company’s marketing efforts haven’t hurt its business, either.

“Apple’s smartphone ads have remained best-in-class as well, if less imbued with the ‘shock of the new’ than its earlier PC and iPod campaigns,” the authors wrote. “This is an inevitable by-product, perhaps, of Apple’s journey from being the ultimate tech underdog to the most valuable brand of all time.”

Read more here.—AM

What are the upfronts for, if not for cocktail receptions, long lines, and a chance to see stand-up comedians roast the industry you’ve dedicated your life to?

At this year’s upfronts presentations, the comedians tapped to impress advertisers didn’t hold back. Seth MacFarlane kicked off the week with a musical number at NBCUniversal, Jamie Foxx cracked jokes hosting Fox’s upfront, and late-night show hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel delivered onstage stand-up sets.

We rounded up some of our favorite punchlines from the week below.

On AI: “I also know that many of you are worried that AI is going to take your jobs, but I don’t think it will. I don’t believe a computer, even the most powerful computer in the world, will ever be able to do what you do. And you know why? Because no computer wants to do what you do. Your jobs suck. Every year our audience gets smaller, and we tell you it’s bigger, and we want more for less, and it’s exhausting, I know. We are annoying and unreasonable, and you have shitty jobs because of it.”—Kimmel

On executives at rival companies: “[Netflix’s] got 10,000 shows on the platform, but it ain’t where you want to write your checks ’cause you will find, yeah, that Love is Blind—but alas, folks, so are their execs.”—MacFarlane

“[NBCU Chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships] Mark Marshall claimed yesterday [that] his network has amassed the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company. I guess Mark has never heard of Pornhub. Although based on the expression on his face, I feel like he has.”—Kimmel

Continue reading here.—KS, JS, AM