NBA players have long held massive cultural sway in the US. In the case of the 2025-26 New York Knicks, they’ll probably never pay for a drink in the city again. As a result, brands flock to the league to develop marketing campaigns featuring athletes—but oftentimes, players find themselves in the passenger seat of those agreements.

The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) wants to change that.

This week, the players’ association began rolling out its first consumer-facing commercial brand, Plyrs Untd, which is designed to give its members greater stake and control over their names, images, and likenesses in merch, content, and partnerships.

• A campaign film announcing the brand, called “Own the Game,” premiered Monday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. It stars 26 NBA players, including 2026 All-Stars like Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

“A lot of brands are realizing they need relevance, and rather than advertise around the culture, [they want to] become integrated in the culture,” Keisha Wright, the NBPA’s SVP of partnerships, told Marketing Brew. “Advertising around the culture versus advertising in the culture through partnership and cocreation with our players, is the same as either you’re crashing the party, or you’re being invited to the party. You want to be invited.”

Continue reading here.—AM

We’ll get to a dispatch of the third day of Cannes Lions, soon—but first, we’ve got to talk about RAYE.

At the hotly anticipated Spotify Beach concert Tuesday night, the British singer-songwriter, who took the stage a little after midnight (following performances by rappers Mike D and Central Cee), wowed the crowd with her effortless vocal riffs and runs—but not before she took a gentle crack at the industry attendees.

“I know this is a corporate crowd, but as far as corporate crowds go, this is a solid six and a half,” RAYE joked to the crowd. “And I’ve performed for some ones and twos.” Later, she spotted a true fan in the crowd, singing along—and sure enough, he was soon displayed on the big screen, beaming and holding up heart hands.

Her performance was definitely a highlight of the week so far, which has also included impeccable French cuisine, extra-healthy pours of wine, and celebrity sightings Morning Brew-wide (including Alan Cumming, Keke Palmer, Flavor Flav, and Alexis Ohanian).

I started my day on a yacht—the Teads yacht, to be precise—moderating a panel with executives from Axel Springer, Teads, Stagwell, and The Trade Desk about news publishers’ path forward through the AI era, especially as consumers look for trusted sources of information, before I sat down with Tamika Young, Hinge’s CMCO, for a conversation about the brand’s strategy. I’m soon headed to another panel with The Harris Poll and the 4As (about their joint study on consumer perceptions of AI use), before capping off the day with another interview.

So far, I’ve gotten to sit down with eight executives across companies and industries to hear about their strategies. A few observations so far:

Millennials are officially dead: Across the Croisette, Gen Z is the target audience for many consumer-facing brands. Millennials? We don’t know her.

Offline is the new online: Throughout the week, IRL marketing has been on full display along the Croisette and a big factor in conversations.

B2B doesn’t have to be boring: This is a line straight from Yahoo CMO Josh Line, who sat down with me yesterday. “A business audience are consumers also,” he said. Words to live by.

More to come on some takeaways from the week in the newsletter and in the next episode of Marketing Brew Weekly, which Jennimai and I are recording tomorrow afternoon. For now, au revoir!—KS

According to new research from The Harris Poll, 4As, and Infillion, more than two-thirds of global consumers view AI as largely a “marketing ploy”—one that could nonetheless make them think less of the companies loudly touting it. The new research, shared exclusively with Marketing Brew at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, found that 78% of consumers believe AI makes ads “feel less authentic”; the same amount said they find brands “cringey” when over-using AI.

That sentiment carries into AI-generated advertising: Around two-thirds (63%) said they would be “less likely to purchase from a brand that uses AI-generated ads,” while 73% said they would be “less likely to trust an ad” they suspected was made using AI.

The results reflect broad consumer fatigue about AI in general. More than half (54%) agreed that they hear so much about AI that “it’s starting to annoy [them],” while around two-thirds (65%) of consumers said they would “love if brands would never mention meaningless AI marketing again.”

The findings come as AI is increasingly adopted throughout the advertising process. More than half (56%) of industry professionals reported using AI for idea generation and concepting, according to The Harris Poll, and just about half said they also used the technology for visual asset creation. Fewer—about 4 in 10 industry professionals—said they use AI for processes like copywriting, audience targeting and personalization, and media planning and placement.

Continue reading here.—KS

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This week, we’re coming to you from the South of France with the biggest questions on our minds for this year’s Cannes Lions! Is sports marketing just…marketing now? What will creators’ impact be this year? And do the actual awards that are given out even matter? We have the answers.