Core Power is diving into the deep end with its Paris 2024 marketing campaign: The protein-shake brand signed seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky to a multi-year deal that kicked off in mid-April.

Core Power has been the official protein drink of Team USA for almost a decade, but the campaign with Ledecky represents the brand’s “largest Olympics investment to date,” according to Erica Rosskamm, VP of brand marketing at Core Power parent company Fairlife.

“We’re just overjoyed,” Rosskamm told Marketing Brew. “She is such an awe-inspiring female athlete, such a decorated swimmer, but we love the authenticity…She was just a no-brainer to be the face of this campaign.”

Ledecky is one of the most elite athletes in the world, but Rosskamm said the campaign is designed to “inspire anyone who sweats, no matter your level.”

Read more here.—AM

Ready to take your business to new heights? Start with a credit card that helps you earn miles on your purchases to get the most for your business.

The limited edition Boeing 747 Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business Card design is crafted with metal* from an iconic aircraft.

That’s right. This business card is made with metal from a Delta Boeing 747 aircraft, aka the Queen of the Skies. And that’s just the start of its appeal.

As a new cardholder, you can earn 75k bonus miles.** Get rewarded from your everyday business expenses and earn 1.5x miles*** on eligible transit, U.S. shipping, and U.S. office supply store purchases, plus 3x miles on Delta purchases to help you get the most for your business.

This limited edition design is available through June 5, 2024, so apply today.

*The limited edition Boeing 747 design is made with 33% metal from a Delta Boeing 747 aircraft. Image for illustration only. Does not represent Boeing 747-400 aircraft used for card.

**After you spend $10,000 in purchases on your new Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership.

***If your purchase qualifies for a category that has a higher mileage accelerator, only the higher accelerator will apply.

Ad tech has another snoop on the beat.

Arielle Garcia, the former chief privacy and responsibility officer of UM Worldwide, has joined the nonprofit Check My Ads as the group’s director of intelligence.

Marketing Brew spoke with Garcia about her new gig and about the importance of researchers who regularly spray bleach on the fungus that is ad-tech’s mold.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Why did you join Check My Ads? A lot of the reactions that I’ve heard, apart from “Great, that’s fantastic, this is exciting,” is “that makes sense.” And it really did make sense. I had chatted with [Check My Ads co-founders] Claire [Atkin] and Nandini [Jammi] a few times since I left UM [last year]. I think we kind of got to the same place at the same time, which is: How do we get as far upstream as possible to have the greatest impact on the industry as possible?

When you think about the way things are now, there are three main drivers: the opacity in the industry, the surveillance advertising business model, and the power that Big Tech platforms, and Google in particular, have amassed. The fact that we were kind of aligned on the challenges at hand, and the fact that they’re certainly effective at actually driving change and not just talking about it, was something that was a really exciting opportunity to me.

What do you see yourself working on specifically? Do you know what your day-to-day will look like? The first kind of area of opportunity is to really do some more in-depth, longer-term research projects. Check My Ads really wrote the playbook on using the power of sunlight to root out some of the backward incentive structures of the industry…Data-enabled harms are something that I’m particularly interested in.

Another thing that’s particularly interesting and problematic within the industry is the power dynamics and some of the corruption. Within five minutes of waking up this morning, I saw five different trade association events with Google’s logo on them as the key sponsor. I think there’s some interesting reporting to do on how these organizations that have influence on the industry actually work.

Continue reading here.—RB

Contrary to what some popular action movies might have viewers believe, AI isn’t always trying to destroy humanity.

At least, that’s not how it feels in marketing, where AI seems to be having a largely positive impact, according to the CMO Survey, a biannual report from Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association. With that said, there’s an important caveat: Companies aren’t using AI for the vast majority of their marketing activities, the report found.

In addition to asking about AI, the report, conducted Feb. 6–March 5, surveyed 292 marketing leaders at for-profit companies in the US about their marketing spend and how they’re addressing a range of other topics such as sustainability and the climate crisis. We rounded up some of the big takeaways below.

Highs and lows: Overall marketing spending has been about flat since last spring, but as of the most recent survey, marketers said it has increased by about 2.5% in the past year. In the coming year, they expect it to increase by 4.7%.

• Marketers expect growth in digital marketing spend to slow slightly from its 8.9% increase over the past year to 8% in the year to come.

Read more here.—AM

Morning Brew is partnering with Scott Galloway’s Section to bring you the AI Crash Course, a 10-day deep dive into AI. You’ll learn to write effective prompts, set up your “AI workspace,” audit your workflows, and start using AI for basic use cases. You’ll also get dedicated office hours with an AI expert and a suite of AI resources you can take with you. Enroll now and get 20% off with our exclusive code: BREW20.