If you can’t beat ’em, entertain ’em.

Tower 28 has made a big push into scripted social this year, first releasing the sketch comedy series The Blush Lives of Sensitive Girls in the spring to promote the release of its GetSet Blush. Now, the makeup and skin-care brand has followed it up with a series on Instagram and TikTok that encourages people to join a casting call to become one of its models for an August 2026 product launch campaign, as well as other potential future campaigns. The casting call, as well as the series promoting it, focuses on people with skin conditions like eczema, acne, and psoriasis, and the series shows characters going through the audition process much like the real-life applicants.

With the final episode of the latest series now out and applications for campaign auditions closed as of November 1, Alex Kalatzis, director of marketing and communications at Tower 28, told us that the brand saw more than 4,000 sign-ups, which exceeded its goal fourfold. The applicants, she said, will hear back on final decisions by the end of the year.

We spoke with Kalatzis about the brand’s latest social campaign and why it’s continuing to go all-in on scripted comedy as a marketing vehicle.

Continue reading here.—KH

Energy drinks are often spotted in the hands—or gym bags—of the most muscular-looking guys around. But it’s not only gymfluencers in need of a pick-me-up, and energy drink brands Celsius and C4 Energy are making efforts to connect with a broader range of fitness and health communities.

At the New York City Marathon earlier this month, both brands embraced guerilla marketing tactics like sampling to get on the radars of runners and spectators alike.

“What it means to be an athlete can expand into a lot of territories, and I think it’s important that no one feels excluded in our marketing materials,” Katie Geyer, SVP of partnerships and integrated marketing at C4 parent company Nutrabolt, told Marketing Brew. “Being an athlete can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people..and so it is more of a lifestyle approach that we’re taking moving forward.”

Yes, we can: While Celsius started engaging with marathons around 2019, ahead of a post-pandemic surge in sponsorship and participant interest, last weekend marked its “first really big, owned activation” around a race, Celsius Chief Brand Officer Kyle Watson told us. C4, meanwhile, began partnering over the summer with run clubs, an increasingly popular marketing channel, but this was its marathon debut, Geyer said.

Both brands spent marathon Sunday setting out to get cans in hands. Celsius handed out 6,500 beverages over the weekend, according to the brand, while C4, which sent field teams out with backpacks and set up a “mini headquarters” around mile 11, gave away about 3,600 cans, Geyer said. C4 also handed out t-shirts, foam fingers, and C4-branded signs for spectators to customize.

Read more here.—AM

Meta has been raking in the cash from scammy ads, according to new reporting from Reuters.

Last year, the tech company internally projected that it expected to make 10.1% of its overall annual revenue, or about $16 billion, from ads promoting scams and banned goods, ranging from illegal gambling, banned medical products, and fraudulent investment schemes, according to internal Meta documents between 2021 and 2025 that were reviewed by Reuters. That includes showing users roughly 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements on average each day, according to the documents.

Meta has estimated that it is now involved in as much as a third of successful domestic scams, according to a document detailing a May 2025 presentation given by Meta safety staff, which also noted that some tech rivals appear to be managing scam ads better than they are.

“It is easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google,” Meta wrote in one internal review from April 2025.

In a statement to Marketing Brew about the report, Meta spokesperson Matthew Tye characterized the 10.1% figure as “a rough and overly-inclusive estimate,” noting that “so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content.”

“The leaked documents present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams by focusing on our efforts to assess the scale of the challenge, not the full range of actions we have taken to address the problem,” he said.

Continue reading here.—JS

Real jobs shared through real communities. CollabWORK brings opportunities directly to Marketing Brew readers—no mass postings, no clutter, just roles worth seeing. Click here to view the full job board.

• Director of Performance Marketing at Symetria Recovery (in person)
• Director of Marketing and Communications at Carnegie Mellon University (in person)
• Director of Product Marketing at Akkodis (in person)
• Senior Manager, Marketing Project Management at McAfee, Inc. (in person)
• Digital Marketing Manager at Insight Global (in person)

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Reuters investigated how the MAGA movement and Trump officials are “working together to target perceived adversaries, amplify false claims, and reshape the media landscape.”
• Bloomberg wrote about Ulta’s growth in the beauty retail space through a “something for everybody” strategy and a generous loyalty program.
• Business Insider wrote about Netflix’s plans to court creators as it ventures into podcasts.