When Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles tendon during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals last May, it wasn’t just Celtics fans who were crushed.

“In that moment, it feels like your world is ending,” Tory Pachis, EVP and CMO of Amica Insurance, a jersey-patch sponsor of the Celtics, said. “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’”

When athletes are injured, diehard fans count down the days to their favorite player’s return, and marketers who’ve inked deals with athletes are also quite literally invested in their return. Marketers continue to allocate more ad dollars to sports sponsorships and athlete deals, recognizing sports as one of the few remaining water-cooler opportunities, making it all the more likely they’re keeping an eye on the injured list, too.

So what happens when an athlete is away from the action in the midst of a sponsorship deal?

In the evolving sports sponsorship landscape, where some fans are more loyal to athletes over teams, the ways brands react in those crucial moments could have an impact not only on their own relationship with the player, but also on their bottom line, making it a crucial moment for brand marketers to get right.

Keep reading here.—AM, KM

Under new US leadership and with a tumultuous year behind it, TikTok returned to NewFronts Tuesday night to reassure advertisers that it’s still (mostly) the same platform and make the case that its new American iteration, which has been live for two months, is actually superior.

“What’s standing here today…is the strongest, most secure, most creative platform we have ever built,” Khartoon Weiss, TikTok’s VP and GM of global business solutions, told the audience at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York. “Our audience has never been bigger, they’ve never been more engaged, and our community is thriving.”

At the NewFront event, Weiss introduced Adam Presser, the new CEO of TikTok’s USDS joint venture, who explained his mandate to “protect US user data and algorithms” while “[enabling] the same global platform and experience that our users and advertisers and partners have come to know and love.”

As part of the pitch to get advertisers to continue to invest in the platform, TikTok unveiled a range of new ad formats, including:

• Logo Takeover, which allows advertisers to “co-brand with TikTok on the logo launch page when users open the app.”
• Prime Time, which delivers up to three ads to one user within 15 minutes on the For You page, designed with live events, “tentpole moments,” and high-use periods in mind.
• TopReach, which combines the TopView ad, which is the one first viewed when users open the app, with TopFeed, which is the first viewed in-feed ad, into one package for big advertiser moments.
• Pulse Tastemakers and Pulse Mentions, two new additions to the Pulse Suite offering that guarantee advertisers adjacency next to trending and brand-safe content. Pulse Tastemakers allows brands to align their ads with a set of “hand-selected” creators, while Pulse Mentions allows brands to place ads next to organic content about them or their product category more broadly.

Keep reading here.—KH

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Grace Teng is partner and chief media officer at the ad agency Zambezi and its media agency, Scale by Zambezi. She has spent more than 20 years in politics and advertising.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I draw upon my experiences from over 20 years in politics and advertising to find creative ways to grow my division of the Zambezi ad agency. On any given day, that can mean crafting strategies for global brands or challenger brands on where their audiences will encounter them in media, which is an ever-changing landscape at the moment. I devote my attention internally to ways to make my company the best it can be—always pausing to remember, “If I can make someone’s life better for a period of time and help them grow, that’s the reason I do what I do.” Being a company leader is a job, but it’s also a mindset where I challenge myself to remain grounded in empathy and make sure my team feels that I have their back. Beyond my day-to-day experiences in the corporate world, I love to bring my knowledge forward as a guest lecturer, and I’ve had the good fortune to speak at USC, Georgetown University, Howard University, and Syracuse University.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Last summer, Zambezi pulled off an epic stunt for Liquid I.V., and I felt it demonstrated how a creative approach to media can really captivate distracted crowds. The Liquid I.V. “I.V. O’Clock” campaign brought bustling Times Square to a hush at 3:55pm when a dramatic “error” message appeared on all of its digital billboards.

Keep reading here.

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Brooks is partnering with Cynthia Erivo as she trains for the London Marathon.
• Cheetos tapped Megan Thee Stallion and Nickelback for a campaign promoting the return of its Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle flavor.
• FitJeans is serving as the official denim partner of the Women’s National Football Conference.
• CourtAvenue, an independent agency, is acquiring data and marketing technology consultancy GTX Solutions, per Adweek.
• Olaplex, the hair care brand, is being acquired by German CPG company Henkel.