2025: the year when TikTok was banned for approximately one (1) day in January before countless delays and sales talks. It was the year when brands grew more silent on social issues and louder on just about everything else. Meghan Markle became an affiliate influencer. A child influencer launched a makeup brand, thrusting a New Jersey mall into chaos. Tariffs took over small-business ’Tok. And generative AI ads became more normalized, but were still scrutinized plenty.

Because not every brand took Lush’s lead and signed off for good, marketers navigating the internet in 2025 stuck to several themes—some of which seem poised to continue into 2026.

All the rage: Oxford University Press declared “ragebait” to be 2025’s word of the year. Perhaps that had something to do with some of the marketing campaigns? Whether it was American Eagle’s decision to tout Sydney Sweeney’s superior jeans, e.l.f.’s swing-and-a-miss collab with controversial comedian Matt Rife, or Skims’s release of products like a $48 sculpting face wrap or a $32 faux-hair thong, this year seemed to be a demonstration of how short tempers and shock value can juice online engagement numbers. Whether the controversies were intentional or not, some brands found themselves under the microscope thanks to the increasing presence of AI bot networks on social media that amplified controversy.

The brain rot continues: Oxford University Press’s 2024 word of the year was “brain rot,” and frankly, that word was just as applicable in 2025. While some brands sought to get people arguing in the comments section, others sought to mystify and confuse with content that didn’t always make sense to those not steeped in brand lore. Duolingo killed off its mascot using a Cybertruck early in the year before reviving him, continuing its streak of unhinged marketing tactics, while sandwich-cookie brand Nutter Butter kept at its tried-and-true strategy of posting the most nonsensical edits imaginable to the delight of its fanbase. Even legacy brands like Amtrak found social success in the unserious and unexpected.

Continue reading here.—KH

In times of turbulence—like, uh, most of 2025—people search for escapes in their favorite pastimes, like watching sports, scrolling social media, or watching sports on social media.

Maybe that’s why this year, the social pages of leagues, teams, and other sports organizations did numbers: One post from MLB saw almost 4 million engagements, a certain legendary NWSL goal was viewed almost 10 million times, and an F1 team’s YouTube video of a seemingly mundane activity got almost 13 million impressions.

Earlier this month, Marketing Brew asked two dozen sports orgs which of their social media posts saw the most views and engagement in 2025.

New York Mets—First rizz: A post of the Rizzler throwing out the first pitch at an April game racked up 215,000 interactions and 2.1 million impressions, making it the Mets’ most engaging post of the year. An in-memoriam post for Mets superfan Seymour Weiner had the most impressions, at 12.6 million.

Chicago Bulls—Rose-colored: The Bulls’ collab post with the NBA on Instagram announcing plans to retire hometown legend Derrick Rose’s number was the team’s most engaging of all time on that platform, with more than 1.7 million engagements and 24 million impressions. The team has been paying tribute to Rose since making the announcement in January, with next-level reactions from fans online, according to VP of Content Marketing Luka Dukich; a BTS video of Rose learning about the news, he said, was viewed more than 10 million times across platforms.

Read more here.—AM

During our winter break, we’re sharing with you some of our favorite stories we’ve published in the past year. This feature on the unconventional marketing that powered the release of the 2004 cult classic Napoleon Dynamite was originally published on March 21 as part of Marketing Brew’s Quarter Century Project.

The year 2004 was memorable for many reasons: Ken Jennings’s 74-game Jeopardy! winning streak, the introduction of Gmail, the founding of Facebook, Nipplegate. It was also the year you could see Napoleon Dynamite free of charge in theaters, over and over again, before the movie was released.

The screenings, held nationwide, were part of an against-the-grain marketing campaign for the unconventional indie film that was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures at Sundance in January 2004 for $4.75 million (MTV Films and Paramount Pictures came aboard shortly thereafter) and released that August.

Twenty-one years later, the popularity of Napoleon Dynamite, which went on to gross $45 million at the domestic box office, might seem inevitable, but for those working to build an audience for the film around its release, its success was anything but certain. “Nobody possibly could say, ‘Oh, we knew exactly what was going to happen; we knew it was going to become culturally iconic,’” David Gale, then EVP of MTV Films, said. “No way.”

With a budget of $400,000 and no big-name stars, the movie—about an awkward, low-energy teenager and his unusual friends and family—is not for everyone, and with its offbeat humor, awkward pauses, and absence of obvious laugh lines, it posed something of a marketing conundrum.

“It was hard to convey the film’s vibe and unique use of humor that sucks you into its world over the course of the film,” recalled Nancy Utley, who was president of marketing at Searchlight at the time, adding that the movie “looked odd in traditional trailers and TV spots.”

But the team at Searchlight believed that the movie could take off, if only it could find the right audience. So how were they to get people to see an oddball movie about an oddball kid with an oddball name?

Continue reading here.—BL