Mary Todd Lincoln as an alcoholic, aspiring cabaret star, and a classroom of teenage girls reading The Crucible have one thing in common: their social media manager.

Austin Spero, also known by his drag persona Reese Havoc, is the marketer behind the social presence of Oh, Mary! and John Proctor is the Villain, Broadway plays that nabbed five and seven nominations, respectively, at this year’s Tony Awards. (Oh, Mary! took home two awards Sunday night, including best actor to creator and lead Cole Escola.) Before the theater industry gave these shows their flowers, Spero cultivated a social strategy that brought both shows into the public’s attention. Accounts for both shows collected thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, and the comments section of each post is littered with adoring messages. John Proctor has become the most-followed play of this Broadway season on TikTok, according to Spero.

In theater, it’s long been a challenge to sell seats, let alone achieve profitability, but at this year’s Tony Awards, host Cynthia Erivo noted that this past season was Broadway’s most financially lucrative year ever, a feat that has officially brought Broadway back to pre-pandemic enthusiasm—so long as it can keep casting Succession cast members, she joked.

Amid a season packed with glitzy stars and adapted IP, social marketing has emerged as a key avenue to get new shows’ names out there and appeal to a younger crowd, Spero told us. And if you ask him, no one quite gets the theater social world like he does.

“I remember saying, when I originally met with Kimberly [Belflower], the playwright, and Danya [Taymor], the director [of John Proctor], I was like, ‘You guys are gonna think I’m crazy, but I promise nobody understands teenage girls better than I do,’” Spero said.

Read more here.—JN

Amazon Ads rolled out a beta version of its AI-powered video generator in September. Now, ahead of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week, the company is rolling out a more advanced version of the tool.

This updated video generator is designed to create high-motion, realistic video, as opposed to the low-motion clips it could previously spit out; it can also, according to a blog post, generate pets and humans.

There are additional features in the works, including a function where users will also be able to incorporate brand guidelines and other guardrails. That functionality is set to be available later this year, although the exact timing has yet to be determined.

The tool is one of several from tech platforms that are aimed at putting generative AI tools in the hands of advertisers, especially those without the budgets typically required to make large swaths of creative assets the old-fashioned way. By the end of next year, Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, plans to allow advertisers to create and target ad campaigns entirely using AI tools, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Amazon Ads is building out its video generator with a particular focus on attracting small business advertisers, Jay Richman, VP of product and tech at Amazon Ads, told Marketing Brew, with the aim of “democratizing access to rich media.”

Continue reading here.—JS

Reddit recently rolled out its main shopping ad solution, Dynamic Product Ads (DPA), to all advertisers globally with the expectation to make shopping a big part of the social media platform.

Reddit launched DPA in beta in 2024. This year, the companies testing the new ads with their regular campaigns saw double the return on their ad spend compared to standard ads alone, the platform said. Plus, there are now four times as many product catalogs running on Reddit compared to a year ago.

DPA works by automatically creating personalized ads for each user. It pulls products straight from a company’s catalog and figures out which products to show to which user based on what they’re interested in and what conversations they’re having on Reddit. The ad tool uses AI-powered product matching with real-time catalog data. It combines on-platform engagement plus off-platform behavior for precise targeting.

Reddit’s new ads are similar to personalized product ad solutions offered by other major ad platforms like Amazon’s sponsored product ads and Google’s performance max ad units.

Brands like The Home Depot and Lenovo have tested the new ad unit. In a LinkedIn post, Reddit’s Industry Director of Tech and Telco Taylor Gagliardi shared that Lenovo saw a 7.4% lift in purchases, more than 19.3% lift in page visits, and more than 5% lift in add-to-carts after testing dynamic product ads between October and December last year.

“It’s a smart, strategic response to changing shopper behavior, meeting people in trusted, research-driven conversations where purchase decisions are actively taking shape,” Gagliardi wrote on LinkedIn.

Read more on Retail Brew.—VC

Big brands, bold startups, and your next breakthrough—all coming together September 10 in New York City or virtually. The Marketing Brew Summit is where marketing pros gather to trade insights, spark creativity, and push boundaries. Join speakers from Ford, Unilever, Spotify, e.l.f., H&M, and more. Come curious, leave inspired.

Pour yourself a fresh cup and hit play on The Refill, your AI-voiced audio recap of the week’s top Marketing Brew stories. In this week's episode, learn about Netflix's new clip creating feature, get a sneak peek of Stagwell's third annual Cannes Sport Beach, and take a look at Amazon's GenAI video generator.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your audio media every Thursday.

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Bloomberg wrote about Hampton Inn’s “American mid” brand image and why it’s proved to be lucrative for parent company Hilton over the years.
• Business Insider profiled AppLovin co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi, who is also the latest person to throw his hat in the ring to purchase TikTok.
• The New York Times wrote about Pitbull concerts—and how the phenomenon of women dressing up like the singer is not a marketing ploy.