SOCIAL & INFLUENCERS

Pie

Meet your newest creator-in-chief.

Nadya Okamoto first made her presence known online as the Gen Z co-founder of women’s healthcare brand August, and as an outspoken creator with more than 4 million followers on TikTok. As of this month, she’s also the co-founder and CMO of the social networking and events platform Pie.

Okamoto first began posting on TikTok after a funding round for August where it became clear that having an influencer co-founder could help scale the company, she told us. As August has grown its national retail presence in recent years, Okamoto has made an effort to separate her creator persona from the brand, she said; at the same time, she’s been exploring community-building through initiatives like her run club, Zoomies, which is hosted on Pie. That’s how she first became part of the Pie creator rewards program, which led to an offer to join in an advisory role—and eventually a more permanent executive title.

Andy Dunn, founder of Pie, said it was Okamoto’s brand- and audience-building experience in addition to her experience as a young creator and entrepreneur that prompted the decision to bring her on board in a more formal capacity.

“Most CMOs are 55,” he said. “They sit down in a boardroom with a study about Gen Z…And so I think that it takes a little bit of courage to be like, ‘We’re actually gonna hire someone who’s not a [traditional] CMO but who’s an entrepreneur and a movement-builder and give them the keys to the brand.’”

We spoke with Dunn and Okamoto about the next phase of CMO leadership and why the best marketing lessons may come from creator experience.

Continue reading here.—KH

      

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BRAND STRATEGY

Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock, CBS

When John Peyton took over as CEO of Dine Brands in January 2021, former Applebee’s CMO Joel Yashinsky brought him up to speed on one of the brand’s existing marketing partnerships: Survivor.

“Big idea: We’re going to be on Survivor. It’s in the South Pacific somewhere, and the winning team is going to have an Applebee’s-catered meal on the island,” Peyton recalled Yashinsky telling him.

The partnership debuted during Survivor: Island of the Idols in 2019, making Applebee’s a signature reward—an idea Peyton initially thought missed the mark.

“I said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,’” Peyton told us.

That “dumb” thing would go on to become one of Applebee’s longest-running brand integrations with a television franchise, generating viral moments over the course of multiple seasons and teaching Peyton an important leadership lesson: Sometimes the best thing a CEO can do is trust the experts.

Read more here.—JH

      

DATA & TECH

Charlene Polite Corley

Charlene Polite Corley, VP, content and insights, Nielsen Global Marketing, is set to speak at the upcoming Marketing Brew Summit on September 30. Ahead of the event, we caught up with her to hear about why representation is critical to winning attention and developing fandoms.

What do you think most marketers get wrong in their advertising today? I think treating inclusion as optional instead of as a growth strategy is a miss. Representation isn’t just a top-of-funnel “feel good” metric; it’s an essential step in winning attention and driving conversion. For example, Black audiences average about two hours more a week online than the average consumer, but over 60% of Black audiences want more representation in ads online, often feeling misrepresented.

Where do you see the biggest gap between how marketers think audiences behave and how they actually behave? One great example is fandoms. This is still an untapped element of identity, connection, and community for many audiences. Fandoms are chosen cultures. Anime offers a great case study for this: Over 45 billion minutes of anime content were streamed in the US last year. That is absolutely mainstream.

Five years from now, what’s the marketing “best practice” of today that you think we’ll all look back on and cringe at? I do think the pace with which we are trusting, deploying, and displacing with AI is going to feel unbelievable once we’re able to pause and do an assessment of the impact. I’m curious to see how trust, loyalty, and brand health continue to evolve in this new normal.

Read more here.—EB

      

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EVENTS

Morning Brew Inc.

People have been predicting the end of print for years. Print, meanwhile, keeps quietly delivering results. Join Marketing Brew and Smartpress on August 19 to explore why print remains one of marketing’s most underused growth channels, especially in industries where trust matters most.

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Morning Brew

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

That time again: Meta published several playbooks with tips for holiday shopping campaigns.

Instagrowth: Strategies for building a following on Instagram.

Get real: Marketing lessons from an experiment testing if people could tell authentic art from an AI-generated image.

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Ira L. Black/Corbis/Getty Images

Learn what new league CMO Rachel Epstein and CCO Brian Kelly had to say about working to kick audience and sponsor growth up a notch.

Jobs

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.

JOINING FORCES

Francis Scialabba

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Jameson took over Diageo’s spot as the official spirits partner of the NFL.
• PepsiCo snagged sponsorship and pouring rights with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, replacing Coca-Cola after 50 years with the team.
• JPMorganChase inked its first college sports sponsorship with the Ohio State Buckeyes, a deal that includes jersey patches.
• Under Armour signed Dallas Wings center Li Yueru to its sponsorship roster, marking its first deal with a Chinese woman pro basketball player.
• BBVA, a Spanish Bank, is the new sleeve sponsor of Serie A soccer team Inter Milan.
• Instacart tapped Antoni Porowski for a new microdrama campaign.