BRAND STRATEGY

K18

No, the larger-than-life gigantic hairball rolling through the streets of New York City wasn’t AI.

In a stunt that looked like it could be straight out of Boots Riley’s surrealist comedy I Love Boosters, the hair-care brand K18 rolled a 150-pound ball of real hair through NYC. But the ball of hair, called the Tumblehair, wasn’t a literal manifestation of Keke Palmer’s anxieties and existentialism; rather, it was a way to illustrate the realities of hair loss—and embody all the hair that New Yorkers could potentially retain if they use K18’s newest product.

The activation is part of the brand’s launch of its FutureIQ Biomimetic Hair Longevity Serum, a product that claims to help prevent hair loss. As for the ball itself, it marks the brand’s first effort at such an out-of-this-world activation, which Kleona Mack, CMO of K18 at Unilever Prestige, said was inspired by the product itself.

“We really wanted to do something that broke through and didn’t feel like more of the same, but we also just wanted to get the conversation started,” Mack told us. “I think that really pushed us to take this risk.”

Continue reading here.—JN

      

Sponsored By Zoom

Oops, did we wake you? Well, since you’re up, we’ve got news you’ll want to be wide awake for: There’s a way for you to spot buyer signals in your webinar data.

The tough part is actually finding those signals in your mountains of data. Zoom can help. Their e-book, From metrics to meaning, digs into the difference between casual attendees and potential pipeline.

Once you learn how to spot the right signals, you can connect those signals to the rest of your marketing stack, and bam!—now you have a much clearer picture of buyer readiness.

Wipe the sleep out of your eyes and get ready to build your pipeline based on webinar data.

SPORTS MARKETING

Lavazza

Attending the US Open for a full day in the summer heat isn’t quite like taking in a basketball game from an air-conditioned arena. With tickets that can include multiple sessions and marathon matches, the event can be as grueling as it is entertaining—and not just for the athletes.

Fans might even need a hit of caffeine to keep them going—and at the US Open, that’s Lavazza, the official coffee partner of the tournament for 12 years.

Lavazza isn’t the only longtime partner of the US Open: Grey Goose is entering its 20th year as the official vodka of the tournament, Polo Ralph Lauren has been involved since 2005, and Tiffany & Co. has created the trophies for almost 40 years.

Brand presences at the tournament can be overstimulating, Daniele Foti, VP of marketing for Lavazza North America, acknowledged. That’s in part why marketers—even those who have activated around the US Open for years—are tasked with switching things up if they want to stay relevant.

And good thing for Lavazza, a little extra stimulation may be exactly what some tired tennis fans need.

“The ultimate objective is to bring not only the product to the consumers, but to build something meaningful for them,” Foti told Marketing Brew. “For us, coffee is more than just a product; it’s really a matter of meaningful experiences for consumers…When you have a long-term partnership like the US Open, it’s always a nice challenge to try to reinvent it.”

Read more here.—AM

      

Sponsored By StackAdapt

ChatGPT Ads are here. Now what? Figure out where they belong in your media mix. StackAdapt CEO Vitaly Pecherskiy and OpenAI VP of Monetization Benji Shomair break it down in this on-demand webinar. Learn what's reshaping consumer behaviors, how to reach buyers before decisions are made, and where ChatGPT Ads fit into a connected media strategy. Watch the webinar.

COWORKING

Monica Tailor

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

Monica Tailor is chief social marketing officer at McCann and global co-managing director of McCann Content Studios. She was named Agency Executive of the Year at the 2025 Digiday Awards.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I’m responsible for all the ads that come up before the YouTube video you’re trying to watch. And you can replace YouTube with Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Most recently, it’s got to be a really fun campaign from McCann New York and New Zealand for Huggies, called “Expensive Sh*t.” It was a one-hour livestreamed event where 18 babies, known for their high-capacity pooping, crawled on nearly $500,000 worth of luxury items to test the product’s blowout protection. I love a campaign where it seems too hard to pull off, and you’ve got to love a high-stakes livestream. It was an incredible collaboration across so many people, which means it’s all hands on deck and so amazing to see everyone come together and build a great community engagement moment.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Nike’s “Nothing Beats a Londoner” was an incredible campaign which broke all the rules. At a time when everything was about short-form vertical video, this was over three minutes long, sound on, horizontal, and guess what? We all turned our phones to the side and watched to the end. It tapped into a community truth and bought the Nike brand into it. It might have looked like an accident, but it wasn’t. It was a brilliant creative idea, executed with craft and a level of orchestration that was unprecedented. So clever; a truly culture-defining moment.

Continue reading here.

      

Sponsored By Marketing Architects

Your CTV dashboard isn’t keeping secrets on purpose. It’s just way less accurate than you think it is. Not sure what to do about that? Marketing Architects can help. They’re hosting a webinar on Sept. 24 with Adweek to take a data-backed look at CTV attribution. Save your seat.

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.

french press

Morning Brew

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

Follow back: Some of the latest tips for racking up more followers on Instagram.

All cap(tion)s: How captions might help with follower count growth and more, according to a recent post from the platform’s owned creator guide account.

Vibe check: A new study from CreatorIQ underscoring the importance of brand fit over follower count when it comes to influencer partnerships.

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

PODCAST

In this episode, we explore the latest trend of creators snagging C-suite titles—but which ones are legit and which ones are for show? From Jake Shane touting a German candy brand to Vivian Tu’s actual financial advice, we look at the titles and the work behind them. Plus, when is perceived authenticity the least of your risks when it comes to naming a creator to your executive team?

JOINING FORCES

Francis Scialabba

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• AT&T became a US Open sponsor under a five-year deal, filling the connectivity category that Spectrum left open in 2021.
• Publicis, 3 Arts Sports, and Travis Kelce are teaming up to start an agency called Tekta designed to focus on college NIL deals.
• Abercrombie partnered with Fanatics to expand its NFL deal ahead of this season.
• Chipotle tapped 16-year-old YouTuber Salish Matter for a limited-time kids’ meal as the QSR leans into Gen Alpha.
• Cadbury extended its deals with three Premier League teams: Arsenal, Liverpool, and Tottenham Hotspur.
• American Express became the official payments partner of St Andrews Links.