Sports jerseys hold a special place in the hearts of athletes and fans. They’re hung at stadiums, worn around the world, and, in some cases, sold for $10 million.

They’re also “walking advertisements,” according to Scott Jablonski, who’s worked at the NBA, NHL, and several other sports and entertainment companies throughout his career. The English Premier League has emblazoned brand names on its jerseys for decades. US leagues, on the other hand, have been more hesitant about allowing brands onto that “sacred” real estate, as several sports marketers put it.

Many American leagues have changed their tune as of late: Among the Big Four, the NBA was a relatively early adopter, first adding sponsor patches for the 2017–18 season. The NHL green-lit ads on uniforms for the 2022–23 season, and sponsor patches started showing up on MLB jerseys for the first time this year. The NFL still doesn’t have them.

While they’ve become more common stateside, jersey sponsorships are expensive—they can go for about as much as stadium-naming rights. Plus, some fans haven’t exactly embraced them, which can make it harder still for marketers to convince their C-suites to sign off on the spend. Those who can make their brands appear on the heads, hearts, or arms of beloved athletes stand to boost brand awareness.

Read the full story here.—AM

A seamless customer experience is a huge selling point for brands—one that can make a marketer’s job easier.

In the name of improving customer experiences, Amazon and Panera are turning to large language models and conversational AI to improve ordering. The success they’ve seen so far is undeniable, but is this really the future? Learn how this new phenomenon could change the game.

Bush’s is selling Halloween costumes this year. Yes, the bean company. And it’s not even the brand’s first foray into fashion.

The company has been in the merch game for a while, according to Kate Rafferty, its consumer experience brand manager. It has a “visitor center” in its home state of Tennessee that has stocked “bean merch,” as she called it, since it opened its doors in June 2010.

A couple of years ago, Bush’s took that business online, selling items from clothes to doormats to mints. The DTC shop really found its footing this year, she said, when Bush’s started dropping merch tied to specific holidays when “bean usage” is high. Recent drops have included a summer collection with some items tied to Father’s Day, a back-to-school collection, and the Halloween one.

“What do you think of when you think of summer? Of course, you think of baked beans—eating outside and grilling,” Rafferty told us. “We’ve created this key-holiday strategy, and I think that’s really created some fun relevance and conversation for people.”

Bush’s treats the merch more as a marketing channel than a revenue stream, according to Rafferty, one that helps it “spread some joy” and ideally connect with younger consumers.

Continue reading here.—AM

The earliest examples we have of storytelling are rock art drawings in Africa dating back 30,000 years, but brand storytelling—where products are promoted for their origin stories and the mission of their companies—is a decidedly more modern notion.

In 2011, brand storytelling was “very much a fringe concept” and the number of marketers listing storytelling as a skill on their LinkedIn profiles was “minuscule,” according to LinkedIn data cited by Jason Miller on the platform’s Ads Blog.

But by 2017, just six years later, 570,000 marketers on LinkedIn listed “storytelling” as a skill. And the trend has continued: In August, the number of marketers who added “storytelling” as a skill to LinkedIn profiles increased 22% YoY, according to LinkedIn data provided to Retail Brew.

How did brand storytelling go from obscurity to a retail marketing necessity? What brands are storytelling masters? And how do you sprinkle some of that narrative fairy dust over your brand?

Well, that’s a story in itself. Keep reading on Retail Brew.—AAN

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

Red, white, and blue: Ad Age examined how AI will impact advertising ahead of the 2024 elections.

That’s so last year: Recent research from Digiday found that agencies are showing less interest in Meta.

Business is (not) booming: This study looked into why small and midsize shops are struggling to gain new clients.

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Executive moves across the industry.

• Paul Stoddart, a Salesforce alum, has joined data provider PitchBook as CMO.
• Shannon Maher has become the first CMO of Good Foods after leading marketing for cheese company Bel Brands.
• Suhaila Hobba left Amazon to join OMD as its US chief media officer.