Duolingo is now “AI-first,” job postings are emphasizing AI competency as a desired skill, and it seems every company is hungry for AI-powered efficiency. The AI boom is officially in every business corner, and branded social media is no exception—but should it be?

Much of social media content creation relies on creative thinking and production, and creative types haven’t been shy about criticizing AI reliance, particularly the kind that might eliminate jobs. At the same time, the allure of taking advantage of a moment like the ChatGPT-generated-action-figure trend is too strong, and all of a sudden, it seems the hottest (and quickest) thing a social media manager can do is get in on the AI buzz. It’s an impulse made even easier when companies like Adobe and OpenAI roll out creative-focused AI products.

But social media consultant and writer of the newsletter Link in Bio Rachel Karten has a theory. Rather than AI being the next big thing in brand social, it could end up encouraging an alternate route, a phenomenon that she’s dubbing “proof of reality.” In an effort to emphasize quality and craftsmanship, Karten expects some brands to use their social media feeds as a place to emphasize their human creativity, attention to detail, and the real, human-led work that went into making certain content for the brand.

“As the ways that posts are made on social media become more and more unclear…we’re going to see brands ramp up this proof of how they made the post,” Karten told Marketing Brew. “I don’t think it’s new necessarily, but I think those types of posts are going to hold more weight, especially for the consumer.”

Continue reading here.—JN

When tech company Qualcomm and its product brand Snapdragon inked a deal with Manchester United in 2022, CMO Don McGuire never imagined the Snapdragon name would end up plastered on the Premier League team’s kits.

Similarly, when Qualcomm first got involved with Formula 1 the same year, there were no plans to partner with Mercedes, which, despite some difficulties in recent years, is still firmly in the top half of the grid. And a year before that, when the company signed its 15-year naming rights deal for a stadium complex in San Diego in 2021, the facility was primarily expected to host college football games; now, two professional soccer teams call it home, too.

Over the last few years, McGuire and Qualcomm have pivoted to take advantage of opportunities in sports sponsorships as they present themselves, and rolled with the changes. After a little bit of convincing of the rest of the C-suite, sponsorships, McGuire told us, have become Snapdragon’s single biggest driver of brand growth, more than traditional ad spend.

“As we saw relevance with consumers of our technology and we built our brand story, we had to look at our marketing mix, how we build more affinity for the brand, and how we do more storytelling,” he said.

Read more here.—AM

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

Amy Tunick is CMO of cinema advertising platform National CineMedia. Previously, she worked at companies including Grey Group, WarnerMedia, and WWE.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? My favorite project was for Hulu in 2019 when I worked at CNN. We helped drive awareness and tune-in for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 through a cool experiential activation in New York’s Madison Square Park. The season focused on women’s empowerment, and the project was based on the insight that of the 150 statues in NYC, only five of them were of women. So we designed, fabricated, and erected the “missing 145 female statues,” which was a very powerful experience for thousands of passersby. Of course, we filmed it and showcased the branded content on CNN’s channels, and it drove massive results for Hulu—so much so that they continued the project in San Francisco and Boston, and then committed to erecting statues of women in other cities around the US.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? My favorite ad campaign is “The Gun Shop,” a project I worked on while at Grey. The goal was to drive awareness of the pervasive gun violence in America and discourage first-time gun buyers by debunking the myth that guns make you safer. We created a shock campaign for States United to Prevent Gun Violence by erecting a gun shop in NYC outfitted with hidden cameras and managed by a shop owner who was really an actor. The short film we produced got picked up on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, and massive press coverage ensued. This campaign won two Cannes Lions. My work on this issue inspired me to join Sandy Hook Promise’s Media Advisory Board.

Read more here.

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Disney and TelevisaUnivision entered into a new distribution partnership that puts Televisa Univision’s US channels on Hulu + Live TV.
• Urban Outfitters teamed up with U-Haul for an experiential campaign targeting Gen Z.
• SAP, the global software company, is the new technology sponsor of the Ryder Cup for 2025 and 2027.