“All’s fair in love, war, and influencer marketing.”—Every former Bachelor and Bachelorette contestant, probably.

The Bachelor franchise is basically an influencer-marketing factory. Regular people go on its reality shows, and leave with thousands (and, in some cases, millions) more followers than they had before their audition process began. Many, many of them quit their jobs to pursue influencing full time.

And, according to Ruggable CMO Linda Lai, they don’t suck at it.

“They have such a unique command across social channels and traditional TV,” Lai told Marketing Brew. “You end up also falling in love with them, quite literally. It’s such an emotional connection. You have opinions about them, and you’re rooting for certain people, and you hate other people,” she explained, adding that, with dozens of new contestants on each season (not to mention multiple seasons per year), the franchise can churn out influencers at a uniquely high volume.

Zoom in: That’s partly why the rug company decided to exclusively tap former Bachelorette contestants for a recent influencer campaign that, according to the Ruggable team, drove a ton of buzz for the brand. In fact, Lai told us Bachelor franchise influencers often have some of the “best performing” posts for Ruggable.

Read more about the strategy behind the campaign, which features 14 former Bachelorette contestants, here.—PB

Picture a Succession-style boardroom scene. Now, imagine the board members all having the personality of Ted Lasso. Also, the conference room is floating above the clouds.

That’s the vibe of Alaska Airlines’ latest ad campaign, “Care Coalition,” according to Max Eastman, creative director at San Francisco-based Mekanism, the airline’s creative agency. We recently chatted with Mekanism about how the campaign came together—and what’s next.

Paving the way: At the end of 2020, before Covid vaccines became widely available, Mekanism created a spot about Alaska’s Covid safety protocols called “Safety Dance.” For the ad, Eastman wrote a rendition of the classic 80s song.

• The success of that campaign, which got media attention from the likes of USA Today and CBS, inspired Alaska to embrace a more lighthearted tone in its messaging.
• “It really helped Alaska see that when they lean into the core of who they are as a brand in a big, bold way, that’s where they find their sweet spot,” Mekanism managing director Lisa Townsend Zakroff said of the ad. “Because of the success of that campaign and the energy around it, we were able to bring them a campaign like ‘Care Coalition.’”

The campaign takes that playful tone to new heights, with a colorful set that uses VFX to appear to be floating in the clouds, and a cast that includes Queer Eye’s Tan France, the yellow Care Bear, and TikTok star Nick Cho (aka @YourKoreanDad). Read more about how it came to life here.—AM

Recycling isn’t always such a good idea, at least when it comes to audio advertising.

That’s according to new research from global podcast company Acast, shared exclusively with Marketing Brew ahead of the company’s inaugural Sounds Creative virtual event on Thursday.

Technically speaking, brands could save some time and money by repurposing ads they run on radio programs as podcast ads. But they might not see the same ROI that they could if they tailor-made ads for podcasts, the research found.

Likability: Acast had 1,800 respondents in the US, the UK, and Sweden listen to a regular podcast advertisement, 3D podcast advertisement (one that includes immersive audio), or a radio advertisement reused in a podcast, all for the same brand. Can you guess which one they preferred?

• 47% said they liked the radio ad.
• 51% said they liked the regular podcast ad.
• 60% said they liked the 3D podcast ad.

The most-liked format makes listeners feel more immersed in an audio clip by adding soundscapes, like the sounds of leaves rustling in a forest, explained Shantae Howell, Acast’s creative director of the Americas.

“3D audio makes me feel like I’ve walked into the Rainforest Cafe,” Howell told Marketing Brew. “I hear the leaves, I hear the rain, I’m there.”

Effectiveness: Likability is an important stat, according to Howell. “To see likeability increase is a really powerful number, because we want folks to not only listen to ads, but really like the ads that they’re listening to,” she said. But most marketers also want to know if their ads are driving change.

Both regular podcast ads and 3D ads proved more successful on this front than recycled radio ads, although regular ads trumped ones with 3D audio when it came to effectiveness, according to the survey.

• After hearing a regular podcast ad for a brand, 65% of listeners said that brand was their first choice when asked to rank it against competitors. 60% of listeners said the same after hearing a 3D audio ad, as did 56% of those who heard a traditional radio ad.

Howell said these findings indicate that 3D audio ads are likely most worthwhile for brands that have already established themselves as experienced audio advertisers and are looking to freshen up their creative.

“You have to have folks familiar with your brand in order to invite them into a deeper experience,” she said. “It’s kind of like meeting someone; you’re not going to tell someone your life story upon first meeting them. You have to build that relationship with the listener to earn more time and more intimacy with them.”—AM

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

Influential: Virtual influencers like Miquela have 3 million followers on Instagram. Check out this study on what Americans think of them.

Social: Snapchat created a lens that helps users learn the American Sign Language alphabet.

Level up: A career-focused guide to help you make the best career moves in 2022 has been created. It’s called Sidekick’s Professional Playbook, grab it here.

Learn: It’s not enough to know the basics of data analytics and company financials—you need to know how to combine them. In Morning Brew Quantitative, we’ll teach you how to forecast, model, and build buy-in for your recommendations. Apply for MB/Q now and save $200 on tuition costs!

Read: Instacart is trying to sustain its pandemic-driven growth, reports Jaewon Kang, Preetika Rana, and Corrie Driebusch for the Wall Street Journal.

Quote: “Anybody who is in their right mind and wants to reach a large audience still has to go to them,” said Douglas C. Schmidt, a computer science professor at Vanderbilt University, talking to the New York Times about the power of Big Tech.

Look: You can wear Waffle House, thanks to Adidas.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Party City CMO on the retailer’s new and improved social media strategy
• This year’s Grammys aren’t quite the least-watched on record
• More and more, brands are showing older women in ads