In the comments on a TikTok of a dog yelping into a pillow, you’ll find Google making calendar jokes. Below a TikTok about NYC ice-cream trucks, you’ll find fashion brand Kenneth Cole commenting that “Mister Softee must be earned. Never tracked.” And in the comments section of a TikTok of influencer Alix Earle dancing and lip-syncing in her pajamas, you’ll find meal-delivery company HelloFresh encouraging her to drop an album.

Brand social media accounts taking a more casual, conversational tone isn’t new—Wendy’s has been doing it for the better part of a decade. But increasingly, brands are showing up in the comments sections on TikTok and Instagram, whether the post is about them or not.

Kathryn Fernandez, global brand director for Dove at Unilever, told us in an email that 80% of the posts Dove commented on last month were on TikTok. “The creator community there is so strong and vocal around topics that align with our brand mission, so this is a really authentic place for us to engage,” she said.

Brand marketers said that the comments section, particularly on user-generated posts, not only allows brands to engage directly with customers, but also establishes relevancy and encourages positive brand sentiment.

Driving conversation: Behind the scenes, Dove works with a team of five community managers and strategists at Edelman, which is overseen by Kalie Dobrow, a senior supervisor of social strategy who helps manage the brand account. Their whole week, Dobrow told us, is centered around reading and replying to comments on Dove’s posts, as well as finding commenting opportunities on user-uploaded posts.

“It takes a lot more time than people realize to source these opportunities and craft language,” she said.

Keep reading here.—KH

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Jennifer Halloran sits at the intersection of two industries that are both largely male-dominated: finance and sports.

As CMO and head of marketing and brand for insurance and financial services company MassMutual, Halloran oversees sponsorships with some of the biggest pro sports leagues in the country, including the NHL and MLB. Prior to MassMutual, she worked in marketing for Fidelity Investments and Putnam Investments, and started her career working with finance clients at Digitas and Hill Holiday in the ’90s.

Like in sports, there have been signs of progress toward achieving gender parity in financial services, but Halloran said there have been moments in her career when she’s been the only woman in the room.

“I worked at one place where there actually was still a professional dining room that was men-only for a number of years,” she told Marketing Brew. “It was a very old-school, very male-dominated industry. It usually has been, as long as I’ve been in it. I’ve learned how to play in that space, and I think that, in many ways, makes you a lot stronger…It teaches you where your strength is when you’re in a space where you understand how you can add value in a different way.”

For Halloran, part of the way she’s added value in her current role is by beefing up MassMutual’s sports marketing program. Now, she’s turning her focus toward tapping into her background as a former athlete to up the brand’s involvement in women’s sports.

Continue reading here.—AM

There’s a gaping hole in the women’s sports marketplace.

Viewership and sponsor interest have been on the rise for US women’s pro leagues like the WNBA, NWSL, and LPGA and for less-established pro sports in the country like volleyball. As fandom grows, some supporters are looking to rep their favorite teams and players—but demand is so far outpacing supply for women’s sports merchandise, according to a new report from Sports Innovation Lab and Klarna.

Sports Innovation Lab estimated, based on US census data, survey data, and its proprietary dataset of transactions by more than 80 million US consumers, that the women’s sports merch market is worth $4 billion a year in the US, leaving room for opportunity for sponsor brands and others to step into the relatively unoccupied space.

Demanding: Over the past few years, about one in four fans of women’s sports purchased sports merch, compared to more than half of men’s sports fans, according to the Rep Her report, the fourth iteration of Sports Innovation Lab’s annual Fan Project series looking into the business of women’s sports. The report found that when women’s sports fans did buy merch:

• They made slightly more purchases on a per-fan basis each year than men’s sports fans.
• They also spent just as much per transaction and slightly more per year on sports merch.

Pain points: One reason why fans of women’s sports bought merch less often than men’s sports fans is due to “a challenging buying experience,” the report suggests.

Keep reading here.—AM

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Stories we’re jealous of.

• The Wall Street Journal wrote about creators who are facing unstable financial situations.
• Vox wrote about why it seems like every star athlete partners with Subway at some point in their careers.
• The New York Times wrote about a recent pop-up for Hailey Bieber’s makeup and skin-care brand Rhode, and the hundreds of fans who braved “a line that snaked through SoHo” to attend.