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Marketing Brew

Alyssa Meyers

marketingbrew.com

GroupM plans to double its women’s sports spend this year

The WPP agency created a marketplace for women’s sports media inventory ahead of upfronts season, and already has clients including Ally, Google, and Discover signed on.

Jasmine Sheena

How Omnicom is working to make its AI tools more inclusive 

The agency’s analytics shop Annalect is working on improving the data behind its tools. 

Ryan Barwick

A gif of an illustrated computer showing an automated message. 

Agencies are tackling generative AI, but with a little help

From startups to Silicon Valley, Big Tech is helping advertisers use AI.

Employees sitting around conference room desk with whiteboard

Agencies

A cartoon image of Kristina Monllos created by Morning Brew

Kristina Monllos

The design landscape is changing rapidly. In some ways, it’s more accessible than ever as AI tools flood the market and AI companies pitch consumers and businesses alike on its ease of use. In others, it’s becoming more difficult to balance the need for personalization, the myriad touchpoints, finding ways to stand out amid the onslaught of AI slop, and more.

To understand how brands are managing this shift, Marketing Brew caught up with Kiser Barnes, chief creative officer and partner at Red Antler, who is set to speak about that topic at our upcoming 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You joined Red Antler last year as partner and chief creative officer. Tell us about what you’re doing. 

What I’ve been doing over the past year is really helping to evolve Red Antler into the new era of what brand building means. Brand building now is much more multidisciplinary in terms of the touchpoints that it needs to impact, the touchpoints that it needs to affect.

There are two things that are happening. One is [that] tech and marketing are merging. Tech brands are becoming marketing brands. Marketing brands and agencies are becoming—are being forced to become—tech brands. And the tools are accelerating the speed at which we need to get to market. They’re also accelerating the ability to personalize and customize brands in ways that it’s never been before…The second part of that is about social and the idea that people are interacting with brands in very fragmented ways and multi-touchpoint ways around social. The first way you might interact with a new brand might be through a social post versus the traditional way of the past, which was typically through advertising or through a website or through some sort of marketing material…In order to be a brand expert and a brand builder, now you have to be able to think about how you orchestrate across all of these different touchpoints. You, of course, have to think about the tools and the ways that those tools become increasingly relevant to the work that you do, and you have to evolve constantly.

How does the cultural desire for personalization change the design conversation? 

It’s so exciting from a design standpoint. It means that we have to build increasingly modular brands. A lot of the ways that we think about brands are shifting from this idea of the brand bible that sits on a shelf somewhere and collects dust into this mode of a living, breathing thing that should always be evolving and always shifting…It means that we have to build a wider toolkit for brands. We’ve got to build enough of a toolkit that can be taken right by social influencers, or it can be taken by vendors, or it can be plugged into experiential in the real world. And so we have to really think wide now. I don’t think that brand teams ever did that in the past…To build a brand now, you can’t just think about the logo and the font and the color and that stuff. You’ve got to not just test it out but really think about how it shows up in the real world as experiential or retail, how it shows up on social platforms. And you have to really know those spaces…It just means that we have to build brands from a design standpoint, brands that are much richer, much more modular, much more connected to full-ecosystem thinking.

That’s all happening at a time when people have much stronger reactions to brand changes today, like we just saw with 

Brands are much more fluid, and they’re really responsive to culture now. This old idea of a pristine brand sitting in an ivory tower is not as relevant anymore. And again, it’s this influence. It’s the impact and amplification of social and influencer[s]. If you think about it, we’re in a culture of influencer. I don’t think that’s set in, but our president is an influencer, our entire cabinet is made of influencers. Not to be provocative, but we are in a culture now of influence, where influence is king. That means that brands have to be more democratic. They’ve got to really think about what their people and their fans and their loyalists really think about and care about in the brand.

Ultimately—hopefully—that’s a good thing for brands. It means it’s more influenced by [the] community, it’s more influenced in the sense of co-ownership. But I do think that’s a huge pivot.

Another major shift that we’ve touched on is the introduction of all of these AI tools to the market. That’s changing the design landscape. I’m curious, if everyone is using the same tools and those tools are trained on what has been, how can design continue to push the envelope? 

The tools are really great for, in my mind, workflow, amplification of ideas, creativity. I have a thesis that the human soul is about experimentation. What makes us really creative, and what makes us feel, what creates differentiation is experimentation. It’s like when jazz came into the scene and it created a new language of music. Every single cultural shift and change has been driven by this incredible explosion of creative experimentation. And that is what makes us uniquely human…The machine and AI can’t do that, certainly not now. I’m sure it’ll be programmed to do a little bit more of it. But that’s what makes us unique, and I do think we’re already starting to see a response to AI and to this mass adoption of AI.

You’ll see it in fashion and luxury brands are going back to stop-motion and handcrafted techniques for creating content, which is really beautiful. I do think there’s always a pendulum swing…Brands go back and forth. But I do think, ultimately, the tools allow us to do things more rapidly. They allow us to touch more spaces, and they allow us to have more depth in terms of strategy research, the foundational pieces of brand building. So from a design perspective, they allow us to take an idea and really amplify it…I do think we will always have to, as creative leaders, show up in ways that feel differentiated and cut through that sort of clutter of noise. There’s this idea of AI slop, that everything will be kind of created by AI, and it’s bots speaking to bots—the dead internet theory. There’s so many kinds of theories around this and that. Ultimately, we’ll have to find ways to differentiate, and once those tools become widely adopted, we will come up with more interesting ways to approach creativity and to approach marketing. I believe that strongly. That’s what the human spirit’s all about.

Red Antler’s CCO on the new era of brand building

Ahead of the Marketing Brew Summit, Kiser Barnes told us how the design shop is creating “richer, more modular” brands for the future. 

Lots of advertising agencies say they make short films. Often, those short films are just ads by another name—more artful ads, perhaps, but ads all the same.

Social content shop Portal A isn’t one of those agencies. This year, Portal A has been on the film-festival circuit with its first narrative short film, Five Star, directed by Kai Hasson, the agency’s executive creative director and one of its co-founders. After premiering at the RiverRun International Film Festival earlier this spring, the short, a 14-minute comedy-horror starring Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, nabbed the Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Seattle International Film Festival, and it has continued its run at festivals like the LA Shorts International Film Festival and the Asian American International Film Festival.

 isn’t a secret ad. It’s a narrative effort that’s the latest project to come out of an internal program designed to get Portal A back to its creative roots of making “weird stuff on the internet,” Jacob Motz, the agency’s director of original projects, told Marketing Brew.

“Two or three years ago, I remember we were sitting around, and the partners were like, ‘We want to just kind of give ourselves the ability to make stuff without worrying about gatekeepers, for the sake of creativity, for the sake of innovation,’” Motz said. “We want to be able to always take risks with the content we’re making online, so we need to have a program that allows us to do that.”

To do it, in February 2023, the agency rolled out Moonshots, a creative research and development lab funded by the company with the goal of distributing creative projects regularly. 

 is its first narrative short film, although Hasson and several Portal A employees previously worked on another short film, 

, in 2019, before Moonshots was established. Other Moonshots projects have included 

,” a social series that takes an anthropological look at fashion.

Portal A is one of a number of agencies getting involved in indie production as a way to carve out some creative freedom in the industry. Others, like SRH, Six+One, and Revery, have dabbled in indie movies and documentaries, endeavors that they believe will help them experiment and stretch creatively, AdAge 

As for Portal A, “the value that we’re getting from this isn’t monetary,” Motz said. “There’s a lot of things we look at as real value. There’s culture internally at the company. People internally at the company go like, ‘Wow, we’re really, we’re taking money, and we’re putting it in creative endeavors for creative sake, and that’s fun and cool.’ And we’re also including everybody at the company to take part in it. So it becomes highly creative projects that people get to go on little adventures with.”

At the same time, having narrative short films under an agency’s belt could also come in handy when pitching marketers. As Marketing Brew has 

, brands like Bilt, Tower 28, Oatly, and Bratz are all creating their own short scripted projects for their social channels.

“More than ever, being able to sharpen your craft and be able to tell stories in a short-form way is where the future is headed regardless,” Motz said. “In 10 years, I feel like the vast majority of people are going to be experiencing scripted in shorter formats.”

Update 09/03/25: Kai Hasson's title has been updated.

Screenshots from the trailer for Five Star, a horror movie short film.

Why one agency made an indie short film

Portal A wanted to get back to its creative roots and make stuff without “worrying about gatekeepers,” its director of original projects told us.

Johanna Voss wants to know why redlining is a problem.

Voss, a talent manager, regularly negotiates with brands and agencies on behalf of her influencer clients. In doing so, she’s become accustomed to redlining, or striking out, certain clauses in contracts, often in the terms and conditions section, or the “fine print,” where she says she generally advocates for more creator protections. According to Voss, it’s crucial for talent managers to be able to redline the terms and conditions, and she has often redlined contracts to reflect discussions that were part of the negotiation process she went through with the brand or agency involved.

But what was once a regular course of business is now getting pushback. Instead of being able to redline contracts like usual, Voss said she has recently been sent contracts to review after negotiations, with language that Voss can’t redline.

“The brand gets everything,” Voss told Marketing Brew. “There’s zero protection of the creator. I’ve had about four or five [deals] come over in the past couple of weeks where they send the agreement, they’re like, ‘Oh, FYI, we can’t redline terms and conditions.’”

Voss isn’t alone. In the last 18 months or so, Molly Tracy, CEO and founder of talent management shop Vrai, told us she’s gotten “a lot more pushback” on editing the terms and conditions of a contract, often being told that her agency can only edit the scope of work.

Terms and conditions are “where all this stuff is that needs to have the biggest edits,” she said. “That’s where your indemnifications are. That’s where most of your termination [agreement is], all of your usage clauses—all of that is in the Ts and Cs. That’s the part that we need to edit.”

The rise in agencies and brands limiting redlining comes as the creator economy continues to surge and as influencer marketing deals become more commonplace. Some marketing experts say that limiting redlining could be a simple efficiency play as investment grows and as marketers have more contracts to work through. But talent managers told us it’s causing friction in the negotiation process, all while putting them in a difficult position.

“It’s starting to become really problematic,” Samantha Hicks, managing director at Shine Talent Group, said. “We will agree to specific terms…and then we get the contract, and it’s completely different from what we’ve agreed to, and they won’t accept redlines. That obviously puts us in a tough spot because we can’t accept that.”

Major brands are doubling down on the creator economy—or, in the case of 

, planning to hire 20 times more influencers. Overall spending on influencer marketing in the US is expected to reach $10 billion this year, according to 

 from the World Federation of Advertisers, 54% of brand marketers said they plan to increase their influencer spend this year.

As marketers continue to scale their investment in influencer marketing, there are more contracts to negotiate, and to limit costs, it could make sense to adopt a no-redlining policy, at least in some cases, said Vickie Segar, founder of influencer marketing shop Village Marketing.

“We have clients where we’re spending $20 million, $30 million a quarter in the influencer space—and we’re not paying any influencer individually, on average, more than $25,000,” Segar told us. “When you do the math on that, we’re doing hundreds of thousands of agreements, invoices, you name it. What doesn’t make sense is when you’re paying a creator $1,000 and you have a back-and-forth legal contract where you’re spending five hours of legal money on redlines. There is a proportionate structure that needs to happen with deals.”

Marketers haven’t always found the ideal process to manage the volume. “When you’re working at scale, the legal hours can really rack up,” Mae Karwowski, founder of influencer marketing shop Obviously said (although she noted that her shop still allows for redlines). “Maybe it’s a cost-savings measure on the part of some of these brands, or they're just saying, ‘Hey, there are enough creators—we know we’ll get someone to actually sign this.’”

It could come down to cost savings alone or perhaps a broader effort at making the process of working with many creators more time-efficient, Jonathan Daly, head of communications strategy for creative agency Johannes Leonardo, said.

“If you’re trying to build out a program that has 50 or 100 influencers…there’s probably an impetus to make that as efficient as possible,” Daly said. “So it’s one standard contract [that] I’m gonna send this out to 200 creators. Hopefully we get enough back, and it’s like, ‘Take it or leave it. These are the terms. This is what we want.’ It’s just about moving at pace.”

Even as marketers manage potential growing pains, talent managers aren’t all sold on the argument and told us that they won’t accept terms or conditions that could put clients in a precarious position.

To manage the pushback on redlining, some talent managers say they are asking agencies and brands for a master service agreement that supersedes the terms and conditions that they’ve been told they’re no longer able to augment.

“I have seen a little bit more this year of a willingness to come up with a master service agreement for agencies that we work with quite often,” Tracy said. “We know that we cannot edit these terms and conditions on every single contract, but can we come to a conclusion on terms and conditions that we find equitable for both of us that we can then use as an MSA, or a master service agreement, across the board for all of our campaigns.”

Hicks has taken a similar approach, offering master service agreements for her clients at Shine. “We do this one time and we agree on the general terms and conditions,” Hicks said. “We call that final. Then we have a scope of work that can be modified, talent to talent, based on what the deliverables are, but then we’re not spending days going back and forth redlining the terms and conditions. I think it is a fair compromise.”

That said, it’s not a fix that will necessarily work across the board. “That only really works if you’re working with that agency a lot,” Tracy said.

A hand holding a red pen crossing out words from a contract.

Limits on contract redlining are growing in creator marketing

Limits on contract redlining are growing as influencer marketing budgets expand, and talent managers say it’s causing friction in the negotiating process.

Talent managers are reading the fine print in creator contracts. They can’t always change it

Kelsey Sutton

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

John Miller is the founder and president of Scribewise, a professional services marketing agency. He was previously a partner at the PR and branding firm Braithwaite Communications, and he started his career in radio, serving as a longtime radio host covering the Philadelphia Eagles.

In 2020, my company worked with a boutique consulting firm that was full of truly warm, funny and honest humans. But their brand didn’t reflect that. Like most consulting firms, they thought they needed to act seriously all the time. We wanted their brand to be in true alignment with their energy, so we brought it to life with a new look that was unique to them—it was energetic, fun, smart; exactly what working with the team was like. They were willing to take a chance and stand out, which is what marketing is all about.

This is reaching back a bit, but Vonage had a TV ad in 2015 where the tagline was “

” The ad itself was humorous and energetic, but I loved it because of the word “better.” “Better” is such a powerful word; it’s about continually striving. “Better” is better than “best.”

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: 

Once upon a time, hundreds of thousands of people valued my opinion on professional football—I hosted an Eagles pre- and post-game radio show from 2000 to 2013. I could never be a full-time sports talk host—so much of it is focused on being as outrageous as possible—but I’ll admit that side of me sometimes creeps into my work.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? 

I’ve been writing and talking about LLMO (large-language model optimization) a lot lately—this is a gold-rush moment. LLMs are changing how people find information, and how brands get found. Yes, you still need technical SEO and schema markup for LLMs to read your content clearly, but the differentiator is the useful, well-written, authentic insight that reflects your expertise; having it published by a media outlet (rather than on your website) is a huge amplifier. Conversely, I thank god we’re not an SEO agency; their days are numbered.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you'd recommend? 

I’m not too tuned into podcasts (I’m more of a visual learner), but do have a few book recommendations for you: 

 by Daniel Priestley, which provides a framework for getting prospective clients to practically beg to work with you; 

 by Paul Cash and James Trezona, which makes the case for using stories and emotion in marketing so-called boring businesses; and 

 by Ryan Berman, which was an inspiration for my own book, 

John Miller, founder and president, Scribewise. 

Coworking with John Miller

He’s founder and president, Scribewise. 

Avery Akkineni is chief marketing officer at VaynerX. She was previously president of Vayner3, a VaynerX consultancy, and she worked at VaynerMedia, where she established the agency’s capabilities in the Asia Pacific region.

 One that will always stand out is launching our APAC presence in 2019, initially in Singapore and subsequently in Bangkok, Tokyo, and Sydney. It was a whirlwind few years, and I’m so proud of the amazing culture, fantastic client roster, and culture-driving work we launched during those first few years. From global Olympics campaigns to winning Agency of the Year, it was a critical role for me and for VaynerMedia’s global expansion.

’s movie launch. I love everything about it. It didn’t feel like a campaign; it felt like a 

. The mix of strategic partnerships, unexpected collaborations, and user-generated content brilliance turned marketing into entertainment and made the internet the media plan.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile:

 I share a lot on LinkedIn, but one thing I don’t often share professionally is my renovation passion projects. On any given long weekend, I’m usually working on an interiors project—my favorite creative outlet that has nothing to do with the advertising world!

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least?

 I’m most optimistic about live shopping. At VaynerMedia, we’re obsessed with finding “underpriced attention”—avenues where consumers are spending their time, yet marketing investment hasn’t caught up. We see live commerce as exactly this in 2025. While I was in Asia, we produced incredibly successful commerce-driving livestreams, but it took a few years for this behavior to make its way to the US. Now, we’re seeing this hit the US, driven by key platforms like TikTok and WhatNot, with some promising client results.

I’m least optimistic about the AI doom and gloom. There is a lot of negativity around the potential impact of AI in the world of advertising, and while it’s new and scary, the Internet was once new and scary. There of course will be some risk, but it’s important to embrace this shift, cultivate a growth mindset, and actively test and experiment with AI every day to unlock its full potential.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? 

When it comes to marketing insights, I recommend 

. This show is hosted by former CMO of Procter & Gamble and industry legend, Jim Stengel, and in these weekly episodes, Jim sits down with marketing powerhouses from a wide range of industries as they unveil their career and personal journeys and give listeners an in-depth picture of what it takes to be a marketer. My favorite part is listening to each marketer’s personal journey and how no journey is the same.

. A cultural phenomena in the modern advertising world, the 

 team have really cracked how to capture people’s attention and provide industry news not only efficiently, but with incredible creativity and humor. Kudos to them for literally “breaking” through.

Coworking with Avery Akkineni

She’s CMO, VaynerX. 

Leslie Walsh is head of strategy at RYA, an AI tool from the New York-based ad agency Episode Four. Prior to joining Episode Four, she’s also worked at agencies including BBDO and 360i Europe.

I have had the opportunity to work on some pretty great creative projects in my career. I’ve helped build a bacon dating app for Oscar Mayer, I’ve helped Charles Schwab build muscle cars to give away to the winner of their PGA Tour every year, and most recently I’ve helped Invesco QQQ create a cooking show. But I’d have to say, my favorite project has been leading the strategy and development of Episode Four’s creative AI tool, RYA.

With Cannes Lions right around the corner, I’ve been reflecting on the kind of work that makes a lasting impact in culture. The best campaigns don’t just sell a product. They challenge norms and spark conversations. One campaign that really stuck with me this year is Bobbie’s “

.” It’s the first-ever campaign to feature a breastfeeding mom in Times Square, and it boldly reframes something natural and necessary as something powerful and worthy of public attention. As a mom, I felt a deep connection to this message. Feeding your baby, however and wherever you choose to do it, should come with confidence, not shame. And this campaign helped make that possible.

I’m not sure if it’s entered at Cannes this year, but in my eyes, it’s already won.

I am obsessed with sharks. As an avid scuba diver, I’ve had the opportunity to swim with great whites (in a cage) and swim alongside bull, lemon, reef, black tip, white tip, and nurse sharks on my dives. I’d love to add tiger sharks to the list!

I am most optimistic and passionate about AI and its power to supercharge our creativity, not replace it. That may be a cop out, as I’d argue that AI isn’t a trend or even the future; it’s a reality. On the flip side, I am least optimistic about “brain rot” content and generative AI’s role in exacerbating it.

For anyone in strategy, I highly recommend Mark Pollard’s 

 podcast, Instagram account, Facebook, and WhatsApp group. He’s built a great 

 for strategists to connect and learn from one another—something that is greatly needed, as far too often strategists can feel like lone wolves when in reality we thrive in a pack.

Coworking with Leslie Walsh

She’s head of strategy, RYA. 

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