From the Facebook group “Harvard Memes for Elitist 1% Tweens” to the ad industry’s “Digital Chadvertising” on Instagram, every community is loyal to a meme account these days. NYC (and those who it) is no different—and some local brands are taking advantage.

Take Susan Alexandra, for example: The designer accessories brand, best known for its beaded handbags (including bags depicting Milton Glaser’s iconic I NY design), recently collaborated with an Instagram meme account called Starter Packs of NYC to promote its new astrology-themed jewelry line.

“My brand is New York-based, and I love that I get to be grouped in with all these other…iconic things about New York right in this specific time period,” Susan Alexandra founder Susan Korn told Marketing Brew.

Like and comment: While Susan Alexandra isn’t hyperfocused on metrics, Korn and Sasha Mutchnik, who runs Starter Packs of NYC, both said they see collabs like this one as life hacks of sorts for getting engagement on Instagram closer to the level it was a few years ago.

Age of Aquarius

“I’m your standard-issue astrology girl,” Korn joked, talking about the inspiration for her brand’s new line of nameplate necklaces that spell out each astrological sign, from Aries to Pisces.

• “When we were going into launching it, I had this idea to work with Sasha from Starter Packs of NYC, who is a friend of mine,” Korn explained. Scroll through Mutchnik’s account, and, as you might guess from the name, you’ll find items that might come in a “starter pack” for every type of New York City resident (think: an Olivia Rodrigo album cover and texts about Travis Barker for the pop-punk-revival fans frequenting Tompkins Square Park these days).
• Korn told us she saw the format as a fun way to depict what the personality traits of each astrology sign would be, while showcasing not only the brand’s new astrology line, but also what other Susan Alexandra accessories each sign might like.
• For instance, in the “Aquarius” starter pack, there’s the Aquarius necklace, but there’s also a Susan Alexandra hair clip meant to look like a rain cloud, because, per Korn, it’s a bit outside the box and dreamy—traits she said are associated with the Aquarius sign.

This wasn’t Mutchnik’s first rodeo: The account has worked with brands like Supergoop and Bumble. She told us that she’s seeing more and more brands interested in working with her account.

“I think brands see this as a really organic way to integrate their content in a kind of humorous way and get it in front of a different audience, or perhaps the same audience, but just in a new fashion,” Mutchnik said. “A lot of brands like the idea of being in on the joke, and this is a great way to kind of display their product in a humorous way,” she added. “I think it’s a little bit more organic than, say, gifting something to an influencer.”

Keep reading here.—PB

Donald Albright, president and co-founder of true-crime podcast network Tenderfoot TV, started his marketing career by accident when he was a student at Clark Atlanta University in the 90s.

• At a party celebrating Atlanta-based R&B group 112, Albright was collecting business cards and wound up with a gig working on a “street team” for LaFace Records, passing out flyers and putting up posters promoting the label’s artists.
• He spun that part-time job out into a fully fledged music marketing company, D-Day Entertainment, which he founded in 1997 while he was still in college. Eventually, he dropped out to focus on the business full time as it racked up a roster of major label clients, including LaFace, Def Jam, Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, and more.
• Albright later became a road manager for artists after another stint in-house at LaFace, touring the world with the likes of Usher and Chris Brown. It was during that time he met filmmaker Payne Lindsey, now CEO of Tenderfoot, who was then working on music videos.

Switching gears: In 2016, the two co-founded Tenderfoot. Albright was responsible for the early campaigns that helped put Tenderfoot’s first pod on the map, and even though he’s now president of the company, he still leads marketing for its newest shows.

“The things I first started doing in the music industry—passing out flyers, putting up posters, having a street team—when I got into podcasting, those things still weren’t happening, so it was like podcasting was 20 years behind music,” Albright told Marketing Brew. “Coming to podcasting and they’re still at phase one of promotions, I felt like I had a huge advantage.”

We spoke with Albright about how the lessons he learned in music marketing shaped his approach to podcast marketing today. Read what he had to say here.—AM

Gaming is having a moment—for marketers, at least. Last week, Insider reported that Sony is working on plans to run ads in PlayStation games.

It’s not exactly surprising that advertisers have their eyes on gaming, considering that 96% of Gen Z and millennials, as well as 89% of Gen X, frequently play video games, per a new Deloitte survey cited by eMarketer.

Last week, we asked Marketing Brew readers if they’re eyeing up gaming as a media channel this year:

• 28% of brand-side marketers we surveyed said they are investing in gaming this year as part of their marketing spend, while 69% said they’re not.
• 41% of agency marketers said their clients are investing in gaming this year, and 48% said they’re not; 10% said they were not sure.

Hit Reply to tell us why you are (or aren’t) incorporating gaming into your brand or clients’ marketing strategy this year .

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

Reddit: If you read our piece on using Reddit for crypto advertising and thought, “Hey, I want to do that, but, like, not for crypto,” treat your eyeballs to this infographic that explains why you might want to advertise on the platform.

Insta: To hide Instagram likes or not to hide Instagram likes? For some marketers, that is the question. Here’s one answer.

The dream job: A guide to becoming a social media manager, here.

Get up close and personal: Whether in store or online, retail success requires personalized experiences. To figure out who’s getting it right, Sailthru surveyed 5K consumers and evaluated 500 brands for its 2022 Retail Personalization Index. Explore the research here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

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An ad for the car all the cool moms and dads had in 2002 (the built-in DVD player was high art).

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

• Why an ad-supported tier on Netflix was inevitable
• What’s the perfect length and placement for a podcast ad?
• Some of Yahoo’s traffic seems to come from piracy and adult sites, research finds