Fall football kicks off in just a few weeks, and the sponsors of the season’s biggest matchup will look a little different than they did in years past.

• First, there will be more beer brands advertising in the 2023 Super Bowl following AB InBev’s recent decision not to renew a decades-long deal for category exclusivity in the game.
• There will be different food brands: Pizza Hut is no longer the official pizza sponsor of the league, passing that slice of marketing to Little Caesars.
• On the soft-drink front, Pepsi is dialing back its involvement in the broadcast and will no longer sponsor the Super Bowl’s annual halftime show after a decade.

Moving on: The sponsorship shifts represent a changing of the guard for the annual broadcast, a tentpole of advertising sales and one of the few remaining places where brands can find big audiences on television. But as ad rates continue to climb and Super Bowl viewership declines, some brands are opting for more flexible ways to appear in the game.

“If you want reach, the NFL is your vehicle for reach—and so whether you’re in alcohol, sales, soft drinks, or cars, whatever, there’s always going to be a need for reach,” explained Martin Conway, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Sports Industry Management program.  “But I think there are now questions around, ‘How much should we pay for that reach? And is some of our money better allocated?’”

Flexibility first

The reallocation of Super Bowl sponsorship dollars comes as marketers grapple with several points of uncertainty, including the threat of a recession, continued supply-chain issues, and inflation.

Up, up, and away: CMOs are eager for the ability to shift marketing plans in the event of the unexpected. Among the first to go, often, is upper-funnel brand-building: One in five marketers said they have cut their spending in response to rising inflation, with upper-funnel campaigns, including linear TV, seeing the biggest cuts, according to data from eMarketer.

Keep reading here.—KS

No amount of fake blood, crawling spiders, and knife-wielding maniacs is more frightening than seeing Halloween candy at Walgreens in July.

And yet, Wieden+Kennedy went all in on #spookyszn this summer to promote the new Ford F-150 Raptor R, a supposed beast of a machine with 700 horsepower made for “extreme off-roading,” according to the press release.

Like Frankenstein, Marketing Brew resurrected our Mood Board series to speak with Eric Hellen and Stuart Jennings, creative directors at W+K who’ve worked on Ford’s creative since the agency got the account in 2018.

The brief: “Humans love to scare themselves on purpose, right? Whether it’s roller-coasters or horror movies, there’s something incredible about that. This vehicle is kind of a $110,000 version of that idea,” Jennings told Marketing Brew. It helped that Ford was also looking for something a little different than what they were used to.

Get it? The truck is scary fast. Ultimately, though, the spot doesn’t entirely avoid the cliches of your average truck-and-nature commercial.

But at least it does so in a way that would make Alice Cooper blush.

Inspiration: Mixing in the desert dirt of Mad Max and the chrome killer from Christine, the team relied on the well-worn aesthetic of horror films from the late ’70s and early ’80s, a time when “Americans were a little more obsessed with vehicles,” Jennings said. That was combined with a contemporary, oversaturated look inspired by films like Mandy.

Read more about how the campaign came together here.—RB

Future Social is a weekly newsletter on social media, content, and creators from Jack Appleby, a Morning Brew creator who’s worked in social media for 10 years at companies like Beats by Dre, Microsoft, and Twitch. Check out an excerpt from one of his pieces below, and sign up for Future Social here.

So we’ve all seen brands get snarky on Twitter, from the friendly Wendy’s roast to hot brand-on-brand action. Here’s a new one: companies are getting snarky with their own customers when there’s bad behavior in the replies.

Human rights in the replies: While some brands spoke up when Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, video game developer Bungie dropped a public statement all the way back in May when the Supreme Court’s draft opinion leaked, stating clearly their belief that everyone has a right to choose their own path. That tweet’s 79,000 likes make it Bungie’s most-engaged of all-time, but the real story is how the company handled the replies.

When toxic followers began tweeting versions of “you’re a video game company, why are you talking politics,” Bungie fired back with a mixture of serious and comedic replies:

• “We’ve chosen our side and it wasn’t difficult. Our company values exist beyond our games.”
• “Video games are art. Art is inherently political. We’ll never stop standing up for essential human rights.”
• “You are a toaster” (their Twitter avatar was literally a toaster)

Clearly, the wider community appreciated Bungie’s doubling down on their stance through one-to-one engagement—those clapbacks are some of their most-liked replies ever.

Read about whether your brand should clap back at customers here.—JA

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

Round we go: Instagram isn’t the only platform with carousel posts—looks like LinkedIn joined the party.

Pre$$ play: A new report estimates that YouTube contributed $25 billion to the American economy last year.

Part of the group: Seven marketing tips to boost your Facebook group.

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If you plan on job hunting this weekend, head over to the Marketing Brew Job Board for the newest opportunities in marketing!

Today’s featured openings:

• Director of Digital/Media Ad Operations at Medium Giant
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• New data from Standard Media Index shows ad spend has declined for the first time in 15 months.
• The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) will move to a House vote with bipartisan support.
• Meta is introducing a separate “Home” feed that will highlight content from creators, similar to TikTok.
• YouTube said it will no longer allow content that spreads “misinformation related to abortion.”
• The Atlantic’s tech and business teams plan to unionize.

Snap poll: In your current role, where are you working from?

• In the office full-time
• Hybrid
• Fully remote

Which headlines are real marketing news, and which one is fake?

1. The cast of ‘Hey Arnold’ reunites for Arnold Palmer Spiked ad
2. HBO expands partnership with Duolingo for GOT spinoff
3. Skittles lawsuit claims ‘toxin’ makes them ‘unfit for human consumption’
4. Philadelphia launched a restaurant where you order feelings, not food

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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

• ‘A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist’: Some marketers aren’t bullish on influencer hacking insurance
• Hunting for uncluttered ad space? Some brands are looking up
• Snapchat debuts desktop version without ads