Miley Cyrus turns up the volume on a Beats Pill and applies eos lip balm in “We Can’t Stop”;  Ariana Grande whips out a Samsung Galaxy Note in the first 5 seconds of “Focus”; Lil Nas X, dressed as a vampire, reaches for an Estée Lauder anti-aging serum in “Rodeo.”

Subtle or not, product placements in music videos are nothing new. But as TikTok continues to be a launching pad for new artists, placement opportunities are arising for both musicians and brands on the platform.

Active viewing

While the agency BEN is perhaps most well known for its product-placement work in movies and shows, Jake Terrell, VP of music and brand partnerships, told us its music vertical has really scaled in the last five years.

• Recent examples of BEN music-video integrations include Skyy Vodka in Doja Cat’s “Woman,” and Vush in Cardi B’s “Up.”
• Terrell said he often steers clients toward music videos when they have a quick timeline (as movies and TV shows take longer to produce) or want to reach younger audiences.
• “When any brand that we’re speaking with, prospective or current client, has a Gen Z or millennial strategy (and most do)…music is a no-brainer,” he said.

Terrell said music-video placements can be great brand opportunities given that 85% of YouTube music video views are watched instead of played in the background on TV and mobile, according to Google.

But even with high engagement rates, Cassie Petrey, co-CEO and co-founder of music marketing and management firm Crowd Surf, which, among other things, works with artists like Camila Cabello and the Backstreet Boys to help them get brand partnerships, told us that brand demand is moving away from music videos.

The reason? According to Petrey, “People are leaning more into the new MTV, which is TikTok.”

Keep reading here.—KH

Unfortunately, greenwashing is nothing new. But it’s been under the microscope more and more these days. Case in point: One marketing industry org is bringing together different stakeholders to discuss the topic and push for change this month.

The Institute for Advertising Ethics—a nonprofit educational foundation that recently partnered with Havas to provide staff and clients access to an ad ethics certification course—is hosting not one but two events on greenwashing.

• On October 19, the first event will consist of an online symposium in which “a diverse panel of distinguished experts from government, academia, media, and the advertising industry” will chat about avoiding greenwashing, as well as the risks of it.
• The institute claims it’s a first for the industry.
• Its organizers plan to host another event in December based on the symposium’s findings, according to MediaPost.

Big picture: The news is the latest sign that advertisers are increasingly being held to account for their role in the climate crisis. It comes weeks after Interpublic Group and its agencies (in what it also called “a first for the industry”) said they would review the “climate impacts of prospective clients…in the oil, energy, and utility sectors” before taking them on.

It also comes after the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing last month on how PR firms have contributed to climate misinformation. One of the witnesses from the hearing, Generous Films founder and CEO Christine Arena, is set to speak at the Institute for Advertising Ethics’ event in October.

+1: On Thursday, John Osborn, former CEO of OMD US, was appointed to lead the US division of Ad Zero Network, an organization focused on reducing “the carbon impact of developing, producing, and running advertising to real net zero by 2030.”—PB

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

Shop ’til you drop: If you want to change up your Black Friday approach this year, check out these unconventional strategies for inspo.

Stop, thief!: Meta found 400 apps that were designed to steal users’ Facebook and Instagram login info. Click here for the deets.

Sosh meeds: This one-sheet is all about how to succeed as a social media marketer. If it was 2005 and we still owned a home printer, we might have printed it out and hung it up over our desks.

Go beyond social: Rising ad costs got you shook? See how DTC advertisers are exploring new ways to connect with customers in our latest article, sponsored by Black Crow AI.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Have you heard? Marketing Brew is hosting a must-attend event for the modern marketer in the heart of NYC. It’s called The Brief, and it’s all going down on November 15. Attendees can look forward to a powerhouse panel of speakers from brands such as HBO, Vans, DuoLingo, and more!

The best part? We’re giving away 2 tickets to one lucky subscriber so you can see what all the hype is about. Don’t stress—it takes just 30 seconds to enter. It’s simple: Give us a quick update on what you’ve been up to in the marketing world, and you’ll be entered to win.

Here’s what the lesser other Brews have been up to over the past few weeks.

• Incrypto, our crypto newsletter, is a thing now.
• HR Brew wrote about the benefits of “second-chance hiring,” aka hiring people with criminal records.
• Retail Brew is holding a summit soon.
• Emerging Tech Brew dove into how John Deere tractors, of all things, could be a cybersecurity risk.
• CFO Brew analyzed the CFO-to-founder pipeline.

It counts, okay?

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

• DTC advertisers, once reliant on Facebook and Instagram, are looking at different—and less expensive—marketing platforms
• Political ad spending on connected TV is 5x what it was in 2020
• Meta’s big week out