Entertainment and commerce: They’re a match made in heaven.

Don’t believe us? Maybe you’ll listen to former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who once said that “when we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes.”

• Or Disney, which is reportedly considering building out shopping features to live inside Disney+.
• Or Walmart, which has struck various deals with Netflix, Paramount+, Roku, and NBCUniversal this year in an attempt to win over shoppers with membership perks, exclusive products, and new ways to purchase goods.

Zoom out: Partnerships between streamers and retailers have taken many forms, as the former looks for ways to boost scale and the latter looks to attract customers to stores and websites. The reasoning is simple. Entertainment companies and retailers alike are battling for customer loyalty month after month—so why not use one to boost the other?

“Content can be a driver, which is much stronger and much better than standard advertising as we know it,” explained Anthony Goonetilleke, the group president of technology and head of strategy at the software firm Amdocs, which works with media and communications companies.

Read the full story here.—KS

This just in: Podcast hosts can be controversial. Maybe you’ve heard of Joe Rogan?

More breaking news: Brands like to pay podcasters to endorse their products, and they’re often willing to give up some control over ad copy in the hope that an authentic anecdote will spur a sale. But, in an even more shocking update, advertisers also care about this thing called “brand safety.”

• There are already plenty of tools at their disposal to help them avoid running ads on podcasts or episodes they’re uncomfortable with. But hosts sometimes make news outside of their podcasts that can make marketers squirm.

That’s why Barometer, an AI-powered platform that rates podcasts based on “brand suitability,” teamed up with audio ad agency Oxford Road to create a tool called Host Intelligence, which analyzes news and online content surrounding podcast hosts with the goal of helping advertisers better assess sponsorships.

Hi, I’m the problem

Brands and agencies typically “manually” conduct audits of the podcast hosts they’re considering sponsoring or already work with, which can mean “hours and hours” of googling and reading articles, according to Jennifer Laine, Oxford Road’s head of marketing and special projects.

• As an agency, “it’s virtually impossible” to conduct these audits across the many podcasts its clients advertise on, Laine said. Still, “so much of the host controversy actually happens outside the episode.”
  
• “Even recently, we had a major host that a lot of our clients were sponsoring who was convicted of tax fraud, and of course, [they] were not talking about it in their episode,” Laine said. An AI tool only analyzing episode transcripts wouldn’t turn up that news, “but for the brands who were sponsoring that [show], it was really important and relevant information.”

Keep reading here.—AM

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

David Blane is analytics director at WorkReduce.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? I recently worked on some research and insights for a new client pitch. This client is a national QSR restaurant with locations across the US. Being able to take these audiences and build insights that show growth opportunities for the company was so impactful.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? The Allstate “Mayhem” series. Funny, memorable, and demonstrates product value.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? That I played a werewolf in a short film.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? These two are connected to me. The answers to both are data property rights. As users of the digital world, we have huge gray areas when it comes to protecting our data. In a legal sense, we don’t have a foundation for when customer data becomes company data. One trend is the increase in data accumulation by companies, and on the other hand, there is the divergent increasing trend of compliance regulation by governments. I’ve written and discussed this at length in my article, “Adverteering,” where I suggest the best method for solving these two divergent trends is by allowing consumers to manage their own data and pay them for it.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? Ryan Holiday’s books on growth hacking and media manipulation are great for any marketer. For marketers who find themselves overly reliant on data, Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland will give you an excuse to bring magic back to metrics.

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

Value add: Here are five examples of brands with a strong value proposition, plus tips on crafting one yourself.

Reel ’em in: This guide has 15 tips on increasing engagement on Instagram.

Long form: Here’s what 4,000-character posts on Twitter might look like in-stream.

Subscribe: Money with Katie is obsessed with personal finance. Her weekly newsletter takes a spicy approach to budgeting, investing, taxes, and more. Get simple and practical ways to live the rich life you deserve delivered to your inbox for free.

BeReal is a new social app that’s gaining popularity. Founded in 2019, it has picked up steam in 2022. Download our exclusive report to find out which brands are experimenting with the platform and get our analysts’ take.

Download your report.

Window displays are an enduring joy of the holiday season—just think of A Christmas Story, where Ralphie peers into the windows of Higbee’s to spy the BB gun he so desperately wants—but they’re also something of a dying art. How many department stores in New York City continue to install them?

• Five
• Four
• Three
• Two

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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

• The Washington Post is promoting its climate journalism with a campaign targeting holiday travelers
• Doordash, Macy’s and Toyota are among the brands advertising on Disney+
• Many people are struggling with inflation. Should brands address it in ads?