When you’re filling out your March Madness bracket this year, forget all the research, stats, analytics, and sports podcasts. Just pick teams based on vibes.

No, you’re not being scammed by the frenemy who won your March Madness pool last year. This is real advice from ESPN, which recently rolled out its March Madness campaign for the year called “Go With Your Gut.”

Created with longtime partner BSSP, an independent creative agency, the campaign wasn’t designed with a specific target audience in mind but instead aimed at encouraging “anyone who wants to join in the fun” to fill out their own bracket on the ESPN Tournament Challenge platform, BSSP Creative Director Robyn Tenenbaum told us.

“There is no such thing as the perfect bracket,” Tenenbaum said. “It’s really hard to do. So with that pressure off the table, we really want to urge people to just listen to those instincts, those little gut hunches that they might have.”

Final Four three: The campaign, which started running across broadcast, streaming, digital, audio, and social in late February, is centered around three 15-second spots:

• One features a man deciding to go with the UConn Huskies after feeling “husky” in an ill-fitting shirt.
• Another shows a woman landing on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish after fighting with an Irish man while building furniture.
• The third is about a woman spotting a blue jay while birding, which convinces her of the merits of the Creighton Bluejays.

The concept came both from research that showed some people really do fill out their brackets this way—and also from the personal experiences of the creative team. Seth Ader, ESPN’s VP of brand marketing, once picked Wisconsin to win a round of his bracket because his young daughter told him it rhymed with the name of her teacher, he told us.

Continue reading here.—AM

A spotlight turns on. The whole room is looking at you. Your new boss sits front and center, waiting to see what you do next. The assignment? Make them laugh.

This may sound like a nightmare, but at Peppercomm, a New York-based public relations firm, every one of its 32 employees is required to participate in a comedy class—even the HR team. (More like the HA team, amirite?) According to the company’s CEO, as well as some research, this unusual onboarding activity has benefits for company culture and employee performance.

Taking the stage: Steve Cody, Peppercomm’s founder and CEO, loves to perform; he’s spent 13 years doing stand-up around New York.

• When Cody founded his company in 1995, he knew humor had to be part of the company culture, which is why taking a comedy class at a comedy club is part of every employee’s onboarding experience.
• Employees get the full New York City club experience. “I call it my Mrs. Maisel moment,” Tara Lilien, chief talent officer at Peppercomm, said. For three hours, employees are taught comedy fundamentals by Cody and his “chief comedy officer,” Clayton Fletcher, a professional stand-up comic.

At the end of class, each person gives a solo performance, lasting between one and three minutes, with instructions to showcase something about themselves, whether it’s something that brings them joy—or in Cody’s case, breaks their hearts (the Mets).

“A lot of times, people will share a personal story or something you wouldn’t have known about them,” Lilien said. “It’s a really nice connector, and then when they come back to the office, they have those callbacks.” Read the full story on HR Brew.—KP

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

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That’s a new one: Get up to speed on TikTok’s new “Series” feature, which offers creators a new way to earn money through the app.

Legal: What the new Utah bill could mean for the future of social media regulations.

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Quote: “It’s the ‘Godot’ recession.”—Ray Farris, chief economist at Credit Suisse, to the Wall Street Journal

Another quote: “We buy billions of dollars of advertising every year, and most of it touches Google in some way.”—Jeff Green, CEO, founder, and chairman of The Trade Desk, in an opinion piece

Read: Eater’s guide to mall food, complete with profiles of Panda Express and the Rainforest Cafe and a ranking of “mall food smells.”

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