Ever since the NCAA gave college athletes the chance to profit off of their names, images, and likenesses with its NIL policy, brands have been lining up to court them. Almost two years later, though, some companies are finding that student athletes can be a bit hard to pin down.

Many student athletes don’t have agents or PR reps for brands to reach out to. Some aren’t used to checking their emails regularly (they’re Gen Z, after all—you have to slide in their DMs). And between academics and athletics, they are essentially juggling two full-time jobs already.

“We’ve had to relook at our marketing timelines and adjust to new factors such as the players’ academic schedule, practice, and game days,” Sara Tervo, CMO of fashion brand Express, which last year entered into NIL deals with Ohio State Buckeyes football players C.J. Stroud and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, told Marketing Brew in an email.

As a result, brands that want to play ball with college athletes might have to ditch their traditional influencer marketing strategies and write a different playbook.

“Whatever strategy you have for influencer…take it and throw it out the window, because it does not work in this space,” Danny Morrissey, co-founder of college sports marketing agency Postgame, told Marketing Brew.

Read the full story here.—AM

SXSW comes to a close this weekend. Last week, we asked if you were going this year, and the majority of you said you weren’t. If you’re part of the cohort that did go, drop us a line and let us know how it went (and how many margaritas you drank).

Some highlights:

• Event organizers did not share how many attendees they anticipated this year, according to Digiday, but said SXSW would be “significantly larger than last year.”
• Streamers seemed to go all in: Paramount+, Roku, and Amazon Prime all hosted experiences for attendees.
• GSD&M partnered with Omniwomen on a campaign called “Bloody Mary Misogyny” via an activation including a bar, drawing attention to the fact that Texas is one of 22 states that taxes menstrual products.

Looking ahead: Of course, marketers are always eyeing the next big thing. And the next big industry event is Cannes Lions, happening June 19–June 23. While the annual event attracts big names, there’s been some debate in recent years around its relevance.

And that brings us to this week’s poll: Do you care about what happens at Cannes Lions?

Definitely
Sorta?
Not at all

Good internal communication can leave your employees feeling cozy under a fleece blanket, sipping hot chocolate next to a fire. Bad internal communication can feel like, well, anything going on at Twitter right about now.

Stephanie Oribhabor, director of employee experience at Great Place To Work, spends a lot of her day making sure her colleagues have the information and resources they need to succeed. She’s always strategizing when it comes to internal communications, making sure employees are able to access information and that it’s helpful when they do.

Kayla Glanville is co-founder, CEO, and in charge of all things internal comms at Upaway, a travel support and organization company. She has years of experience in internal communications at companies like Twitter (pre-Musk), and considers herself a “comms-focused founder.”

These two pros say a solid internal comms strategy is indispensable, and, yes, they told us why. Click here to read more on HR Brew.—AD

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

Here’s to us: LinkedIn offered up a few tips on how to encourage employees to “advocate for your brand on social media.”

Teamwork: Here are some ideas on how to put together a “marketing dream team” within a company.

Food for thought: Predictions on the future of streaming from eight industry execs.

Branding takes the wheel: Is your brand’s messaging breaking through? Uber achieved stronger levels of cohesive communication with a brand hub built with Frontify, unlocking consistency, accessibility, and scalability for their brand. See how it happened.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

We’ve assembled some seriously big marketing brains to reveal their best practices, challenges, and experiences at The Brief, a Marketing Brew Summit.

Get ready to sit down with Brad Hiranaga, chief brand officer at Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear brand (and B-corp) with the drive to do good.

Learn about Cotopaxi and Brad’s perspective in ‘Profit vs. Impact: Balancing B-Corp and Business’ on May 11 in NYC. You don’t want to miss this one.

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

1. Coors Light is releasing a nonalcoholic beer-flavored popsicle
2. Twisted Tea drops vasectomy underwear for March Madness
3. Lucky Charms and Pinnacle partner on limited-edition vodka in time for St. Patrick’s Day
4. Foria encourages women to find the art in their ‘O-face’ in pleasure-centric campaign

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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

• Why Roku brought its cityscape to life at SXSW
• Privacy streaming sites could be costing advertisers millions, report finds
• Ad fraud has come to audio, according to report