If you’re applying for jobs in marketing, it’s kind of a flex to mention the Super Bowl on your resume. It’s an even bigger flex if you can do it while you’re still in college.

Some students at schools around the country, including Ithaca College, Baldwin Wallace University, Nichols College, and Gannon University, have earned those bragging rights. Each year, cohorts of students from those colleges travel to work at the Super Bowl and other major sporting events like the College Football Playoff National Championship, Final Four games, and the MLB All-Star Game.

Their gigs, which primarily focus on the hospitality aspects of the sports industry, like security, setup and teardown, VIP services, and assisting other fans with directions, may help applicants stand out in the job market, students, alumni, professors, and marketers told Marketing Brew.

“The reason [students go to college] is so that they can make themselves more marketable,” said Christopher Streeter, an assistant professor of sport management at Nichols College who took 16 students to this year’s game. “This Super Bowl trip was incredibly valuable in terms of marketability for the students.”

Read the full story here.—AM

Last week, Pepsi unveiled a new logo—its first rebrand since 2008—in time for the company’s 125th anniversary.

While Pepsi’s new look, as well as Burberry’s—revealed in February—seemed to be met with many positive reviews, other logo changes this year, like Nokia’s and New York City’s “We NYC,” appear to have received a bit more backlash. Time will tell how Fanta fares.

While taste is subjective, there seem to be some consistencies in what brands should (or shouldn’t) consider before debuting a fresh look, especially since a logo change that doesn’t go so well can hit the bottom line.

Stick to your roots: Pepsi’s new logo seems to be resonating partly due to its elements of nostalgia, with colors, fonts, and placement similar to those of its logos in the ’50s–’90s.

• “This [logo] has a lot more energy, and it goes back to the heydays of Pepsi,” according to Jason Harris, co-founder and CEO of creative agency Mekanism, which has worked on rebranding efforts for brands like Jose Cuervo and LendingTree. “I think they did a great job with it.”
• In Burberry’s case, many critics noted that the brand’s 2018 redesign to a sans-serif logo was a form of “blanding” that made it somewhat indistinguishable from other brands. With the most recent rebrand, Emma Barratt, global executive creative director at branding consultancy Wolff Olins, wrote in The Drum that Burberry is going “back toward what made the brand unique in the first place.”

Continue reading here.—KH

Our new series “Goin’ for a scroll” will recap the week’s social trends.

You know what they say: If you can’t beat ’em…hire ’em—and recreate what made them famous.

That appears to be part of Reformation’s social strategy, as uncovered this week by social media consultant and newsletter writer Rachel Karten, who noticed that a Reformation video on her Instagram feed seemed…oddly familiar.

The biggest difference between the viral video and the one on Reformation’s page, she noticed, was that in the latter, the creator was wearing (you guessed it) Reformation clothing. More recently, the brand seems to have recreated a popular TikTok from February with creator Luisa Lange, swapping the Ying Yang Twins song but not the outfits.

The brand’s recreation strategy has been drawing eyes on social media, with one reporter calling it “uncanny valley,” while Karten dubbed it “both sneaky and smart.”

Meanwhile, on Twitter and Instagram, the Barbie movie poster is being remade over and over, while the tagline “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” is having a meme moment of its own. Oppenheimer could never.

Tell us what you think about this week’s trends. Is Reformation’s copy-and-paste strategy genius or unsettling? Is Barbie’s marketing strategy “everything,” or “just Ken” so far?—KH

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

Press play: How to maximize engagement on video content on LinkedIn.

Time it right: The best time to post on Instagram, based on an analysis of 11 million posts.

Just for fun: Here’s what the brands on Succession might look like if they were real.

Email (r)evolution: There’s sooo much more you could be doing with your marketing emails, especially when you employ Mailchimp’s capabilities for Segmentation, Automations, Reporting and Analytics, and more. See ’em all in action.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Calling all marketing groundbreakers, both experienced and brand new! The Brief: A Marketing Brew Summit is coming soon, and boy, do we have some amazing speakers to introduce you to.

Prepare yourself to hear from an expert in today’s social marketing space: Manu Orssaud, head of Global Marketing at Duolingo. Manu will be discussing “A Social-First Marketing Mindset” (fingers crossed for a Duo cameo).

Get your tickets to this can’t-miss event before time runs out.

• Disney named Asad Ayaz its first chief brand officer.
• Meta’s layoffs in its customer service department have left businesses and influencers with “nobody to call,” per CNBC.
• Olaplex is now in “crisis management mode” due to complaints from customers about the hair-care brand and declining sales, per the Wall Street Journal.
• Roku now has Disney+’s ad-supported tier available.

Snap poll: Are you investing in print advertising this year?

Yes
No
Unsure

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

1. You can camp inside a giant Bush’s bean can this summer
2. Peeps announces plans to make all products vegan and vegetarian by next spring
3. Budweiser treats music fans to vinyl records in the form of beer coasters
4. Absolut returns to the metaverse for Coachella with focus on friendship

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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

• More than a year out, NBCU’s 2024 Olympics ad sales are “pacing well ahead” of last Summer Games
• The FTC makes a rare appearance at advertising conference
• Why Duolingo is leaning into K-pop