When most people think of sports drinks, they think of Gatorade, Powerade, or other colorful beverages that commonly appear in the hands of athletes in ad campaigns. The milk industry wants to change that.

The Milk Processor Education Program, the milk industry’s advertising arm behind the iconic “Got Milk?” campaign and ads like the Aubrey Plaza-led “Wood Milk,” has spent the last few years looking for ways to make the dairy beverage synonymous with sports performance. Three decades after “Got Milk?” was first introduced, the group, known as MilkPEP, rolled out a new campaign, “Gonna Need Milk,” in 2021, and this year is leaning further into running partnerships and deals with women athletes to get the word out.

“Milk and sports have gone together since forever,” Yin Woon Rani, CEO of MilkPEP and a former marketing exec at Campbell Soup Company, UM, and Grey Group, told Marketing Brew. “We always describe ourselves as the OG sports drink.”

Read the full story here.—AM

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It seems there’s no escaping political ads, perhaps more so now than ever.

The 2023–2024 election cycle is forecast to bring in $10.2 billion in political ad spend, marking a 13% jump from the 2019–2020 election cycle’s spend of $9 billion, according to ad tracking company AdImpact. If that projection is correct, it would be the most expensive election cycle ever recorded, per the analysis, which looked at TV, radio, digital, and CTV spend.

AdImpact pointed to a few reasons for the expected record growth, including a “highly contested presidential election” and “razor-thin margins in Congress.” It also noted that abortion-related ballot initiatives in states like Ohio appear to be “a major driver of political spending this cycle.”

Breaking it down: AdImpact estimates that $2.7 billion will go toward the presidential election, $2.1 billion to Senate races, $1.7 billion to House races, $361 million to gubernatorial races, and $3.3 billion to other downballot elections.

• In terms of channels, AdImpact projects $5.1 billion will go toward broadcast, $1.9 billion to cable, $1.3 billion on CTV, $1.2 billion on digital, $361 million on radio, $210 million on network cable, and $100 million on satellite.
• AdImpact also looked at political ad spend by state, finding that California will likely see the highest spend at $1.19 billion. The figure can be attributed to the “highest number of competitive House races,” a Democratic Senate primary that currently has three “well-funded” candidates, and the fact that it’s a state that traditionally has seen high spend on ballot propositions, per AdImpact. Battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan are also predicted to see high levels of spend.

Stream on: CTV is projected to make up around 13% of spend and “will continue to grow in future cycles,” per the forecast. As Marketing Brew wrote last year, media buyers reported seeing CTV spend “nearly quintuple” ahead of last year’s midterms compared to the 2020 election.—JS

Back in radio’s heyday, DJs largely determined what songs became most popular. Now, it seems, we have TikTok for that.

Capitalizing on its role in shaping music trends, TikTok recently announced that it teamed up with Billboard to create a Top 50 Chart, which tracks “the most popular songs on the platform in the US” based on creations, engagement, and views.

TikTok says it’s the first attempt to chart the popularity of songs on the platform across the US, giving users, artists, and brands a clearer picture of what music is trending.

First of their kind: Rapper Sexyy Red earned the first No. 1 spot on the new chart with her song “SkeeYee,” which the New York Jets might have helped popularize.

In the HBO docuseries Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the New York Jets, players and coaches sang and danced to the song during practice. Last Monday, when Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs scored a touchdown against the Jets, he celebrated by yelling “SkeeYee!”

Sexyy Red appeared three more times in the inaugural chart. Following her at No. 2 was Doja Cat with “Paint the Town Red,” while Taylor Swift came in third with “August.” Swift had six songs appear on the Top 50, the most of any artist. The chart will be updated every Thursday, according to TikTok.

Big picture: Since the dawn of TikTok, brands have been eager to connect with users by getting in on its fast-moving trends. The chart presents brands with “a new way to engage with music fans at scale,” Billboard President Mike Van said in a statement.—AM

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You can be anything: Instagram shared quick tips on turning a Reel into an ad.

The snow’s coming down: Meta is offering new ad tools ahead of the first “AI-powered holiday season.”

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Executive moves across the industry.

• Lisa Materazzo, a Toyota alum, is Ford’s new CMO.
• Rachel Hepworth has been promoted to CMO of productivity app Notion.
• Nina Bibby has been named group CMO of Barclays, where she worked between 2010 and 2013 as global CMO for Barclaycard.