Couldn’t secure a Super Bowl ad? Why not rent a car instead?

Like seemingly every other surface in the world, cars have become a popular vehicle for ads. Rideshare advertising company Carvertise has been putting them there since 2012, when co-founder and operating partner Greg Star and his partner were still in college.

Tying up with sporting events wasn’t always part of the business plan, but in the past couple of years, brands have been increasingly taking advantage of Carvertise’s offering to send fleets of branded vehicles to big games, Star told Marketing Brew.

Driving branded cars around NFL game stadiums, including the upcoming Super Bowl in Las Vegas, has presented a particularly big opportunity for Carvertise, according to Star, perhaps because broadcast ad inventory around the biggest game of the year seems to be selling out more quickly every year.

“You can essentially sponsor an event without having to pay for the sponsorship by having cars swarm that event,” he said.

Sports center: In the early days of the pandemic, Star and his team began thinking about the merits of sending “swarms,” aka branded fleets of cars, to locations outside of major sports matchups and other in-demand locations among clients when the world opened back up. The company has since swarmed the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, the PGA Tour, and even Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.

And while NBA and MLB all-star games are attractive to some brands, the NFL “is king,” Star said. “That gets the most interest from clients.”

Continue reading here.—AM

You’re not alone. There’s been a ton of changes in the way we reach retail audiences, and marketers are feeling the burn. The trick to staying relevant? Making the shopping experience more relevant.

No, really. A recent study from The Harris Poll, commissioned by Rokt, found that 64% of US consumers expect companies to offer relevant products, services, or experiences curated just for them when shopping online.

Fortunately, Rokt put together an AI and the rise of relevancy report that’ll give you all the deets on how to leverage AI and first-party data to nurture long-lasting relationships with your customers and break through the paradox of choice.

Get relevant.

Nerds, the colorful candy brand amidst a major renaissance thanks to a product innovation that would’ve made Wonka proud, is set to run its first-ever Super Bowl commercial in February.

The last time you went on a group snack trip, chances are someone made a beeline for the innovation in question: Nerds Gummy Clusters, the bite-sized Nerds Ropes that make you see God.

The sugary treat has become so popular since its 2020 release that Nerds parent company Ferrara Candy has more ad money than it knows what to do with: It plans to run a 30-second spot during the second quarter of Super Bowl LVIII, which will reportedly cost up to $7 million.

In more good news for the dentistry business, Ferrara says…

• Nerds retail sales have skyrocketed from $50 million in 2019 to around $500 million now.
• Sales of Nerds Gummy Clusters grew 67% this year.
• Within the last two years, Nerds boosted its manufacturing capacity by 360% and tripled its marketing budget.

This candy sticks: Greg Guidotti, Ferrara’s CMO, says that in the year after people first try Nerds Gummy Clusters, 65% of them will buy it another two or three times, and 22% (me) will buy it on more than six occasions.—ML

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

Think twice: Zara is facing some calls to boycott the brand after its latest campaign, which featured images of mannequins with missing limbs and wrapped in plastic bags, faced criticism for its similarities to images coming out of Gaza. The brand has since pulled the campaign, and released a statement on Instagram calling the whole thing a “misunderstanding.”

No reservations: The brands are at it again. When rumors swirled that Travis Kelce was making plans for Taylor Swift’s birthday, KFC and Chili’s were among the restaurants jumping in to throw their names into the ring. Also, for some reason, politicians and government accounts used the news cycle to promote local venues like Portillo’s, Margaritaville, and Cups.

Car-pe diem: Chipotle responded to a TikTok about taking a few extra napkins from the store to keep in the car with what some online are calling a genius marketing ploy. Rather than discourage people from stocking up, the restaurant released a $30 napkin dispenser for car visors that’s now sold out. No word on if they’ll restock, but we know we’ll continue to (on car napkins, at least).

Cheese and no thank you: If you have $65 to spend on a gift and no ideas, might we recommend…anything but this? Doritos unveiled a new nacho cheese–flavored spirit, and, much like the rest of the internet, we can’t think too hard about it or risk gagging. We feel similarly about the Ssense fondue page.

Instapod: Instagram is now in the podcasting game with Close Friends Only, which is hosted by Doja Cat and Ice Spice. What’s next, books brought to you by Spotify? Oh, that’s right.—KH

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

Like and subscribe: How to boost followers on brand social media accounts in 2024.

Back to school: How to make use of different kinds of marketing studies.

Round and round: Inspo and ideas for LinkedIn carousel posts.

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Stories we’re jealous of.

• GQ conducted a much-needed investigation into those $20+ Erewhon smoothies, including who’s paying to drink them and why brands are paying to include their ingredients.
• Vox wrote about misconceptions surrounding content on TikTok and the Israel-Hamas war.
• The Atlantic looked into what happens when online purchases, impulse or otherwise, are returned to retailers.