This story is the fourth in a series on women leaders working to increase brand investment in women’s sports. Read the rest of the profiles here and keep reading Marketing Brew for more profiles to come.

Morgan Dewan knows what it’s like to be an outsider in parts of the sports world.

She started her first official sports job as a director of social media in 2013, a time when broadcast ruled the industry and many execs weren’t convinced that social would be more than a fad, she said. There’s also the fact that Dewan is a woman, and though more are working their way into executive roles in sports, there’s still evidence that they’re significantly outnumbered in sports business leadership: As of last year, only about 27% of international federation execs were women, according to a report from the Sport Integrity Global Alliance.

Dewan works in boxing, a sport that’s particularly populated by men, from the ring to the major governing bodies and promotion companies like Top Rank, where Dewan is the chief brand officer. Boxing is “a very cottage industry, a fairly family-driven industry,” she said, and she didn’t grow up around the sport.

But with her sports content production background, newcomer’s perspective, and a mentality of saying yes to new opportunities, Dewan is working to rebrand a sport that’s perhaps not as popular as it once was, as well as make her mark in a male-dominated sport and industry.

Continue reading here.—AM

When you’re building a business or charting your own path in your career, it can be difficult to discern when roadblocks are challenges to push you further…or redirections that are begging you to go down a different path.

In this episode of BOSSY, Tara and Katie break down the most masterful business comebacks, accelerating out of stagnant career slumps, and when it’s time to rebrand “quitting” to “pivoting.”

Data, tech, and sports make for great teammates. Teams use databases for recruiting and on-field management. At some stadiums, fans can pay for their hot dogs and beers with their palms. And don’t get us started on the die-hard fantasy football managers.

In sports marketing, though, it’s a bit of a different story. It’s not that sports marketers don’t have access to an abundance of fan data—it’s just that they perhaps haven’t been incentivized to take full advantage of it, given that sports is seen largely as a vehicle for brands to achieve wide reach, SVP of Disney Advertising Sales Wendell Scott said.

“I don’t think we’re behind on the data; I think we’re behind on utilizing the data to create insights,” Scott told Marketing Brew at CES.

As one of the biggest media companies in the country, Disney has built up many data and ad tech tools for advertisers to use, including audience graphs, clean rooms, and programmatic buying for live sports. As marketers look for more metrics to evaluate campaign effectiveness, Scott said his team is working to encourage them to lean in, including at CES, during the company’s annual Global Tech and Data Showcase.

Continue reading here.—AM

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.

Just joshin’ around: What started as a joke about affordable wine has led to a full-on Josh takeover on X. Memes and puns about Josh Cellars’s wine are everywhere, ranging from “Josh pit” to “Don’t Josh and drive.” People are putting Josh in song lyrics, squash, motivational posts, and X-rays. They’re referencing old Nickelodeon shows. The joke has even spread to other informally named wines, like Justin, Jim, Dave, and Kelly.

Some have joked that Josh Cellars’s marketing department is probably loving this. Based on the brand’s response on Instagram, that seems right.

Mak it stop? If your Josh-filled timeline on X is interspersed with ads from makeup brand Il Makiage, you’re not alone. The brand appears to be putting a lot of paid media behind the platform, even as other advertisers have been fleeing it. Some of the most prolific ads include GRWM-style videos with celebrities like Melora Hardin and Audrina Patridge, as well as other promotional videos for its foundation color-match quiz. While some people seem tempted by the sponcon, others seem less impressed by the offers.

Secret singing: People online are wondering why, exactly, the new Mean Girls movie wasn’t explicitly marketed as a musical amid reports that 16% of moviegoers left theaters “disappointed,” and videos of people being surprised by the musical numbers have gone viral.

In an interview with Variety, Marc Weinstock, Paramount’s president of global marketing and distribution, said it was a deliberate choice to keep the musical status on the DL because disclosing it prominently could “have the potential to turn off audiences.” In other words, better to let viewers down than not buy a ticket at all.

In other Mean Girls remake news, some online have noted the prominence of product placements in the film, specifically e.l.f. makeup products.

Chicken or fish? Chicken of the Sea has made its most iconic unintentional spokesperson an intentional spokesperson—and it’s doing numbers. Jessica Simpson, who, 20-odd years ago, famously asked if the brand’s canned tuna was chicken or fish, is now cashing a check on a mix-up that haunted her for years. Much like the TikTok comment section, we respect it.—KH

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

Missing link: A breakdown of 10 different link-in-bio tools.

Autotune: TikTok is testing an AI-powered song generator.

Stacking up: Social benchmarks to keep on hand.

Crack the code: Where does your audience actually invest its time? Vistar Media’s 2024 Advertiser’s Playbook is the key to mastering digital out-of-home (DOOH) and the latest trends across the outdoor marketing landscape. Check it out.*

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Stories we’re jealous of.

• The Atlantic covered “restocking” videos on social media, and why brands and influencers are embracing the clear-plastic-bin lifestyle.
• The New York Times wrote about the power of the group chat and how it fits into a post-social-media world.
• Vox wrote about #CleanTok and the “hygiene Olympics” taking place among certain creators.