Are you having a “powerful social media pop” afternoon? Perhaps a “writer nature” morning, or maybe a “’90s rave rainforest” late night?

Those categories are all courtesy of Spotify’s Daylist feature, customized playlists that are populated with automatically generated recommendations based on the type of music a user typically listens to during a given day or time. The feature, which rolled out last year, has quickly become not just a meme, but a marketing tool for the streaming giant.

“The playlist itself is really awesome and fun, but then it was also designed to really celebrate your own unique musical identity, and it was designed in a way that’s really easy to share and express yourself,” Emily Galloway, head of product design for Spotify’s personalization team, told Marketing Brew.

Take a chill pill: Spotify builds users’ Daylists by analyzing users’ listening habits, Galloway said, and behind the scenes, Spotify’s data scientists and music editors help select the words and phrases used to describe users’ listening moods. Users’ Daylists update three times a day: morning, afternoon, and evening.

• Some popular terms referenced in Daylists include “chill” and “nostalgia” in the morning, and “main character” and “laid back” in the afternoon, according to data Spotify shared with Marketing Brew.

The feature, which was developed during an annual employee hack week at Spotify, is one of many ways the company is focused on emphasizing personalization, Galloway said; in internal surveys, she said, 81% of Spotify users cited personalization as the thing they like the most about Spotify.

It may be no surprise, then, that Spotify’s personalization features get a lot of attention in the brand’s marketing efforts.

Continue reading here.—JS

Docs have been the same thing for far too long. Canva Docs aren’t like the other docs. Here’s why.

For starters (and it’s a biggie), Canva Docs has a built-in AI text generator powered by OpenAI. Simply start with a prompt and watch copy appear in seconds. It can generate project plans, agendas, product descriptions—you name it. Generate your draft, tweak, and…done.

Canva Docs are visual. Grab readers’ attention with images, graphics, charts, tables, and videos playable right in the doc. Docs don’t have to be just words on a white page.

Canva Docs play nice with other Canva programs, too. Transform a Canva Whiteboard brainstorm into a Canva Doc in a click. Need to present a doc? Easy. Turn it into a Canva Presentation in seconds.

Try Canva Docs with the built-in AI text generator—and do more with docs.

Golf and tennis might have reputations for being more subdued than sports like soccer and basketball, but brand interest is anything but.

The LPGA and the WTA are the first two women’s leagues to ink more than 1,000 sponsorship deals, according to a report from SponsorUnited analyzing 9,500 women’s sports sponsorships from Jan. 1, 2022, to Feb. 1, 2024.

Athletes from those leagues are performing well individually, too, making a showing among the pro athletes with the most endorsement deals globally and in North America. On social media, branded posts from athletes in those leagues have some of the highest engagement rates compared to those in other sports.

The leagues: Women’s pro sports leagues saw around a 22% increase in the number of sponsorships in the past year, with more than 5,500 deals activated across the board, according to SponsorUnited.

• The LPGA led the way with 1,100 deals, a 25% YoY increase. In September, the LPGA’s chief sales and partnerships officer told Marketing Brew that much of the brand interest at the time was inbound.
• The WTA followed with 1,080 sponsorships, a 34% YoY increase.
• The WNBA saw sponsorships increase by 7%, clocking more than 500 deals for the first time.

Continue reading here.—AM

So committed is Trader Joe’s to its claim of having low prices that it eschews popular discount practices that are nearly universal among supermarkets. Trader Joe’s items never go on sale, and, despite its particularly loyal shoppers, it has no loyalty program; its website explains that the reason for both is that it “believes every customer should have access to the best prices on the best products every day.”

That’s also why the brand explains on its website that it does “all [it] can to stop the practice” of reselling its products, which it says often are resold at “exorbitant” prices.

But surely never as exorbitant as what’s happening now.

The love tote: A mini version of Trader Joe’s logoed canvas tote bag, which it began selling in February for $2.99, has exploded on social media.

Sellers on eBay, meanwhile, are asking as much as $1,000 for a set of four of the totes and $700 for just one, the latter an increase of 23,233% over what Trader Joe’s charges.

It’s the sort of untethered consumer enthusiasm that brands usually can only fantasize about, but for Trader Joe’s, the episode has been, in every sense, a mixed bag.

Big little prize: Nakia Rohde, Trader Joe’s public relations manager, told USA Today that the tote frenzy arose “before we had the opportunity to promote them in any way,” and reiterated that her company does not “endorse the resale of any of our products, anywhere.”

Read more on Retail Brew.—AAN

Your guide to a cookieless world. The long-awaited phaseout of third-party cookies is finally upon us. In this new landscape, how can you reach your target audience without relying on user data? We partnered with StackAdapt to find out. Check out our three-step guide to marketing without cookies. Spoiler: AI plays a big role.