It’s been a year of collaboration for studios and streamers. Paramount and Skydance agreed to merge. Apple TV+, Netflix, and Peacock got rolled into a bundle as part of Comcast’s StreamSaver product.

And then, of course, we have Venu Sports, the joint sports streaming venture between Warner Bros. Discovery, ESPN, and Fox, which is perhaps the most mysterious of them all.

Venu, which is slated to roll out this fall, was first announced in February, and there have been some announcements about the joint organization’s leadership team, which includes FanDuel and Apple TV+ alums, and its pricing, which was on Aug. 1 revealed to be $42.99 a month for viewers to get access to professional leagues like the NFL as well as college matchups. But more about the package, including its premiere date, as well as information about how sports fans will be able to watch, remains undisclosed as football season creeps closer.

Beyond that, Venu is still facing regulatory scrutiny from US lawmakers, and it is staring down a lawsuit from sports-centric streamer Fubo, with antitrust concerns at the center of both.

With Week 1 of the NFL preseason kicking off tonight, we rounded up what we do know about the service, as well as what questions remain.

Continue reading here.—JS

Excitement is building for the Marketing Brew Summit on September 12 in New York! Join us for a day of invaluable insights and networking with leaders from Clear, Hartbeat, and many more. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to connect with these visionary experts and sharpen your marketing strategies. Secure your spot today and prepare for an event with actionable strategies and inspiring discussions.

Leslie Berland knows a thing or two about a rebrand.

As Twitter’s first-ever chief marketing officer nearly a decade ago, she crafted the platform’s brand identity beginning in 2016. After leaving the company in 2022 and spending about a year at Peloton, she started as Verizon’s chief marketing officer in January, where she worked on the brand’s refresh unveiled in late June.

“It was clear and apparent that there was a massive opportunity for us to rebuild a brand that was a powerful reflection of the company as it is today and really where the company is going,” she told us.

Marketing Brew asked Berland about her experience in the C-suite, how companies can avoid overcomplicating things for consumers, and how a telecommunications company can endear itself to its customers—namely, by offering them free tickets to big events like NFL games.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

You joined Verizon in January. Talk to me about the rebrand. Was this underway when you got there?

It was not underway before I got to the company…When I entered the company and took a step back and looked at the brand and looked at the research and customer perceptions of the brand—on the B2B side and on the consumer side—it was clear and apparent that there was a massive opportunity for us to build and rebuild a brand that was a powerful reflection of the company as it is today and really where the company is going.

You were Twitter’s first CMO. How is marketing a platform like Twitter different from a telco?

There are similarities in that this is all about connection, communication, and conversation at both companies. At Twitter, it’s very much an open platform, a very public platform, a very visible platform…versus the challenge at Verizon, which is, we power the ability to even use Twitter on your phone, but we’re very much behind the scenes. There’s a significant difference there.

I think the most important thing to focus on is: What is the role that you play in other people’s lives? What do they love and care about the most?

Continue reading here.—RB

From Alix Earle to Tinx, TikTok creators at Cannes Lions this year were, well, everywhere, a signifier of the strong presence TikTok and its users have established in the world of marketing, particularly for retail brands.

That’s why Sofia Hernandez, global head of business marketing at TikTok, told Retail Brew her top priority is to help brands show up on the platform in a way that the app’s community will embrace.

When Hernandez joined TikTok four years ago, she said the video sharing platform was considered “experimental” and “still trying to get brands’ attention.” Then, there was a pivot around 2021, she said, when brand CMOs started really thinking about the importance of utilizing TikTok for their businesses. It hasn’t been easy for CMOs, she noted, who are being asked to “be really creative again” rather than follow a data-driven approach that they’d grown accustomed to.

But it could be worth it: When brands take a TikTok-first approach, their purchase intent rises 37%, and brand favorability jumps 38%, according to the app, and 79% of users say they want to see brands on the platform. That’s only if they “do it right,” Hernandez said, so she broke down how brands can become the main character of the For You page.

Read more on Retail Brew.—EC

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times wrote about Norwegian-athlete-turned-TikTok-star Henrik Christiansen who became famous online for posting about the Olympic Village’s chocolate muffins.
• Business Insider wrote about Uber Ads reaching $1 billion in ad revenue and where the company plans to go from here.
• The Wall Street Journal wrote about the deterioration of Delta’s “gold-plated” brand image as a result of recent service—including customer service—missteps.