After a decade in the restaurant reservation business, Resy is going beyond bookings.

The company, which was founded in 2014, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a campaign titled “More Than Reservations,” featuring editorial coverage, events across the country, and social content made in partnership with creators and restaurant partners.

“When we’re trying to think of how to claim what it is that we do, what we’ve done, and where we want to go, the idea of calling it what it is, which is being ‘more than reservations,’ felt like the right term and moniker,” Resy CMO Hannah Kelly told Marketing Brew.

The campaign looks back at how dining has changed in the last 10 years, while also positioning Resy as a source for restaurant intel and discoverability.

“Reservations have really become a form of cultural currency and dining has become such an important part of the cultural zeitgeist,” Kelly said. “We see a real opportunity to further that storytelling and further those experiences.”

No reservations: Kelly, who joined the Resy team when the company was acquired by American Express five years ago, said she’s learned in that time “that [Resy’s] restaurants are [its] biggest asset.” Focusing on stories from its partner restaurants has allowed the brand “to fuel bigger campaigns, bigger moments, and bigger marketing tactics,” she said.

There seem to be no plans of slowing that tactic down: Kelly told us that Resy will continue to expand its editorial franchises and the amount of content it produces through its brand publishing efforts.

Continue reading here.—KH

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State Farm is bringing a soccer star out of retirement for its first campaign of the football season. Well, a fictional soccer star.

Fans of Ted Lasso might have thought they’d seen the last of Dani Rojas—a striker known for his sunny disposition and catchphrase “fútbol is life”—when the third season wrapped up last year, but State Farm is reviving the character for its new football season campaign.

He’s joined by a couple of State Farm mainstays, including brand mascot Jake from State Farm and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, in a campaign that’s designed to emphasize State Farm’s ties to the sports world—both real and fictional.

“Elevating our awareness in sports is something that’s really important for us, and we continue to strive to be synonymous with sports,” Kristyn Cook, State Farm’s chief agency, sales, and marketing officer, told Marketing Brew. “When you think about what sports represents, especially coming off of the Olympics—I’m sure we were all glued to the screen—it brings family, friends, and good neighbors together.”

The latest ads are also meant to emphasize the brand’s messaging about bundling, Cook said, which will be front and center this NFL season as State Farm continues to lean into the league.

Football is life: The campaign, called “Bundle is Life,” shows actor Cristo Fernández as Dani Rojas taking to the field with what looks to be a cross between a football and a soccer ball. On the sidelines, Mahomes explains to Jake from State Farm that Rojas got so excited about bundling his home and auto insurance that he bundled the two sports.

The spots started running on State Farm’s social channels Aug. 28, with linear placements beginning Aug. 30.

Keep reading here.—AM

This story is the latest in our series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here.

Christine Wylie always thought she’d spend her career working on campaigns—just not marketing ones.

With a family that loved to talk politics and an undergraduate degree in political science, Wylie started her career working on political campaigns, including Rudy Giuiani’s run for US Senate against Hillary Clinton in 2000. But about five years later, she realized she wanted out. A lifetime of sports fandom—combined with the fact that she was training to run her first marathon—led her to a Google search that put sports marketing on her radar.

“If you think about it, politics is very similar to marketing,” Wylie told Marketing Brew. “On election day, you’re taking all the steps and doing all the legwork for people to take an action, to go out and vote for your [candidate] on one particular day. It’s not that far of a stretch to then get someone to think about buying Coke, or buying Pepsi, the next time they go into the supermarket.”

Almost 20 years after her pivot, Wylie is now senior director of sponsorships and partnerships at Verizon, where she helps steer the telecom giant’s work with sports properties, one of the biggest being the NFL.

With the football season kicking off soon, Wylie is busy managing Verizon’s 25 NFL team partnerships, plus more than a dozen others across pro leagues, to reach a large portion of the country with the company’s messaging after a recent rebrand.

Continue reading here.—AM

Just freaking do it. Time to lace up your sickest pair of sneaks. Greg Hoffman, Nike’s former CMO, partnered with monday.com to curate a game-changing smorgasbord of marketing strategies (and a webinar), all based on 28 years’ worth of learnings from the man himself. Plan to win.

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Business Insider wrote about how “brand-safety practices have hurt publishers” and brands alike in recent years.
• The Wall Street Journal wrote about how podcasts are increasingly full of ads and what that could mean for advertiser value and listeners’ experience.
• The New York Times wrote about how US Open hats have become somewhat of a status symbol (and, it seems, a cash cow for the tournament).