In the winter of 2020, Ellen Hyslop, co-founder of sports media company The Gist, started looking into the sports podcast space. Readers of The Gist’s newsletter were asking for an audio extension, Hyslop said, and the podcast industry was on the cusp of a growth phase. But when The Gist team pulled up the sports podcast charts, there was one trend that stood out.

“The top 10, top 20, top 30 podcasts—every single one of them were hosted by men,” Hyslop told Marketing Brew.

Almost five years later, the sports industry looks a little different, with increasing numbers of women in leadership positions and a surge in women’s sports viewership. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sports podcast space is beginning to catch up.

Sports podcasts hosted by men and about men’s teams and leagues still rule the Apple Podcasts and Spotify charts, but there’s been a recent explosion of sports podcasts by, for, and about women, and interest from media companies, listeners, and advertisers only continues to push the category forward.

“People aren’t immediately thinking of that 28-year-old corporate girlie in New York as someone who would be listening to a sports podcast on their way into the office one day, but that’s really who we’re talking to,” Hyslop said. “Female fans care about all different types of sports, and there’s a market to speak to them.”

Continue reading here.—AM

Hartbeat, the entertainment company created by comedian Kevin Hart, may be in the business of comedy, but representation is one thing it doesn’t take lightly.

“We are diverse by design. We are a Black-owned company,” Janina Lundy, EVP and global head of marketing and brand strategy at Hartbeat, told Marketing Brew. “We have that in our DNA every day of the year.”

We spoke with Lundy ahead of the 2024 Marketing Brew Summit, where she spoke on a panel about equity and representation in creator and creative spaces, about the state of the industry.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What has your team been working on recently?

We worked with Venus razors on what they called a “pubic service announcement.” They wanted people to feel more comfortable talking about pubes…so we did a campaign for their female grooming line that was very inclusive, with all women working behind the camera and women of color in front of the camera, including talent that was deaf.

As you recruit for campaigns, what do you do to make sure that there is equal and diverse creator or talent representation?

It’s important as we’re thinking about the creators, but it’s also important as we’re thinking about my team internally and the team that we’re working with to create that content, whether that’s the writers or the directors or the crew. We’re making sure that the people who are working on our campaigns, and the people who are in front of and behind the camera, represent the audiences that are out in the world.

Continue reading here.—KH

If there’s one thing that’s different in the marketing world, it’s that everything seems to be different.

From operating in a constant “permacrisis” to adapting to new tech tools, marketers have lots on their minds, and they opened up at the annual Marketing Brew Summit in New York.

“I could comfortably say that so much more has changed in the last three years than has happened in the past 20,” Cheryl Guerin, Mastercard’s EVP of global brand strategy and innovation, said.

We rounded up what execs from Cava, e.l.f Beauty, Mastercard, and more had to say from the day of programming, and shared a few of their insights below.

Spice up your partnerships: Some people were confused when e.l.f. Beauty rolled out a partnership with Tinder, releasing a makeup line called “Put Your e.l.f Out There,” according to e.l.f. Beauty Chief Brand Officer Laurie Lam. The partnership was born from insights e.l.f. mined involving makeup and Tinder, such as that “red lips get more swipes” on the app.

“It’s the world’s No. 1 dating app, and we’re the No. 1 Gen Z brand,” she said. “There’s an overlap of our audiences.”

Diversify use of AI: Mastercard has been experimenting with AI technology for a few years, and it now has around 11 use cases involving AI, Guerin said. Those include a GenAI music studio to support artists without access to an IRL studio, the brainchild of a Mastercard marketer, and small business-focused AI set to debut soon that also originated from Guerin’s team.

“When there’s a new technology or a new trend or some new insights, we’ll hold inspiration sessions, and we challenge the entire integrated marketing and communications team around the world to innovate,” she said.

Read more here.—JS