Stan culture can be rabid, and shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Big Brother have stans for days. So why not use it to encourage civic engagement while reaping the brand benefits along the way?

MTV, which has long championed a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) initiative, is once again leaning into social impact campaigns this election cycle, running campaigns across Paramount properties that advocate for closing the community college voting gap, encourage early voting, and recruit poll workers.

In the years since MTV first ran a voting campaign on its airwaves in 1992, its campaign methods have modernized. It has gone from seeking to galvanize its audience mainly via on-air PSAs to reaching potential voters through strategic partnerships with advocacy groups and social influencers and using fandom culture, according to Erika Soto Lamb, VP of social impact strategy for Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios, which houses brands including MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, and Paramount Network.

The efforts are intended to incentivize voting action while bolstering the company’s brand image, too.

“Doing good is good business,” Soto Lamb told Marketing Brew.

Continue reading here.—JN

In a bid to influence a crucial block of voters in the days leading up to today’s presidential election, one super PAC is doing what countless PACs have done before—find likely voters where they are.

Except this group is trying to reach young men, and it’s headed to the places on the internet that many other advertisers usually avoid with a 10-foot pole: pornography sites.

In targeted ads running on “high-traffic” adult sites, the Freedom to Watch PAC is running pre-roll ads warning viewers about a GOP proposal to ban pornography should former President Donald Trump win the White House. The two short video ads tell viewers to “enjoy while you can” and instruct them to “google Trump porn ban”—a reference to a proposal outlined in the right-wing Heritage Foundation-published playbook Project 2025, a guidebook for a second Trump term, which argues that “pornography should be outlawed.” (Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, although he has ties to more than 100 individuals involved in its creation and authorship, according to CNN.)

Millions and millions served: Wally Nowinski, co-founder of FTW PAC, told Marketing Brew on Halloween that the ads had been played at least 6 million times on adult sites since mid-October and that the PAC aimed to get another 5 million to 6 million more views before Election Day.

The PAC spent $50,000 in October and planned to spend another $25,000 on targeted advertisements in swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, with the intention of reaching younger, non-college-educated white men, Nowinski said.

Through what he described as “subprime ad networks,” he has been able to target viewers for CPMs that cost between $4.50 and $5, he said.

“You can take advantage of extremely cheap ad rates,” he said.

Read more here.—RB

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Thas Naseemuddeen is CEO of Omelet, an indie creative agency based in Los Angeles. She’s also held roles at BBH and Deutsch.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? John Lewis’s epic holiday campaigns. Year after year they’re amazing, but my absolute favorite was “Golden Slumber” from a few years ago. A classic formula of having an incredible track and an epic storyline that somehow weaves imagination, childhood, and gifting of the holiday season. There isn’t enough whimsy in work these days, and I adore seeing that come to life.

Something you don’t talk about on Linkedin? I really love the Muppets. This fact often finds its way into my writing. I love the art of puppetry (I am on the board of directors for The Bob Baker Marionette Theater), but even more so, I love the symbolism of creativity and the fun we can have as creative people when we let ourselves imagine. It’s truly a dream come true to be able to work really closely with deeply passionate people.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? Creativity will always win. I hate that it’s a trend nowadays. We’ve spent so long talking about everything but the reason why we’re all here: creativity. The industry loves dramatics and a good media holdco story, but at least for me, I’m here for the magic of what we can do. When we have a really special solution for a client that lights up their audiences, when we can bring just a little bit of joy—that’s it. That’s why we’re here.

The trend I’ll be happy to say goodbye to is the negativity our industry can hold that leads to animosity. We seem to want to follow the news cycles versus trying to carve out a space for creativity to be queen (or king).

Continue reading here.

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• The Los Angeles Rams broadened their partnership with Stagwell, using the agency’s AR platform for brand partners like Princess Cruises and Uber Eats.
• Peloton partnered with Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt and his brother, retired NFL player J.J. Watt, for an ad about sibling rivalries.
• SiriusXM Media teamed up with LiveRamp to create an audio-focused clean room.
• Viant, an independent DSP, signed a deal with Comscore to use Comscore data to train an AI programmatic media planning tool.