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

Growing up near Dublin Bay on the east coast of Ireland, Leah Davis was used to the sight of sailboats, but she never found herself at the helm.

Nowadays, though, she’s steering a ship—metaphorically speaking, that is. After stints as a competitive tennis player and coach, an ad agency account director, head marketer for the British Olympic Association, and founder of her own company, Davis is the CMO of SailGP, the international sailing competition co-founded in 2018 by Larry Ellison, where she’s working to grow the brand and its fandom coming out of a hot streak in its fourth season.

“Life’s short,” Davis said. “You’ve got to take those calculated risks, and I think for me, the excitement as to the potential of this role far outweighed any risks there. When I joined two years ago…we had this crazy vision: We wanted to be the most exciting racing on water…The next job to do is, ‘How do we educate people, and how do we scale awareness at a mass, global level?’”

SailGP is in “scale-up mode,” Davis said. The organization, which saw social and broadcast growth during its first few seasons, has continued its growth into Season 4, according to its own metrics: Social media followers grew from 1.55 million at the end of Season 3 to more than 3.45 million in Season 4, with the fastest growth on TikTok.

• Its broadcast audience grew 48% year over year to 200 million in Season 4, during which more than 235,000 people also attended SailGP events.

Continue reading here.—AM

The Trade Desk is taking a haircut.

The ad tech company’s stock fell more than 30% last Thursday after it missed on revenue expectations for the first time since going public in 2016.

The Trade Desk brought in $741 million in revenue in Q4, up 22% year over year but about $15 million less than its revenue forecast from the prior quarter. For the year, the company posted revenue of $2.4 billion, a YoY jump of 26%.

What happened? “The reality is that we stumbled due to a series of small execution missteps while simultaneously preparing for the future,” founder and CEO Jeff Green told investors.

When asked for clarity, Green said the missteps involve “mistakes that aren't appropriate to discuss publicly, especially when people are already learning from these mistakes,” before referencing a slower-than expected rollout of its media buying platform Kokai. Green said the company had implemented a reorg to provide a “much clearer view of roles and responsibilities.”

Green also said the company would go on a hiring spree to “double the number of senior leaders in the company at the VP level and above.”

Read more here.—RB

If the Super Bowl Ad Meter went to the horse girls, EDO’s Super Bowl LIX Ad Ranker went to the tech bros.

For 10 years straight, the TV measurement company has ranked Super Bowl ads by evaluating online brand engagements, like searches or site visits, in the moments after ads air. This year, T-Mobile’s ad about its partnership with satellite internet provider Starlink landed the top spot with a score of 1263, meaning it drove almost 13x the engagement as the average Super Bowl commercial.

In addition to T-Mobile, 39 other advertisers beat the median Super Bowl engagement score of 100, but 54 fell below that line.

Cars and cans: Ram, the only auto brand other than Jeep to advertise in this year’s Super Bowl, scored an 848 on EDO’s engagement index, earning the No. 2 spot for its commercial featuring Glen Powell as Goldilocks. Jeep landed at No. 8, scoring 637 for an ad starring Harrison Ford.

Liquid Death, which aired its first Super Bowl commercial this year, came in third with a score of 804 for the canned-water company’s “It’s Safe for Work” ad, which shows professionals like pilots, doctors, and judges chugging cans of water on the job. Fellow beverage brand and second-time Super Bowl advertiser Poppi joined Liquid Death in the top 10, scoring a 552 with a campaign focused on influencers.

Continue reading here.—AM

2025 is set to bring more disruption to digital advertising. EMARKETER’s analysts are closely monitoring key shifts, including increased regulation, retail media and AI reshaping search, and the growing influence of creators.

Access EMARKETER’s research to understand how evolving Big Tech regulations will impact ad strategies; why retail media, social search, and AI are challenging traditional search ads; how streaming platforms are addressing subscriber churn; and more. Prepare for 2025’s ad-strategy shifts.

Executive moves across the industry.

• Sonos’ global CMO, Jordan Saxemard, exited the company, marking the second executive departure since a botched software update cost the company at least $100 million in revenue.
• Disney promoted Disney Advertising exec Becca Vodnoy to SVP corporate alliances, where she will focus on managing partnerships with major brands.
• Fox named a new president and COO: John Nallen, an adviser to CEO Lachlan Murdoch and member of the company’s office of the chairman.