The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief
Real over generated, leaks over press releases

This week's Brief gets into the ways AI is being rejected by some brands and embraced by others (with mixed results). 

Pamela Anderson told AI to back off. Australians got served another health pitch. And Amazon's pitch deck landed in the wrong hands.

Meanwhile, Sora burned out, Beast Industries grew up, and the NHL pulled off something no one expected.

Let's get into it.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Verizon 

The best butt

Verizon tapped Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie and director Nia DaCosta for a short film called "Look Behind You." In this slow-burn horror-style spot, Storrie arrives at a remote cabin, hears mysterious noises, grabs a knife, and investigates. Then, he discovers the culprit is his own phone that’s been butt dialing his smart home devices. The film ends with text overlay that reads "The best butt” and  “The best network." It's Storrie's first brand film and DaCosta's debut in the commercial space.

Why it stood out: Pairing a star with cultural influence like Storrie with a prominent director like DaCosta showed savvy casting from Verizon. Thanks to his own performance and DaCosta’s cinematic flair, Storrie’s presence feels less like a cameo and more like a performance. It's a reminder that even for a large enterprise like Verizon, ads don't always have to feel like ads.

📖 Read more: Rolling Stone

NHL

The NHL got its rivals to play on the same team

For the first time ever, the NHL and all three of its broadcast partners—ESPN, TNT Sports, and Sportsnet—launched a single unified campaign for the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Developed by Arts & Letters Creative Co., "You Just Have to Watch" spans three spots that are timed to each round of the playoffs. Each network owned the post-production of one spot but the theme is consistent across the trio, leaning into the energy of playoff hockey.

Why it stood out: Getting competing broadcast networks to align on a shared creative vision is no small feat. But the strategy clearly offers a win for all parties involved here. Rather than fragmenting the playoff narrative across three different tones and aesthetics, the NHL created a coherent brand moment with its broadcast partners. It's a playbook worth watching, particularly in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

Aerie

Pamela Anderson tells AI to prompt off

Aerie launched a new campaign starring Pamela Anderson that reinforces the brand’s pledge to “always keep it 100% real: no AI-generated bodies, no AI-generated people. Ever.” The spot opens with Anderson playing a frustrated AI prompter, unable to get artificially generated models to look or feel human. Then, the scene dissolves into a real, high energy Aerie photo shoot. The spot closes with Anderson looking directly into the camera and declaring, "You can't prompt this."

Why it stood out: It’s hard to think of a public figure that’s better suited to partner with Aerie than Pamela Anderson. The actress, model, producer, author, and activist made headlines for embracing a make-up free look in recent years so her personal brand has natural alignment with Aerie’s mission. In a marketing landscape that’s increasingly embracing AI-generated imagery, Aerie is going in the opposite direction and with notable success. Since launching "100% Aerie Real," it’s seen double-digit awareness growth and a 23% jump in Q4 comparable sales.

📖 Read more: Hollywood Reporter

mycar Tyre & Auto

The car with a sunburn

In partnership with Australian Skin Cancer Clinics, the auto service brand mycar Tyre & Auto completely reupholstered the interior of a car with synthetic, human-like skin and parked it in the middle of Sydney Harbour. Why? To make a point about skin cancer risks. As the car sat in the hot sun, the interior material visibly burned, mimicking the damage human skin sustains during everyday drives. As part of the campaign, mycar also gave away free UV-sensitive stickers that turn purple when a driver is at risk of sunburn. 

Why it stood out: The Sunburnt Car has all the hallmarks of a good stunt. It’s eye-catching, surprising, and sends a clear, memorable message. The free stickers were a smart cherry on top, since it gave consumers something to act on. It’s also worth noting that the campaign was backed by real research. While 92% of Australians consider themselves sun-safe, 72% don't think about sun protection when they're behind the wheel and 65% don't apply sunscreen before driving.

📖 Read more: mycar Tyre & Auto

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Industry news 🤝

X loses its only marketing leader 

X laid off Angela Zepeda, the ad industry veteran who joined the platform in 2024 as its first global head of marketing since Elon Musk's 2022 acquisition. In addition to laying off Zepeda, X also eliminated more than 20 other nontechnical roles as it restructures ahead of a potential SpaceX IPO (which is targeting $1 trillion). Zepeda had promised a brand campaign that would reposition X as the digital town square but it never launched. Now, X is pivoting hard toward revenue, offering financial incentives to lapsed advertisers and bringing in a new chief revenue officer.

What it signals: X hired its first real marketing leader in years, gave her the brief to sharpen the platform's identity, and then cut the role before a single brand campaign shipped. For a platform still trying to win back advertisers who fled after 2022, letting go of its only marketing leader raises questions about how X plans to achieve that goal.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

Rethinking charity advertising

Hollywood producer Todd Milliner and advertising veteran Paul Velten have launched a cause-first creative agency called Summer98. Named after the summer the two met as aspiring actors in Chicago, the agency aims to pair respected brands and creative talent with nonprofits. Their debut campaign, "Kevin Smith Talks Filmmaking with Dogs," promotes Much Love Animal Shelter alongside Hera the Dog Vodka (which donates 50% of profits to rescue programs). It drops on National Pet Day (April 11).

What it signals: Charities are chronically under-resourced when it comes to marketing, and Summer98 is betting there's real business for closing that gap. The agency has a proclaimed focus on “leading with humor,” rather than the serious, somber marketing approach charities tend to take. It’s worth keeping an eye on the work Summer98 churns out and how it resonates among audiences.

📖 Read more: Variety

Beast Industries just hired its first CCO

Beast Industries—aka the company behind MrBeast's sprawling empire of content, Feastables snacks, and Beast Philanthropy—hired Gaude Lydia Paez as its first-ever chief communications officer. Paez comes with serious institutional credentials, having served as SVP of global communications at Riot Games and SVP of corporate communications at Hulu before that. The hire comes as Beast Industries is actively expanding into new content verticals, consumer products, and services. It’s also fresh off raising $200 million at a $5 billion valuation in January 2026.

What it signals: The convergence of legacy companies and creator-led companies continues. Beast Industries is a multi-category consumer brand and this hire indicates that it needs real communications infrastructure as it grows. It’s worth watching the areas where Paez pulls from the traditional media playbook versus where she innovates. 

📖 Read more: Variety

MarTech moves 🤖

Amazon's Rufus ad plans got leaked

A leaked pitch deck revealed Amazon’s plan to monetize its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, by embedding sponsored ads directly into shopper conversations. Amazon currently positions Rufus as a "virtual product expert" that surfaces paid recommendations. The deck signals the platform is moving from free open beta to a paid cost-per-click model soon. With over 250 million monthly active users already interacting with Rufus, the ad inventory at stake is significant.

What it signals: The monetization of Rufus feeds into an emerging trend of digital advertising in chatbot conversation. As AI assistants increasingly become the first point of product discovery, the brands that understand how to show up inside those exchanges will have a meaningful edge. The question of where ads end and recommendations begin is about to get a lot murkier.

📖 Read more:  AdWeek

Sora burned bright and burned out

OpenAI shut down its AI video generation tool, Sora, on March 24. The sunset comes just six months after its public launch and weeks after it was still shipping new features. A WSJ investigation revealed Sora's user count peaked around one million and collapsed to under 500,000. All the while, the app was burning through an estimated $15 million a day in compute costs against a total lifetime revenue of $2.1 million. Disney, which had committed $1 billion to a partnership allowing users to generate videos with Marvel and Star Wars characters, found out about the shutdown less than an hour before it went public (no money ever changed hands). OpenAI is now redirecting resources toward a "superapp" built around agentic AI tools, with the Sora team pivoting to robotics research.

What it signals: Sora's collapse is a reminder that a product can generate enormous hype, land a Disney partnership, and still fold. No matter how impressive it is, unit economics and profitability are critical to long-term viability. For marketers, it’s also a cautionary tale aout building creative workflows on top of a single AI vendor's experimental product.

📖 Read more: Wall Street Journal

Macy's AI assistant is thriving

Macy's recently launched "Ask Macy's," an AI-powered shopping chatbot built on Google's Gemini. The early numbers came in hot: customers who use Ask Macy’s spend nearly 4.75 times more than those who don't. The bot rolled out across all digital platforms after several weeks of testing with roughly half of Macy's website visitors. Its most popular features are "complete the look" styling suggestions and a virtual try-on option available both online and in store. The launch comes as Macy's works to reverse a decade of declining sales, with the company expecting roughly flat net sales this year around $21.5 billion.

What it signals: A 400% spending lift is the kind of number that gets every retailer's attention. Of course, AI shopping assistants aren’t new to the industry but the quality of the interactions and suggestions varies widely. Macy’s Chief Customer and Digital Officer noted that thousands of employees weighed in to help get Ask Macy’s ready for customers. But given their early outcomes, the initial investment in the assistants can certainly pay off. 

📖 Read more: Fortune

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

Editors Choice 👀

🍫 A KitKat heist in Europe surprisingly turned into an unexpected viral marketing masterclass. 📖 Read more: WSJ

🎬 Brands are quietly opening their own Hollywood studios and it might actually work.  📖 Read more: Adweek

🍓 AI fruit characters went massively viral on TikTok and marketers are taking notes.📖 Read more: Ad Age

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