What’s shaping marketing this week

Case Studied Brief
Fan love, boardroom tea, and tech turbulence  

This week's Brief takes a closer look at fandom in many forms and the ways brands are playing into it. Alongside that, we examine how creator relationships are becoming more dynamic as companies experiment with new tactics. 

Meanwhile, industry news is buzzing with a Hollywood bidding war, a struggling agency empire, an AI-induced IP battle, and more.

We break down what it all means now and what it points to moving forward.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Old Spice 

The mom song is back and it still hurts

Old Spice dropped a sequel to its cult-classic 2014 spot, “Mom Song.” This time around, the brand reworked the Boyz II Men 1992 hit song, "End of the Road," to create a video about the heartbreak of a son growing up. Created by Wieden+Kennedy Portland, the 60-second spot is titled "Mom Song 2.0: The End of Adolescents" and features rewritten lyrics like "Why do you spray that Old Spice?" It's absurd, nostalgic, and surprisingly moving.

Why it stood out: With this second iteration of “Mom Song,” Old Spice doubled down on an established strategy. After all, sequels only work when the original earned it. And just like the first spot, the new one leans into ridiculous comedy to make deodorant feel like a milestone. For brand leaders, it's a case study in knowing your history and having the savvy to adapt it for today’s use cases.

📖 Read more: Little Black Book

Apple

Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show, Shot on iPhone

Days after Bad Bunny's halftime performance, Apple released the latest chapter in its long-running "Shot on iPhone" campaign. Titled "The Day the World Danced," the film shows photos and videos of unfiltered fan reactions to Bad Bunny’s performance. It features work from 23 photographers and cinematographers across 15 locations in 11 time zones—from Puerto Rico to Kampala, Seoul to São Paulo. In lieu of narration, the film is soundtracked by Bad Bunny's song, "DtMF" (an acronym for Debí Tirar Más Fotos or 'I Should Have Taken More Photos').

Why it stood out: Turning the lens on the audience is a unique approach. Rather than the Super Bowl halftime performance itself, the story here is about how the performance impacted the people watching. For Apple, it situated their product alongside a major cultural moment, showcased the quality of iPhone photos and videos, and aligned (literally) with the title of Bad Bunny’s song: 'I Should Have Taken More Photos.' For brands looking to build cultural relevance, this is a strong example of creatively aligning with a big moment.

📖 Read more: AdWeek

Chili’s

The Margarita fan club is now official

A group of die-hard regulars who show up every month to try the latest Margarita of the Month at Chili's can now join an official club. The brand launched the free-to-join Margarita of the Month Club on Feb. 11, tapping TikTok comedian Jake Jonez — known for his 1.2M followers and dry, self-aware humor — to front the campaign. Members get a passport-style booklet for tracking each marg and can shop a yacht-club-inspired merch line featuring a cabana shirt and salt brim snapback, brought to life in short films placing Chili's classic red booths in high-fashion settings. It all drops ahead of National Margarita Day on Feb. 22, where guests can snag $5–$7 margarita specials in-restaurant.

@chilisofficial

y’all drink so many margs we decided to make a marg of the month club, with merch of course. 21+ to consume alcohol

Why it stood out: This is social media casting done right. Rather than chasing reach, Chili's picked a creator whose niche humor mirrors exactly who they're trying to speak to, proving that relevance beats scale. Chili's is also celebrating its fans and formalizing something that was already happening organically. The passport gamifies participation, the merch playfully leans into the classic club jacket playbook, and for marketers, the lesson is simple: the best loyalty programs don't just reward customers, they make fans feel special and seen.

📖 Read more: PR Newswire

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Industry news 🤝

Dentsu swaps its CEO and takes a $2 billion loss

Dentsu Group announced that global president and CEO Hiroshi Igarashi will step down, effective March 27, 2026. His successor is Takeshi Sano, a longtime Dentsu veteran and current CEO of Dentsu Japan. The move comes alongside net losses of roughly $2 billion for 2025, a suspended shareholder dividend, and a failed attempt to sell its international business. Sano previously led Dentsu Japan through 11 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and is expected to start applying that same operational discipline to its struggling overseas operations.

What it signals: The gap between Dentsu's thriving Japan business and its declining international operations is becoming impossible to ignore—and the holding company world is watching. In the past year, WPP, Omnicom, and now Dentsu all face versions of the same reckoning: business models built for a pre-AI era are straining under the pressure. For marketers and brand leaders with agency relationships, leadership instability at this scale is worth monitoring. It can signal potential shifts in service, strategy, and creative output across the network.

📖 Read more: Ad Age

The $82 billion streaming showdown got a (NEW) deadline

Warner Bros. Discovery set a March 20 shareholder vote to approve its $82.7 billion deal with Netflix. But in a plot twist, it's also reopening the door to Paramount Skydance, giving the rival bidder seven days to submit a "best and final" offer. Netflix maintains it can still match any competing offer under its merger agreement. Meanwhile, Paramount is aggressively sweetening its hostile takeover bid with cash guarantees, ticking fees, and political maneuvering (including hiring a former Trump DOJ antitrust attorney as senior VP of global public policy). WBD's board still unanimously recommends the Netflix deal, but the race is very much on.

What it signals: This mega-merger would reshape where audiences watch, what content gets greenlit, and which platforms hold the most advertising and sponsorship leverage. For marketers, the outcome determines whether premium entertainment consolidates further into Netflix's ecosystem or splits into a competing Paramount-WBD giant. Either way, the media landscape (and your media buy) may look very different once this deal is done.

📖 Read more: Hollywood Reporter

A German candy brand hired a TikTok star as its CCO

Katjes, a European candy brand with a cult following, tapped comedian and podcast host Jake Shane as its Chief Creative Officer ahead of a major U.S. market launch in 2026. Shane has 3.9 million TikTok followers and hosts the podcast Therapuss. As CCO, he’ll lead brand voice, marketing campaigns, and cultural positioning as Katjes introduces itself to American consumers. The connection here started back in 2023 when Shane reportedly reached out to the brand himself, making this less of a celebrity deal and more of a genuine fan-to-partner story.

What it signals: Hiring a creator as a C-suite executive, as opposed to just a spokesperson, signals a shift from short-term engagement to long-term partnership. With Katjes entering the US market as a challenger brand, marketers can take note of how Shane shows up across its marketing and how consumers respond.

📖 Read more: Forbes

MarTech moves 🤖

ByteDance's AI video tool has Disney very upset

ByteDance launched Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator that lets users create hyper-realistic clips from simple text prompts. Within days, the internet was flooded with viral videos of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise brawling in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and Marvel characters doing things Disney definitely didn't approve of. The Motion Picture Association fired back, saying Seedance "engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale." Cease-and-desist letters from Disney, Paramount, and SAG-AFTRA quickly followed. In response, ByteDance pledged to strengthen safeguards, without specifying what those actually are.

What it signals: This feels like one of the first shots in what will be a long, messy battle between AI video tools and the entertainment industry's IP machine. For marketers and brand leaders, the implications run wide: if AI can generate photorealistic content using any actor, character, or IP, the entire framework of licensing, talent deals, and brand safety shifts. Any rules and guidelines put in place around this technology will set the precedent for what the future of copyright looks like.

📖 Read more: BBC

Apple Podcasts wants to be like YouTube

Apple announced a major video overhaul for Apple Podcasts that will move it from clunky RSS-based video to a seamless HLS streaming experience. Users will be able to switch between watching and listening, download episodes offline, and view full-screen. The update also opens a new ad revenue layer, with Apple starting to charge ad networks an impression-based fee for dynamic video ads.

What it signals: The podcast ad market is getting more visual. With YouTube leading the podcasting race, Spotify reporting its best quarter ever of user growth, and Netflix striking a deal on video podcasts, Apple had to move. And this upgrade is a telling indicator about the era of audio-first podcasts. For media buyers and brand marketers, it means a new premium video ad surface inside a well-established platform.

📖 Read more: Hollywood Reporter

Editors Choice 👀

🥥 Vita Coco hit 1 million TikTok followers after partnering with creator Romeo Bingham on a new jingle. 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

📌 Pinterest's stock price fell 20% as major retailers pull back on ad spend in response to Trump’s tariffs. 📖 Read more: AdWeek

👕 American Eagle recruited 900 micro-influencers in 11 days by gamifying its creator program. 📖 Read more: Ad Age

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