The US might only have 11 federally recognized holidays, but a Taylor Swift album release day just might qualify as No. 12—especially if brand celebrations are taken into account.

On October 3, Swift released her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and several brands used the opportunity to up their marketing ante. It’s not the first time that brands have jumped at the opportunity to get involved in the pop star’s milestones. But while her album announcement and engagement news had a flurry of brands reacting via social media, Showgirl’s official release inspired brands like Uber, Spotify, and Baked by Melissa to get involved beyond social media, rolling out tangible products and pop-up events to mark the occasion.

“Because the Taylor Swift universe is so broad…we can tap into it in different ways,” Georgie Jeffreys, head of marketing for Uber in the US and Canada, said.

For brands going the extra mile, doing something IRL offers one way to stand out among Swiftie-centric brands that may all be trying to get in on the hype.

“When everyone’s doing something, it’s not special to do that thing,” Douglas Brundage, founder and CEO of brand studio Kingsland, told us during Swift’s album announcement phase. “You have to be additive to the culture.”

Continue reading here.—JN

With about nine months to go until the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Verizon is powering up its marketing with the help of some soccer star power.

For its first major event activation as an official FIFA sponsor, the telecom giant is providing exclusive experiences like pitch-side access to games for customers, which marks a continuation of a fan-first strategy that it rolled out last NFL season.

And to spread the word about those experiences and kick off the sponsorship, Verizon tapped none other than David Beckham for a campaign that debuted last week.

“In sports marketing in general, there’s always assets and access,” Justin Toman, Verizon’s VP of partnerships, told Marketing Brew. “We’re trying to move beyond that to ownership and influence, and one way we can do that is having really, really unique assets.”

Toman, who joined Verizon in June after 18 years at PepsiCo, said he’s betting the level of World Cup access Verizon is planning to provide some of its customers will help the brand stand out from other sponsors.

Last week, the company announced that thousands of its customers will have the chance to win free tickets, with hundreds getting the chance to claim a “golden ticket” granting them access to watch the tournament pitch-side, where typically only coaches and players are allowed. The first drop for free tickets happened last week via the Verizon app and rewards program, with the golden-ticket sweepstakes scheduled to start in November; more exclusive content like events and merch is set to come in the lead-up to the tournament.

Read more here.—AM

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

Nikki Maizel is president of Leo New York. She’s also served in lead roles at Publicis New York, McCann New York, and Grey Group.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Recently, our Subway win has been incredibly fulfilling. We beat some of the biggest names in the industry by demonstrating how the combination of human insight and ideas combined with our bench of data and technology capabilities can unlock exponential creativity for the brand. Watch this space!

What’s your favorite ad campaign? The Cadbury “Gorilla” film by Fallon London remains a masterclass in unexpected emotional connection. Gets me every time. I’m equally excited by work that proves effectiveness and creativity can amplify each other—like the RomCommerce work for Walmart, which seamlessly blended entertainment with commerce in a culturally and contextually relevant, shoppable content series.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: I love cars and would have been a race-car driver in another life. There’s something about the precision, strategy, and split-second decision-making that parallels what we do in new business—everything has to work perfectly together to win, and we move at lightning speed.

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Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Instacart partnered with TikTok to use data from the Instacart retail media network in TikTok’s ads manager.
• TelevisaUnivision is collaborating with MrBeast to create soccer-related content leading up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
• Citi tapped Kristen Bell for a campaign promoting its latest credit card.