In sports podcast company Blue Wire’s younger years, TikTokers and other influencer podcast hosts were integral in building the network’s audience and advertiser base.

Now, a few years later, with about 20 million monthly listeners and viewers across dozens of shows covering everything from Nascar to fantasy football to women’s boxing, the network is also placing an increasing number of pro athletes behind the mic. In the past two years, Dallas Mavericks guard D’Angelo Russell, NBA legend Dwight Howard, former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, and retired Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin have all signed on with Blue Wire.

Athletes are increasingly focused on building their own brands and off-court business ventures, presenting a business opportunity for Blue Wire. Kevin Jones, Blue Wire’s founder and CEO, favors hosts who come to the table with podcasts already up and running, he told Marketing Brew; in turn, hosts retain their IP rights and Blue Wire primarily helps monetize the shows through ad sales in exchange for a cut of revenue. For brands, much like with other celebrity- and influencer-led podcasts, athlete podcasts can be an attractive option, as they serve as something of a sponsorship shortcut.

“It’s a way to get an athlete endorsement without having to spend an arm and a leg, and [brands] get to support [the athlete’s] growing media channels,” Jones said.

While it’s still early days for the athlete-host strategy at Blue Wire, Jones said he has plans to expand the experiment further, including by leaning into live events and potentially recruiting more women and college athletes to the network.

Continue reading here.—AM

If there’s one thing that’s a sure bet at the end of the year, it’s the promise of being read for filth by Spotify Wrapped—and that’s not just true for listeners, but the app’s advertisers, too.

This week, the audio streamer released its annual user data year-in-review alongside a version for advertisers, aptly called Wrapped for Advertisers, that contains information like total impressions, unique users, attention metrics, and total ad streaming minutes. This year, all advertisers that use Spotify Ads Manager will be able to access a Wrapped report on that platform, while an in-app review is reserved for select advertisers. Wrapped for Advertisers also reveals insights into advertisers’ target audience behaviors, like the music and podcast genres that were most popular within certain demographics.

It’s the fourth year brands have gotten some kind of a look back at advertising trends on Spotify, but only the second year of personalized Wrapped reports for individual advertisers on the platform.

Like its broader Wrapped feature for listeners, Spotify’s Wrapped for Advertisers is all about engagement, and is aimed at streamlining and increasing accessibility for the advertising experience, Bridget Evans, Spotify’s global head of advertising business marketing, told us. Last year, only select advertisers chosen for Wrapped had access to such insights.

In addition to the customized report, Spotify released its fourth advertising trends report at large, highlighting niche data points that could be useful to marketers, which Evans said she hoped would help inform brand brainstorming sessions for the new year.

“We’re providing these insights at scale for any brainstorm, and to really set up 2026 campaigns with a bit more insight into what audiences are thinking about, or the moods or the moments that they’re streaming,” she said.

Read more here.—JN

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

Darcy Kurtz is CMO of WP Engine, a webhosting company, where she leads corporate marketing, product marketing, revenue marketing, and marketing operations. She has held key marketing and revenue roles at brands including Mailchimp, Dell, and BentoBox.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Launching our AI-driven marketing transformation. It was really challenging and interesting because we went way beyond just plugging in AI for efficiency. We tackled some of the most important questions right now: How will buyers discover us in an AI-first world? What does the buyer journey look like when a chatbot might recommend your brand before a search engine does? Reimagining those experiences with my team has been both humbling and exciting.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Always’s “Like a Girl.” I still remember how groundbreaking it felt the first time I saw it—they tapped into something emotional, cultural, and empowering while still positioning the product. To me, that campaign showed the real power of marketing: it can sell a product, yes, but it can also reframe a conversation, challenge stereotypes, and build lasting brand love. That balance of heart and clarity is what makes campaigns unforgettable and brands truly resonate.

Continue reading here.

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Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Glad partnered with Sesame Street’s very own Oscar the Grouch for a spot wherein the garbage-can dweller dreams up an alternate version of the song “I Love Trash.”
• Sephora became the naming rights sponsor of women’s 3-on-3 basketball league Unrivaled’s venue in Miami, which has been renamed Sephora Arena.
• Pinterest is collaborating with Walmart to allow its users to shop for recipe ingredients and add them to their shopping carts before checking out in the Walmart app.