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How Formula One Became the Blueprint for Brand Relevance
PLUS: Smartly’s Brianna Gays on AI and What’s Next for Marketing
Zihan Lyu
September 13, 2025
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 | Sponsored by ADVANCE 2025 by Smartly |
Hi there!
Highlights from today's newsletter:
🔄 The changing role of the CMO—and what it means for growth
🧠 What you need to know about marketing on Reddit
💭 How Europe’s retail media leaders see the future
EDITOR’S PICK
#EXCLUSIVE PRE-EVENT Q&A
Smartly Advance lands in New York next week with leaders from Pinterest, TikTok, Amazon, Snap, Spotify, Reddit and Meta on stage - but the real headline is the shift Brianna Gays sees across marketing. The Smartly SVP says teams are no longer debating AI adoption but rethinking how organizations are structured, breaking down the wall between media and creative so brands can move at the pace of consumers.
She believes the next chapter belongs to companies that create brands people can’t live without, prove ROI faster, and deliver ads that feel like part of the experience. Her advice is to change how you think, use AI as a copilot, and take risks now. The brands that do will be the ones leading in 2026.
#SPORTS MARKETING
Formula One has gone from niche motorsport to cultural powerhouse. A new Winnin analysis shows how F1 rewired the playbook for cultural connection, nearly flipping its audience demographics in under a decade and proving that emotional moments drive more engagement than the race itself. Fans now flock to behind-the-scenes banter, rivalries, and creator-led storytelling that make the sport feel personal.
Brands like LEGO and Liquid I.V. are taking notes, building activations that feel native to F1 culture and sparking millions of organic engagements. This shift shows marketers why platform-native, emotionally charged storytelling has become the new measure of relevance.
WHAT WE ARE READING
 | Reddit’s updated marketing environment introduces new engagement metrics, ad formats, and tools, enabling brands to better identify active communities and monitor campaign effectiveness. The platform’s demographic skew, high engagement, and international growth signal expanding opportunities, but demand careful compliance with Reddit’s unique rules and precise community targeting. Brands must adapt to evolving ad formats and transparency expectations to manage reputation and optimize ROI. |
 | The Summer I Turned Pretty’s third season produced a measurable surge in multi-industry brand engagement on social platforms, drawing 2.9 billion TikTok views and widespread participation in show-driven trends. Brands capitalized on fan discourse by integrating products and campaigns into the narrative, signaling increased reliance on social media fandoms for cultural alignment. |
 | Marketers are prioritizing flexible, threshold-based ad deals over upfront commitments due to economic instability and tariff pressures, requiring rigorous budget justification to CFOs. This shift toward financial accountability ties spend directly to measurable outcomes and incrementality, ensuring ad dollars generate verifiable value. Such cautious practices remain essential as unpredictable market conditions persist. |
WHAT WE ARE LISTENING TO
🎙 THE MCKINSEY PODCAST
New research reveals a growing rift in the C-suite. CMOs are being left out of strategic planning, even though companies perform better when marketing has a seat at the table. The result is blurred accountability for growth and a weaker customer focus.
This episode explores why aligning CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs is now critical - from resource allocation to measuring marketing impact - and why giving marketing true ownership of the customer journey could be the difference between thriving and falling behind as AI and market volatility reshape the game.
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