In 2024, Binoy Zachariah, a musical artist and tennis coach living in LA, said he experienced an attempted home invasion. Luckily, he thought quickly, fighting off the invaders until they left.

How did he fend them off, you ask? He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find: an Owala water bottle.

In October of this year, Zachariah recounted the rather unbelievable story in detail on his TikTok and Instagram accounts, with the videos on TikTok racking up 13.7 million and 19.4 million views. The posts caught Owala’s attention, too, and within a week, the company sent Zachariah a custom PR package featuring a safe filled with Owala water bottles (dubbed the “Sipcurity Safe”) as well as an all-expenses-paid weekend trip to a destination of his choice.

It was a scenario neither party could have ever predicted, but one that Owala’s marketing team felt they had to respond to, according to Chad Sorensen, brand director for Owala.

“We recognize that this is truly wild,” Sorensen said. “So we wanted to recognize the human side of things and not just something for the brand to take advantage of.”

Continue reading here.—JN

Last month, LeBron James posted a video of himself taking a seat across from an interviewer with the caption, “the decision of all decisions.”

It was a callback to 2010, when the current Los Angeles Lakers star told the world he was joining the Miami Heat, and the post sparked widespread speculation that James could be retiring or making another career move. The following day, LeBron made the reveal: “I’m going to be taking my talents to Hennessy VSOP,” he said in an ad promoting a limited-edition cognac.

Naturally, some fans were less than pleased by the bait and switch. But for Hennessy, which had already seen strong visibility from the partnership it started with James last year, the campaign boosted engagement rates on its socials and other owned channels to an “all-time high,” according to CMO Vincent Montalescot.

“Sometimes, greatness is divisive,” Amar Babbar, comms planning director for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, the agency behind the campaign, told Marketing Brew. “It’s about creating the conversation.”

Read more here.—AM

Americans, it seems, have been desperate for delivery this year.

According to Morning Consult’s annual Fastest Growing Brands 2025 report, DoorDash has seen the biggest jump in purchasing consideration among US adults so far this year, of about 5,000 brands tracked by the company. The WNBA sat atop the list last year, and ChatGPT was No. 1 in 2023.

“One of the things that’s worth calling out from [DoorDash’s] earnings reports this year is they talk a lot about how expansion into non-restaurant categories has been really popular for them,” Bobby Blanchard, senior director of audience development for Morning Consult and the author of the report, told Marketing Brew. “That’s been a growing line of business for them, and they’ve been expanding as a local commerce platform and less of just a restaurant delivery platform.”

In addition to the desire for delivery, the report revealed several other findings about the purchasing habits of Americans, including a general penchant for protein and differing pastime preferences based on generation.

Order up: DoorDash topped the list of fastest growing brands with a 6.39 percentage-point increase in purchasing consideration from Q1 to Q3, in part by growing its consumer base among Gen X, baby boomers, and middle-income households, according to the report. Boomers who expressed purchasing intent for DoorDash tend to be on the younger end of the generation, have a higher likelihood of being divorced or widowed, and have more investments and disposable income, per Morning Consult.

“As they age, they might have reduced mobility, they might have health issues, they might not be able to go out as often or cook as often, and delivery…might help them maintain that independence as an aging population,” Blanchard said.

Continue reading here.—AM

From 3D displays to the Las Vegas Sphere, digital billboards are transforming out-of-home advertising. Here’s how tech, motion, and data are turning a classic medium into marketing’s next creative frontier.