C4 is seeing triple.

On Friday, the energy-drink brand expanded its sponsorship slate into basketball, announcing multiyear deals with three NBA teams: the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat.

The deals, which include sponsorship assets like LED and courtside signage, digital ads, retail displays, and hospitality opportunities, came out of a desire to reach the fans of the three teams, according to Katie Geyer, VP of partnerships and experiential marketing at C4 parent company Nutrabolt.

“What we know about these fans is they really believe in the sponsors and the partners of the teams, and they’re very influenced by that,” Geyer said. “Not only that, but their fans tend to be younger, they tend to be more diverse, and they also tend to be more interested in sports and athletics and fitness, so for us…it just makes all the sense in the world.”

The partnerships also present an opportunity for C4 to expand its foothold in major east coast markets and differentiate itself from other energy-drink brands via an association with elite athletes, Geyer said.

Triple-double: The Knicks, Celtics, and Heat are all storied NBA franchises, plus the Celtics are the reigning champs, which may be reason enough for a brand to want to partner with them. C4 was also interested in targeting the Eastern Conference markets, since those geographic areas tend to over-index in energy-drink consumption, Geyer said. Another benefit: the brand has “key business partners,” like retailers and distributors in those areas, too, she said.

At risk of inflaming basketball rivalries, the Knicks and Heat can perhaps thank the Celtics for serving as the start of the deals. A smaller partnership between C4 and the Celtics at the end of last season that involved local retail displays and social posts “was incredible for us,” Geyer said, and was “what propelled us to this three-team strategy that we’re going out with this year.”

Continue reading here.—AM

In a bygone era, kids could access children’s educational programming like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, or Arthur through their local PBS affiliate on linear TV. But as kids (and the adults in their lives) largely turn to streaming, PBS has been hard at work trying to reach kids where they are.

At a panel at CES earlier this month, Ira Rubenstein, chief digital and marketing officer at PBS, said that the company has been building its streaming presence, including through a free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) channel on Amazon Prime Video. It’s not just PBS that’s leaning into FAST programming: According to several executives, FAST channels, which seek to mimic the experience of linear TV with always-on channels, are expected to grow more popular in 2025, ideally making programming more discoverable—and, in some cases, more shoppable.

“The acceptance and growth of FAST [is] incredibly relevant to what the future of our business is going to be,” Melissa Wasserman, head of marketing at Samsung Ads, said onstage.

Hide and seek: It’s no secret that streaming is becoming increasingly fragmented, with platforms like Netflix and Peacock vying for viewers’ attention and with popular shows and sporting events being scattered across different platforms. FAST channels can help cut through the noise and make content easier to find, Peter Hamilton, senior director of product management at Roku, told Marketing Brew.

“We see very young audiences adopting live and FAST,” he said. “The decision matrix has gotten very complicated, so they just want to channel-flip and find the things that they’re interested in or find creators that they’re interested in.”

Read more here.—Jasmine

Retailers these days seem to be up against a lot: rising costs, shifting consumer preferences, and dwindling loyalty are just the foremost among many concerns. But keeping consumer faith strong is arguably even more essential.

For Lowe’s CMO Jennifer Wilson, a lot of this comes down to putting together the perfect marketing strategy. Unfortunately, home improvement is not the easiest category to market. But Wilson, who has been with the retailer for nearly two decades, has it covered.

In a conversation at Shoptalk Fall in Chicago, the marketing veteran chatted with Retail Brew about Lowe’s primary marketing focus, shifting priorities, and new demographics.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Is there something you felt like was not working before you came on board as CMO, and are there things that you wanted to shake up? Sixty-five percent of consumers who are in the home improvement market—so they’re shopping for home improvement—told us in different ethnography studies that they were really not loyal to any one home improvement brand. We call these consumers “switchers.” The big challenge for us as a brand is how do you get switchers to take one more trip with you and spend one more trip with you? It became really a discussion about frequency and deepening a commitment, or a loyalty commitment to these consumers.

One of the things they shared with us when we unpacked some of this conversation was, “I want more value”…“Value is about price.”

But as we really unpack the conversation, it became about value beyond price.

Read more on Retail Brew.—Jeena

2025 is set to bring more disruption to digital advertising. EMARKETER's analysts are closely monitoring key shifts, including increased regulation, retail media and AI reshaping search, and the growing influence of creators.

Access EMARKETER's research to understand how evolving Big Tech regulations will impact ad strategies, why retail media, social search, and AI are challenging traditional search ads, how streaming platforms are addressing subscriber churn, and more. Prepare for 2025’s ad strategy shifts.

Executive moves across the industry.

• Kimberly-Clark tapped BBDO alum Luiz Sanches as its inaugural chief creative and design officer.
• Ralph Lauren elevated Bob Ranftl, its regional CEO for North America, to the role of COO beginning March 30.
• Panera Bread has a new chief development officer: Brian Krause, who joins from GoTo Foods.