For the chronically online, one of the most painful parts of flying might be disconnecting from content creators.

Now, Delta passengers don’t need to.

Through a new partnership with YouTube, the airline is introducing ad-free content from certain creators to seatback screens and other in-flight entertainment accessible via personal devices. As part of the deal, podcasts, music, and videos from creators including Kinigra Deon, MrBeast, Michelle Khare, and Mother Goose Club will be available for Delta customers to tune into during flights.

YouTube is the most-watched streaming service in the US, per Nielsen, and offering it on seatback screens will keep Delta’s programming up to speed with modern media habits, according to Julieta McCurry, VP of in-flight entertainment and connectivity at Delta.

“Our data was actually telling us that customers want personalization and they want choice,” McCurry told Marketing Brew. “We saw that there was an increasing turn to creator-driven content and podcasts that really reflects the interests of the customers.”

Like the TV, film, and streaming brands that came before them, creators who are part of the program stand to get a boost from being part of airlines’ seat-back entertainment options and find new audiences mid-flight, representing just the latest way creators are expanding off of YouTube.

Continue reading here.—JN

Something sweet is coming to the US Soccer Federation.

Ferrara, the parent company of candy brands including Nerds, Laffy Taffy, and Trolli, was named as the official candy sponsor of US Soccer last month as part of a multiyear deal that will carry through next summer’s FIFA World Cup and the 2028 LA Olympics.

The deal marks Ferrara’s first foray into soccer, but CMO Greg Guidotti and his team are no strangers to other major cultural pillars and are applying what they learned from events like two Super Bowl ad campaigns in a row as they develop the brand’s soccer platform, he said.

“When you think about the Super Bowl, it’s a sport that’s in the hearts and minds of consumers at that time frame,” Guidotti told Marketing Brew. “We just take the two O’s out and put a U in. It’s football in the summer…When something is thematically relevant in the market, it helps you drive displays and consumer interest.”

Ferrara isn’t just new to soccer—it’s never struck up a “broad, multiyear sponsorship” with any team or league before, Guidotti said. Its brands have, however, shown up at a range of massive events in the past few years, including Nerds, which advertised during the past two Super Bowls and showed up at this year’s Governors Ball music festival, and Brach’s, which showed up for the first time during the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

When entering into those partnerships, Guidotti said he was motivated by considering “what’s meaningful to the consumer” during certain timeframes. In the fall, when Ferrara is focused on selling Brach’s candy canes, the Macy’s parade provides a big stage to reach consumers. Over the summer, it’s all about music festivals. And for the foreseeable future—from the upcoming World Cup in North America to the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil to LA28—consumers will be increasingly focused on soccer.

“Soccer is really going to be in the hearts and minds of consumers,” Guidotti said. “What I appreciate about US Soccer is it’s going to be so relevant for the next few years.”

Read more here.—AM

Netflix may have had its “best ad-sales quarter ever,” but its Q3 was not entirely smooth sailing.

The streamer missed Wall Street expectations, registering a lower-than-expected operating margin due to a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, Spence Neumann, Netflix CFO, said Tuesday on the company’s earnings call.

“It’s a unique tax,” Neumann said. “No other tax looks or behaves like this in any other major country in which we operate…Absent this expense, we would have exceeded our Q3 ’25 operating income and operating margin forecast, and we don’t expect this matter to have a material impact on our results going forward.”

Tax dispute aside, the streamer reported a 17% increase in revenue in the quarter, with the same YoY growth in revenue in the United States and Canada. It also registered its highest quarterly view share ever, a measure of platform engagement, in both the US and the UK.

Baby steps: Netflix’s ads business grew in Q3, according to Greg Peters, Netflix co-CEO. Beyond its best ad sales quarter to date, the streamer expects to more than double its ad revenue this year. Netflix previously announced in August that its US upfronts commitments had doubled.

As its ad business continues to grow, it’s infusing AI into its ad biz, too. The streamer is testing ad formats with AI to help with ad creative and placement, as well as to speed up media plan creation, Peters said.

“We made considerable progress in building out our general capabilities in the ad space,” Peters said. “If you use our beloved crawl-walk-run model, we’re now squarely in that walking phase.”

Continue reading here.—JS

Real jobs shared through real communities. CollabWORK brings opportunities directly to Marketing Brew readers—no mass postings, no clutter, just roles worth seeing. Click here to view the full job board.

• Manager, Consumer Digital Marketing at Endo International (in person)
• Sr. Director, Digital Strategy at Serta Simmons Bedding (in person)
• Associate Social Media Manager, Body & Skin at Edgewell Personal Care (hybrid)
• Marketing Manager II at Toro (hybrid)
• Manager, Global Marketing at Warner Music Group (in person)

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Business Insider wrote about how “vibes” entered the corporate lexicon amid the rise of generative AI, and why so many brands are using the term.
• The New York Times looked at the return of the flier as an offline marketing tactic.
• Bloomberg wrote about the bevy of new designers at luxury fashion houses as an industrywide effort to rebuild brand buzz.