There are some new faces on the Formula 1 grid this season—and not just the five rookies on teams like Mercedes and Alpine.

In addition to making changes to their driver lineups, many F1 teams spent the short offseason inking deals with brands. That included Williams Racing bringing on software company Atlassian as a title sponsor, Aston Martin signing Coinbase as an official crypto partner, and the reigning constructors’ champion McLaren Racing adding lottery operator Allwyn to its sponsor roster.

The Formula 1 organization also has several new partners, including consumer-facing brands like Lego, KitKat, and Belvedere, marking a shift in a space that’s largely known for attracting B2B and tech companies.

With US viewership of the sport having nearly doubled since 2018, it’s perhaps not surprising that brands are showing interest. But with just 20 drivers and cars on the grid, inventory is limited—making F1 competitive not only for racing teams but also for the marketers looking to capitalize on the sport’s growing popularity.

“Everyone feels like it’s a new golden era,” James Bower, commercial director for Williams, told Marketing Brew. “The audience is demonstrably changing. It’s becoming more attractive to a wider range of brands, and now we’re seeing B2C brands, luxury brands, technology brands, invest at a scale that has been rare before.”

Continue reading here about the brands betting big on F1.—AM

Birkenstock-clad, Hydroflask-toting, oversized T-shirt-wearing VSCO girls are so 2019. In 2025, VSCO is emphasizing its roots with professional and aspiring photographers, and it recently showed up at NBA All-Star Weekend to make that more polished identity known.

At the NBA event, the photo sharing and editing app’s team hosted a basketball-focused photo exhibit called “Courtside” alongside a panel discussion with three established photographers who use the platform, Squint, Meredith Minkow, and Moses Kinnah. The exhibit, which featured prints from those photographers and a digital photo display from other VSCO creators, ran the length of the weekend and attracted hundreds of visitors, including brand representatives from Adidas and Bleacher Report and photographers like Devin Allen and Jordan “Jsquared” Jimenez.

VSCO CEO Eric Wittman said the event was dreamt up by the platform’s professional user base, which the brand is looking to emphasize as it continues focusing on growing its paid users and finding ways to connect brands with creative talent.

“We haven’t been as noisy the last couple years, but we’re getting back to that,” Wittman told Marketing Brew.

Read more here about VSCO’s community-centric efforts.—JN

Praise Kier: Apple TV+’s hit series Severance is bringing in record viewership for the streamer.

The sci-fi dystopian thriller is officially Apple TV+’s most-watched show in history after its sophomore season debuted in January. That’s more viewership than all three seasons of the Apple TV+ sports comedy Ted Lasso, which was previously the most-watched series on the streamer.

Recent Nielsen figures saw Severance bring in 582 million minutes of viewing for the week of Feb. 3 through Feb. 9. Viewership for the first two weeks the second season was available was slightly higher, at 589 million and 622 million minutes, respectively, and viewership for the third week clocked in at 550 million minutes.

Demand for the show was 51.6x the demand for an average TV series in the US in the last 30 days, according to Parrot Analytics, which measures TV shows against the “average demand across all titles.”

Ahead of Season 2’s Jan. 17 premiere, the streamer made its programming free to view for the weekend of Jan. 3–5. During the period of Jan. 1–19, new subscriber sign-ups jumped 126% versus Dec. 1–19, 2024, Apple said.

Read more about how Severance is performing for the streamer.—JS

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Bloomberg wrote about how Korean grocery-store chain H Mart built a cult following sans advertising.
• Business Insider wrote about how Sean Evans, host of the YouTube series Hot Ones, wants advertisers to view the series as comparable to a TV show.
• Digiday wrote about the brands that are no longer engaging with heritage months like Black History Month and Women’s History Month.