Long before irreverent brand voices became ubiquitous (and, in some cases, got very, very weird), there was a time when tone could truly differentiate a brand.

That’s been on Yahoo CMO Josh Line’s mind as he’s been working on refreshing and modernizing the identity of the 30-year-old company.

“The brand voice of Yahoo has always been incredibly unique, totally distinctive in the tech space,” Line told Marketing Brew at CES, noting past breakthrough brand moments like its 2002 Super Bowl spot featuring a talking dolphin, or its (formerly) longstanding dot-com-era billboard as representative of the brand’s “funny, wacky, self-aware sense of humor.”

Rather than working from scratch to reimagine Yahoo’s brand altogether, Line sees its history as a brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously as an asset for the future. “We’re very focused on bringing that forward and translating that,” he said.

Part of the modernization process involves not only figuring out the tone for the brand, both online and off, , but what past elements—like the Yahoo yodel, its bright purple brand mark, and “Do you Yahoo?” tagline—to bring forward for today’s audiences.

Yahoo isn’t alone in looking back to look forward. Marketers for brands like Columbia Sportswear, Gushers, Pringles, and Acuvue, to name a few, have been digging into their brand archives for inspiration in a nostalgia-obsessed world.

Continue reading here.—KM

One year after originally signing with the UFC, Verizon’s Total Wireless brand is ready to keep swinging.

The prepaid wireless provider announced last week that it’s renewing its sponsorship deal with the MMA company, this time on a multiyear basis, and with some additional assets.

Sponsorships in combat sports like boxing and MMA aren’t as widely sought-after as they are in more mainstream sports properties like college football or the Olympics, but with big fights drawing viewership and buzz, they’re becoming increasingly hard for some marketers to resist.

Between the nature of UFC—which thrives on violence and intense rivalries—and ties between the company, its president Dana White, and President Donald Trump, it remains a tricky proposition for some brands, but David Kim, president of Verizon Value, said the storytelling opportunities and brand mentality of UFC outweigh any potential risks of tying up with the company, which he described as “the biggest” and “the baddest” in combat sports.

“The best fighters in the world want to be a part of the UFC,” Kim told Marketing Brew. “Our aspiration is to be the best, [to] give customers unparalleled access [to] things that most carriers probably wouldn’t do.”

Read more here.—AM

Hollywood has been in a frenzy about the potential demise of the theatrical business if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery, but during the streamer’s Q4 2025 earnings call last week, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sought to put some of those fears to rest.

“When this deal closes, we will be in the theatrical business,” he said. “I’ve said it many times: This is a business and not a religion.”

While the Netflix–WBD deal is perhaps the hottest topic in Tinseltown, there were many other notable stats to come out of Netflix’s earnings. The company reported an 18% YoY increase in quarterly revenue and a 16% YoY increase in revenue for the year. Revenue in the US and Canada region in particular increased 18% YoY in the quarter. Membership and engagement grew too, with Netflix crossing 325 million paid memberships. View hours on the platform were up slightly, 2% YoY, in the second half of 2025, although Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters acknowledged that view hours are a “broad metric.”

The subscriber growth didn’t seem to be enough to sway investors, and Netflix stock fell after the earnings call as the company noted it would pause share buybacks to support its newly amended offer to acquire Warner Bros. entirely in cash announced last Tuesday.

Ads bonanza: Netflix continues its steady buildout of its ads business. It began testing modular interactive video ads late last year, and the format will be available globally in Q2, Peters said during the call. It’s also iterating on its ad tech stack, Netflix Ad Suite, and has grown its fill rates, Peters added. Netflix is also making more of its first-party data available to advertisers to assess their media buys this year. Now that it’s scaled its ad business to 12 countries, increasing inventory monetization will be a key focus for the next several years.

“There is still a gap between the ad tier [average revenue per membership] for Standard Without Ads, but that gap is narrowing,” Peters said. “As we improve our ads capabilities, we can close that gap over time.”

Continue reading here.—JS

Executive moves across the industry.

• Microsoft hired Pinterest vet Andréa Mallard to serve as its first CMO for its AI business.
• Pinterest hired Amazon alum Claudine Cheever as CMO.
• Shake Shack brought on ex-Sonic brand president Jim Taylor as chief commercial officer.