<\/p>\n
\n\tVariety<\/em>\u2019s Entertainment Marketing Summit in Los Angeles, presented by Deloitte, brought together the most influential marketers, creatives and brand leaders who are shaping the future of entertainment.\u00a0Held April 22 at the Beverly Hilton, the summit covered the real-world impact of AI on creative workflows, how live experiences have become the center of the marketing mix, the evolution of franchise building and creator partnerships, and why authenticity with audiences has become the standard expectation. <\/p>\n \n\tRead below for key takeaways from the panels.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Main Event \u2013 Best of Experiential, Live and Event Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tLive experiences have moved to the center of the marketing mix and the brands getting it right are treating their audiences as distribution channels, not just end points. NVE Experience Agency founder and CEO Brett Hyman argued that unlike any other form of marketing, brand experiences collapse the funnel, firing trial, affinity and content creation all at once. \u201cThe AI is going to be jet fuel for our industry,\u201d Hyman said. \u201cBecause the more content, the more promises brands make, the more they\u2019re going to have to prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPanelists also pushed back on the instinct to follow the leader with NASCAR Chief Brand Officer Tim Clark emphasizing that originality is the only real shortcut. \u201cIf you create such a great experience, your biggest problem is we need to scale this to get it to more people and more platforms,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I speak for all of us, I would welcome that as the challenge.\u201d Taco Bell International\u2019s Amy Durini agreed, pointing to the brand\u2019s habit of mining its own comment section for creative direction and co-creating with fans rather than broadcasting at them as the reason its live events consistently land.<\/p>\n \n\tKeynote Conversation with Oliver Schusser, VP Apple Music and International Content<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOliver Schusser, Apple\u2019s vice president of Apple Music, TV, sports, podcasts and Beats, made the case that the streaming industry\u2019s free-tier model is holding the music business back. \u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s the right thing for artists to give away music for free,\u201d Schusser said, adding that he believes the business \u201ccould be much greater\u201d without free tiers altogether.<\/p>\n \n\tOn AI, Schusser revealed that Apple doubled its fraud penalty for labels caught submitting AI-generated content just two months ago and that the company has introduced tagging requirements for AI-made recordings, artwork and songwriting. He called on major label CEOs to convene as an industry to define what actually constitutes AI music. \u201cRight now it\u2019s very gray,\u201d he said. \u201cIs it 1% AI? Is it only 100%? Those are the questions we need to solve on an industry level.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSchusser also reflected on Apple Music\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show partnership, describing the six-month campaign ramp as the company\u2019s biggest promotional push for any music property. He confirmed Apple and Roc Nation are already in discussions for next year\u2019s show.<\/p>\n \n\tLeveling Up Fandom: How Games Extend Entertainment IP<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tNetflix Games president Alain Tascan and Deloitte managing director Wenny Katzenstein made the case that video games have moved from subculture to mainstream \u2014 with roughly 85% to 90% of kids under 18 now playing \u2014 and that entertainment companies ignoring that shift do so at their own peril.<\/p>\n \n\tTascan announced that Netflix\u2019s new kids gaming app, Playground, launches worldwide April 28, offering children interactive experiences with characters from shows available on the platform in what he described as a safe, parent-friendly environment. The app is part of Netflix\u2019s broader strategy of organizing its games slate into four categories: kids, narrative, party games and mainstream titles, including a reimagined FIFA.<\/p>\n \n\tOn the question of which IP translates to games and which doesn\u2019t, Tascan was direct with the audience. The key is whether players can project themselves into a world rather than simply follow a character. \u201cYou want to be yourself in this world,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to express yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTascan also teased a longer-term vision for where Netflix Games could go, including one where viewers pause a show mid-scene, take control of a battle sequence on their phone and then return the altered outcome back to the narrative. \u201cI thought I was not going to see it in my career,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think I see it in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBreakthrough Brands \u2013 Innovating through AI<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tSpeed emerged as the defining factor of AI adoption during the panel spanning Fox, Reddit, Warner Bros. Discovery, DoorDash and ad tech firm StackAdapt \u2014 with executives sharing concrete examples of how real-time AI integration is compressing creative timelines from weeks to minutes.<\/p>\n \n\tFox CMO Brian Borkowski described a Daytona 500 campaign in which AI monitored the live race, generated headlines as events unfolded and piped them into paid media assets within 60 seconds. Click-through rates on those ads ran six times higher than anything else the team had produced. DoorDash VP of brand marketing Gina Igwe detailed how her team used AI during the Super Bowl to develop reactive social content on the fly \u2014 including a meme timed to Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime performance and AI-designed gift cards featuring 50 Cent \u2014 all produced at what she called \u201cnet-breaking speed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWarner Bros. Discovery\u2019s Jill Steinhauser said the company has embedded AI into its ad sales workflow, reducing a six-to-seven step order ingestion process down to two. On measurement, Igwe offered a framework her team calls \u201ccreative caps\u201d \u2014 a currency tied to creative hours \u2014 with a mandate to increase output 30% per quarter. \u201cThe only way to get 30% more output with the same resources is you have to innovate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\tWhere Fandoms Collide & Culture Is Rewritten<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tHavas Play managing partner Andrea Isaac and SVP Juliet Tierney said that fandom is no longer siloed by category. Sports, gaming, music, fashion and entertainment are now interconnected layers of how people live, and brands that find the unexpected intersections between those worlds are the ones breaking through.<\/p>\n \n\tThe pair described their approach as \u201cexperience first,\u201d arguing that participation matters more than reach. As an example, Isaac described a campaign for a gaming client launching a new expansion with no sports connection whatsoever. By identifying an overlap between its core players and NFL fans, the agency built an activation at Gillette Stadium with a live Twitch stream component. The engaged core audience became brand ambassadors, and the resulting social reach was the best launch the client had ever had.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Gen Z, both executives emphasized that the generation is nearly impossible to fool. Two thirds actively participate in a fandom, Isaac noted, but they will immediately sniff out anything that feels like marketing. Tierney cited a stat that 76% of Gen Z are seeking shared cultural experiences, calling them a \u201cdichotomous generation\u201d that is highly online yet craving genuine human connection.<\/p>\n \n\tLooking ahead, Isaac flagged that Meta is on pace to surpass Google in ad revenue for the first time this year, and that consumers increasingly begin searches on AI tools rather than traditional search engines. Big ideas, she argued, will still be what wins.<\/p>\n \n\tHollywood New Leaders \u2013 Best of Creator Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBrands matter more than ever, and storytelling matters more than ever,\u201d Warner Records EVP Dalia Ganz said at the close of a creator marketing panel including music, film, gaming and beauty executives. \u201cIt\u2019s no longer good enough just to have great songs.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe sentiment landed as a conclusion to a slew of examples that made the same case from different angles. Ganz described building a viral marketing team engineered around the two-to-three week lifespan of a music trend cycle, with direct influencer relationships and in-house infrastructure designed to activate within 48 hours. Success, she said, is measured not in views but in streams and physical sales. For a recent example of the organic approach done right, she pointed to artist Sombr, whose existing friendship with influencer Quenlin Blackwell led to a music video cameo and eventually a surprise guest appearance during Sombr\u2019s Coachella Weekend Two set \u2014 a moment that generated buzz precisely because no one engineered it.<\/p>\n \n\tContent creator and music executive Carter Gregory, who attended both weekends, made the case that Weekend Two is becoming a serious opportunity for brands willing to invest there, noting this year\u2019s edition was among the strongest in recent memory.<\/p>\n \n\tSony Pictures EVP Rose Phillips detailed the rollout for the \u201cSpider-Man: Brand New Day\u201d trailer, which generated 1 billion views after the studio spent 24 hours finding genuine Spider-Man superfans in countries around the world to post as dawn broke in their time zones. One recruit, a man in Wales who climbs mountains dressed as Spider-Man for children\u2019s charity, didn\u2019t even have an Instagram account before Sony reached out. \u201cGive it to the fans and let them run with it,\u201d Phillips said. Phillips and Discord global head of media and entertainment Edvin Dapcevic also discussed a developing partnership around Resident Evil, with Discord\u2019s more than 50,000 horror IP servers providing a ready-built fan base for immersive promotional experiences.<\/p>\n \n\tSephora VP of social and influencer marketing Brent Mitchell described a same-day post with \u201cSummer House\u201d cast member Sara Miller that tied a viral reality TV scandal to Sephora\u2019s loyalty event. The caption: \u201cSephora rewards loyalty.\u201d Roblox head of entertainment and lifestyle partnerships Todd Lichten, meanwhile, noted the platform\u2019s relationship with Hollywood is increasingly running both ways \u2014 studios bringing IP to Roblox\u2019s 150 million players, and Roblox-born properties, including \u201c99 Nights in the Forest,\u201d now moving toward film development.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Brand Meets Entertainment and Culture at the Speed of AI<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThe gap between AI adoption and AI readiness was central during the conversation between Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire and Deloitte principal Jasmin Jacks. The technology, both agreed, is outpacing the organizations trying to use it.<\/p>\n \n\tMcGuire said his biggest concern isn\u2019t leadership mandates or AI-native new hires. It\u2019s the middle layer of any company \u2014 the people who have been doing things the same way for years and have the most to lose from disruption. \u201cIt\u2019s not a matter of upskilling,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a retraining of your brain, of your behavior.\u201d Jacks added that companies are spending 90% of their AI budgets on technology and only 10% on enabling the human shift required to actually adopt it.<\/p>\n \n\tOn sports partnerships, McGuire traced Qualcomm\u2019s evolution from touting processor specs to chasing fan passion, landing on soccer and Formula One as vehicles for emotional brand-building. Jacks added that most brands leave the biggest returns on the table by spending 80% of sponsorship budgets on rights acquisition and only 20% on activation. She called women\u2019s sports a significant and still-underfunded opportunity. Asked for his ultimate competitive advantage, McGuire said, \u201cKnowing who you are as a brand, knowing your audience, providing context, making it relevant, and driving action. That is the recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBuilding the Brand-Verse \u2013 Success with Franchises<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWhere the AI panel wrestled with organizational change, the franchise panel turned to a different challenge. The instinct to treat some fan touchpoints as more important than others, the group agreed, is a losing strategy. There is no such thing as an ancillary market.<\/p>\n \n\tMinecraft VP Kayleen Walters made the case most concretely. When the franchise released its theatrical film, the team wove elements from the movie into the live game, location-based experiences and merchandise simultaneously, so new audiences could feel the connection the moment they encountered it. The strategy was informed by a telling internal figure: more than 50% of Minecraft consumer product buyers have never played the video game. \u201cPeople are complex,\u201d Walters said. \u201cThey want more than just one thing from something.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSkybound\u2019s Josh Silverman offered a counterpoint on fan feedback, warning that the loudest voices rarely speak for the room. Stated preferences and expressed behavior, he argued, are two entirely different things. \u201cIf we listened to all the fans who didn\u2019t want certain characters killed off, they would stop watching the show,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tBlumhouse-Atomic Monster CMO Karen Barragan closed with a caution for anyone tempted to get ahead of themselves. \u201cYou really need to start with your core and build off of that core,\u201d she said, \u201cbefore you can start thinking about selling them T-shirts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the Director\u2019s Chair: Brand Storytelling Masters<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t \n\t\u201cWe have premium IP, we sit with culture and also commerce, right?,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re at this intersection of three things. And so for us, it\u2019s not just about the placement, but about how do I participate in culture? And what that looks like for me is making sure, one, campaigns are breakthrough because we\u2019re all looking for attention, and trying to find attention of the audiences we\u2019re trying to serve, right? Secondly, it\u2019s to be a culture catalyst. We\u2019ve got to spark something and that can only happen if the audience is a fit. So like that work should have happened before they reached out to you. Is it an audience fit and is it authentic, right? It really is about driving culture forward or telling a story in a deeper or more dynamic way that speaks to both brands because otherwise, consumers are smart, they\u2019re savvy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSummer Fridays co-founder Marianna Hewitt, who built the brand as a creator before launching it, said overly prescriptive briefs undermine the very thing brands are paying for. She described letting \u201cTraitors\u201d cast member Maura Higgins post a bag reveal where a Summer Fridays product appeared organically, without brand approval or talking points. \u201cIf it was our typical brand guidelines of waiting a week for approval, we would have lost out on that cultural conversation entirely,\u201d she said. Not every product in the bag was Summer Fridays and that was the point.<\/p>\n \n\tTubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano argued that meaning is the more valuable metric, pushing back on the industry\u2019s fixation with scale. \u201cThe internet rewards specificity,\u201d she said. She pointed to Tubi\u2019s bet on TikTok creator Terri Joe, whose film \u201cMissionary in Miami\u201d hit No. 8 on the Luminate charts \u2014 with Red Bull\u2019s brand integration earning positive Letterboxd reviews from viewers, which is a very rare outcome for a paid placement.<\/p>\n \n\tPinterest CMO Claudine Cheever also noted that 96% of searches on the platform are unbranded, meaning users are actively looking for products rather than scrolling past them. The platform tracks saves and pins as purchase-intent signals, and buyers who discover products on Pinterest, she said, return items at a significantly lower rate than impulse purchasers on other platforms.<\/p>\n \n\tConversation with Jack Harris, Innovative Artists Creators<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tJack Harris, who runs the creator division at talent agency Innovative Artists, came to the job by way of the job itself. He dropped out of film school to become a content creator, then stumbled into representation after negotiating a deal on a friend\u2019s behalf and realizing, as he put it, that he could argue with people for a living.<\/p>\n \n\tThe advice he brought to a room full of marketers was to warn how brands spend too much time focused on what is happening today and not enough on what is happening tomorrow. The next generation of consumers, Harris said, is not growing up with network television or cable. They are growing up with YouTubers and Twitch streamers, and when they come of age, creators will be the default mainstream media.<\/p>\n \n\tOn the question of who to work with, Harris pushed back on the fixation with follower count, arguing the industry is entering what he called the expert era. A small creator with a dedicated audience built around a specific niche, he said, will outperform a large lifestyle creator every time for a brand trying to sell something real. \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between having followers and having fans,\u201d he said. \u201cFollowers watch what you do. Fans buy what you sell.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCreators, he argued, know how to sell products to their own audiences better than any brand brief can. \u201cIf you allow a creator to sell a product to their audience authentically with their own voice,\u201d he said, \u201cthere is no better magic than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Variety\u2019s Entertainment Marketing Summit in Los Angeles, presented by Deloitte, brought together the most influential marketers, creatives and brand leaders who are shaping the future of entertainment.\u00a0Held April 22 at the Beverly Hilton, the summit covered the real-world impact of AI on creative workflows, how live experiences have become the center of the marketing mix, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[464752],"class_list":["post-2387071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment-marketing-2026-recap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Varietys-Entertainment-Marketing-Summit-Takeaways.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2387071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2387073,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387071\/revisions\/2387073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2387071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2387071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2387071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Margaret Walker, Executive Vice President of Entertainment Marketing for NBC Universal, described how the studio sits \u201cin a really unique place.\u201d <\/p>\n