Hey, you.
Let's role-play: Imagine you're a massive, globally known brand—with a marketing budget that makes the upcoming Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce wedding look like a church potluck.
Your logo is instantly recognizable. Your taglines are quoted like scripture. You have legions of fans.
You want to future-proof authenticity, deepen audience connection, and own first-party data. Oh, and you're determined to win the hearts and minds of Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
What's your 2025 marketing move? Do you...
- Launch a Netflix-style docuseries?
- Partner with K-pop group made entirely of holograms?
- Host a five-city festival where influencers ride in on flaming go-karts?
- Open a Discord dimension? Create a TikTok dance challenge?
Mmm (low murmur)... good guesses. You might actually do all of that. (You're that rich.)
But here's the twist: Two brands practically defined by speed and scale—Nike and NASCAR—just chose the slowest move in the book. They launched... wait for it... newsletters.
BUT!
Not just any
newsletters. Newsletters devoted to excellent storytelling as a centerpiece of an omnichannel strategy.
Gen Z gives you the Gen Z Stare. Say more, their eyes say.
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In June, Nike quietly launched In The Margins, a
bi-weekly Substack newsletter dedicated to storytelling through excellent sports writing.
It's the kind of writing that's hard to find just anywhere: Each story has a personal, behind-the-scenes feel.
Journalist and entrepreneur Robert Corder writes "Coming Out as a Jock." Athlete and writer Sarah Cristobal writes a tribute to the true endurance sport: motherhood.
The newsletter is part of Nike's
shift under new CEO Elliott Hill—a return to Nike's roots in culturally rich, resonant marketing. Nike is handing the mic to voices who can build relationships with an audience, without trying to force a brand agenda.
And it's choosing inboxes over social media's algorithmic roulette—where our marketing odds are about as good as a Vegas crapshoot.
Then last week, NASCAR became the first major sports league to announce an official Substack newsletter. I want to say NASCAR "lapped" the competition. (Because laps, see...? On the racetrack...? Am I overexplaining the joke? Yes. Yes I am.)
Right now, the NASCAR newsletter is still unnamed. But its goal is not unlike Nike's: build closer connections with (especially) younger fans by spotlighting personalities, culture, and behind-the-scenes stories—not just race results.
The plan is to leverage Substack's recommendation engine and community tools while tapping NASCAR's own lists and socials to grow subscribers.
It's also part of a broader media strategy: Discord (since 2021), Roblox gaming, Netflix and Amazon docuseries, a $50M production facility.
From EVP Tim Clark: "Today's audiences, particularly younger fans, are looking beyond highlights...to connect with the personalities, rivalries, and culture that fuel the sport."
BTW, I think NASCAR should name its newsletter one of these options I just now made up:
- The Fast and the Curious
- Vroom with a View (alt: Vroom Where It Happens)
- Wheelie Important Newsletter
* * *
Trusted voices. Capture energy. Bring fans closer.
Respectfully, Tim and Elliott: might I remind you we're expecting this from... (ahem)...
newsletters?!
You expect newsletters to carry that weight?
But yes. That's exactly what we're talking about.
I suppose there are a few key things we could learn from Nike + NASCAR:
1. Storytelling is the new brand messaging.
In The Margins is story-first, Nike-second. A driver's rivalry. A mother's essay. A fan's moment of recognition. Stories with actual heartbeats to make people care. Loyalty lives in the stories, because stories are what we
remember.
Brand isn't built in a boardroom; it's built in the hearts and minds of your customers. That's why even OpenAI and other big brands are suddenly hiring editorial strategists and storytellers. (The irony.)
Gen
Z agrees: "We can spot your fake story a mile away."
2. Social = discovery and conversation, not broadcast.
Use TikTok, Instagram, or whatever's next to spark curiosity. But the real relationship happens when someone opts into your inbox. Newsletters are slow social (slow-cial media?).
It's about the letter, not the
news.
For years, I told marketers everywhere that your job was not to build communities on rented land. The world has shifted. Now, the play is to use social as a place to connect and converse,
and to use it as the on-ramp to owned channels—like a newsletter.
3. Be everywhere—but with intention.
Omnichannel works when each channel has a clear job. It's not scattershot; it's symphony. Gen Alpha reminds us: "Raise the bar."
This isn't to say your brand NEEDS to be everywhere; it doesn't. Most of us should focus. As my friend Joe Pulizzi said at the Creator Economy Expo last week: "The more you are doing, the more likely you are producing mediocre content."
Unless you have bags of money. Like Nike and NASCAR.
* * *
Yet all that above is not the most interesting part to me. It's this: the lack of
scale.
Nike's In The Margins has just 1,300 subscribers so far. For a brand that big, the number looks ridiculously tiny.
Yet it seems intentional. Nike launched the newsletter without any promotion or fanfare. Not even a single press release.
It's a brave play: not chasing scale immediately, but instead cultivating a true community first. Finding what works, understanding what doesn't. It takes guts (and leadership support) to stand in a meeting room, clear your throat, and proclaim...
"GOOD PEOPLE OF NIKE! We're not here to rack up numbers—we're here to nurture a community worth showing up for."
Guts. And critical in 2025. Whether your brand is legacy-large or new-small.
We live in an era of infinite feeds, AI-generated content by the NASCAR-trunk-load, and platforms that reward speed and scale above all else. When the default is "flood the zone," choosing slowness is radical, isn't it?
This is the slower, sustainable approach. It's the kind of growth that actually lasts.
* * *
So that's a paradox worth noticing: In a world obsessed with speed and scale, two brands practically defined by speed and scale—Nike and NASCAR—are slowing
down with one of the oldest, most human-paced forms of media we have.
A deliberate, direct, personal newsletter is the living, breathing proof that sometimes the slowest move is the fastest way to
connect.
Gen Alpha agrees: "Don't market at me. Build with me."
Somewhere in the shadows, Gen Z gives a small nod.
It's imperceptible. But it's there, all the same.
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