Welcome to the next edition of On The Record, thoughtful analysis on culture, entertainment, tech, fashion, music, sport, and brands. Here’s a round-up of key conversations and campaigns that caught my attention this week.
This week is about intention and control. Women’s sport is scaling fast, but value is pooling at the top. Brands are stepping back from spectacle and leaning into trust, community and long-term equity. AI is quietly moving from tool to infrastructure, reshaping advertising, defence and civic expression at the same time. Across culture, sport, tech and media, the signal is clear: growth is no longer the win, credibility is, and this edition tracks who’s building it and who’s spending it.
Women’s Football Revenues Hit New Highs ⚽💷
📌 Arsenal Women and Chelsea Women led a record-breaking year for women’s football finances, with the top 15 clubs generating £132.8m in 2025, up more than 35 percent year on year. Arsenal topped the table on £21.5m following strong matchday performance and on-pitch success, while Chelsea delivered the fastest growth, driven by a sharp rise in commercial revenue. However, the data also points to widening inequality, with the top three clubs accounting for nearly half of all revenue and several lower-ranked clubs seeing slower growth or declining attendances after a record season previously.
Arsenal Women revenue reached £21.5m, up 43 percent year on year
Chelsea Women grew revenue by 90 percent, including £16m in commercial income
The top 15 clubs generated £132.8m, with eight WSL clubs represented
💡 Women’s football is entering a more mature commercial phase, but the next test is whether growth can scale beyond the biggest brands. ⚖️
Nike Sits Out Super Bowl 60 After Standout Return 🏈👟
📌 Nike has confirmed it will not advertise during Super Bowl 60, just one year after ending a 27-year hiatus with its widely praised “So Win” spot. The decision comes despite the campaign being hailed as a creative high point and delivering more logo screen time than any other brand during Super Bowl 59. Nike will still maintain a major presence as the NFL’s exclusive on-field apparel partner, while refocusing marketing investment as part of a broader brand turnaround strategy.
Nike returned to the Super Bowl in 2025 after 27 years with “So Win”
Super Bowl 60 ad slots are priced at $8m for 30 seconds
Nike group sales rose 1 percent year on year to $12.4bn
💡Nike’s Super Bowl pause signals a shift from cultural spectacle to sharper performance-led brand investment. 🎯
Global Risk and Global Health Are Now the Same Conversation 🌍⚠️
📌 New data from the World Economic Forum shows a fundamental shift in how risk operates and what ultimately threatens population health. In the short term, the most severe global risks are geopolitical and social, driven by misinformation, conflict, polarisation and instability. Over the longer term, risk becomes environmental and systemic, with climate change, biodiversity loss and resource stress rising to the top.
What links both timelines is health. The same forces shaping global risk are now the dominant determinants of health outcomes. Misinformation ranks as the most severe near-term risk, directly undermining trust, public health responses and crisis management. Extreme weather events follow closely, reflecting the growing health impacts of climate shocks, from displacement and food insecurity to mortality and mental health strain.
Two risks cut across every horizon: misinformation and inequality. Their persistence highlights that trust, cohesion and fairness are not peripheral issues but core infrastructure for resilience. Health is no longer primarily shaped inside healthcare systems, but upstream, through policy, environment, technology and social stability.
Misinformation and disinformation rank as the top short-term global risk and a leading threat to public health
Extreme weather events dominate both near- and long-term risk outlooks, with direct health consequences
Inequality amplifies exposure, vulnerability and recovery across all major risks
💡 The biggest threats to global health are no longer medical, they are social, environmental and systemic. 🧭
Bella Hadid Calls Out Dolce&Gabbana Over Milan Casting 🧵⚠️
📌 Bella Hadid publicly criticised Dolce&Gabbana following its Menswear Fall/Winter 2026-2027 show at Milan Fashion Week, calling out the brand for casting only white male models. Commenting on an Instagram video from the show, Hadid questioned continued support for the house, referencing what she described as a long-standing pattern of racism, sexism, bigotry and xenophobia.
The moment quickly reignited scrutiny of Dolce&Gabbana’s past controversies, from high-profile criticism over comments on IVF to the backlash surrounding alleged racist remarks about China in 2018. Hadid’s comments underline how casting choices are no longer viewed as neutral creative decisions, but as cultural signals that reflect a brand’s values and credibility.
The Menswear FW26-27 show reportedly featured only white male models
Hadid described the brand as having been “cancelled” for years due to repeated controversies
Dolce&Gabbana has faced multiple public scandals over the past decade, impacting its cultural standing
💡 In a culture where representation is table stakes, casting has become brand strategy, and silence is no longer neutral. 🧠
Battery-Powered Skis Could Be the Next E-Bike Moment ⛷️🔋
📌 The Financial Times has tested E-Skimo, the world’s first battery-powered ski-touring system, developed by Swiss start-up founder Nicola Colombo. Designed to assist uphill ascents rather than replace them, the skis use motors, sensors and AI-driven software to mirror the natural rhythm of ski touring, dramatically reducing effort while increasing distance and speed.
The innovation sits at the centre of a growing cultural tension between purist outdoor traditions and tech-enabled access. Like e-bikes before them, E-Skimo skis promise to open alpine touring to a broader audience, from older skiers to less experienced companions, while raising questions about noise, battery reliance and the changing meaning of “earning your turns”.
Each ski delivers up to 850W of power, with batteries offering around 1,500 metres of vertical gain per charge
Ascents can be up to four times faster with significantly less physical strain
Motors and batteries detach at the summit, converting the skis back to standard downhill gear
💡 E-Skimo shows how outdoor sport is being reshaped by the same access-versus-authenticity debate that transformed cycling and hiking. ⚡
Arsenal Launch Supporter-Led Matchday Project for Women’s Team 🏟️🔴
📌 Arsenal have launched Block by Block, a supporter-led consultation programme designed to give fans greater influence over the matchday experience at Emirates Stadium. The initiative follows the stadium becoming the permanent home of Arsenal Women for the 2025-26 season, hosting all 11 Women’s Super League fixtures.
More than 150 supporters have already taken part across six sessions, shaping everything from flag displays and large-scale tifos to matchday music and visual identity. The programme blends fan insight with creative collaboration, supported by Arsenal’s artistic community and first-team players including Olivia Smith, reinforcing the Emirates as a cultural home, not just a venue.
Over 150 supporters involved in consultation groups so far
Fans have co-created tifos, murals, flags and matchday music
More than 17,000 seasonal members are now signed up for Arsenal Women
💡 Block by Block shows how supporter co-creation is becoming central to building identity, atmosphere and long-term loyalty in the women’s game. 🧠
Anti-ICE Protests Are Reappearing Inside Roblox 🕹️✊
📌 Players on Roblox are once again staging anti-ICE protests inside the game, this time within a replica of downtown Minneapolis. Avatars gather holding signs, blocking roads and role-playing demonstrations opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, mirroring real-world protest dynamics inside a virtual environment.
This is not a one-off moment. Over the past year, multiple outlets have documented similar anti-ICE protests recurring across Roblox, particularly in open-world role-play experiences. The protests are entirely user-driven, reflecting how younger audiences increasingly process political events through shared digital spaces rather than traditional civic forums.
What’s notable is less the scale of any single protest and more the pattern: Roblox is repeatedly being used as a site of symbolic political expression, where play, identity and real-world issues blur.
Anti-ICE protests have appeared multiple times over the past year across Roblox experiences
Protests are player-organised, not affiliated with Roblox or real-world groups
Events often mirror real locations and current news cycles
💡 For a generation raised online, civic expression is increasingly happening where community already exists, inside games, not outside them. 🌐
What ChatGPT Advertising Actually Looks Like, and Why It Matters 🤖📣
📌 OpenAI has confirmed it will begin testing advertising on ChatGPT’s free tier and its low-cost subscription, ChatGPT Go, giving the first clear look at how ads will appear inside a conversational interface. The format is deliberately restrained: a clearly labelled “Sponsored” placement at the bottom of responses, separate from the answer itself.
The company is drawing a firm line between assistance and influence. Ads will not shape ChatGPT’s answers, user data will not be sold to advertisers, and personalisation can be turned off or cleared at any time. Unlike search and social platforms that retrofitted privacy controls after scale, OpenAI says its ad system is being built with these guardrails embedded from the start.
This positions conversational advertising as something distinct from traditional programmatic media. Rather than competing for attention mid-feed or mid-scroll, ads sit adjacent to intent-rich moments, raising new questions about context, tone and trust. The risk is clear: anything that feels interruptive rather than native could trigger backlash, not just against the platform but against the brand itself.
Ads appear clearly labelled as “Sponsored”, beneath responses
ChatGPT answers remain independent from advertising influence
Users can disable personalisation and clear ad data at any time
💡 Conversational AI isn’t just a new placement, it’s a new medium, and advertisers who treat it like programmatic inventory risk breaking the trust that makes it valuable in the first place. 🧠
What a Gen Z Brand Home Actually Needs to Deliver 🏠✨
📌 A new industry perspective by Ella Palmer argues that the traditional “brand home” model is no longer fit for purpose when it comes to Gen Z. This audience is rejecting both velvet-rope exclusivity and static brand museums in favour of spaces that feel aesthetic, adaptive and culturally alive. The next generation of brand homes must operate less like monuments and more like living feeds.
Visually, Gen Z expects spaces to feel algorithm-born and share-ready, shaped by AI aesthetics, surreal imagery and social-first design codes. But visuals alone are not enough. The most effective brand homes are modular and time-sensitive, borrowing from pop-up culture to create FOMO, repeat visits and a sense of discovery rather than permanence.
Crucially, community is the real currency. Gen Z looks to brand spaces as hubs for connection, creativity and cultural participation. Brand homes that succeed are those that embed themselves locally, blend art, music, food and performance, and reward loyalty with access, not status.
Gen Z favour aesthetic, immersive, shareable environments over heritage-led brand storytellinga
FOMO and changeability drive repeat visits, with permanent spaces adopting pop-up logic
Community, belonging and cultural exchange now outweigh exclusivity as brand value signals
💡 For Gen Z, a brand home isn’t a destination, it’s a cultural platform, and if it doesn’t evolve, it won’t matter. 🧠
Acast on Why Podcasting’s Next Phase Is About Intention, Not Reach 🎧📈
📌 New thinking from Acast positions 2026 as a defining year for podcasting, not because the medium is getting louder, but because it is getting more deliberate. In its latest industry outlook, Acast argues that growth will come from intention, trust and narrative depth, rather than scale alone, marking the rise of what it calls the “Narrative Influencer”.
Across strategy, product, creator growth, creative and sales, Acast’s leadership highlights a shared shift: discovery is fragmenting, but value is concentrating. Audiences now encounter podcasts across audio, video, social and search, yet monetisation and effectiveness depend on connecting those signals into coherent execution, not just insight.
For creators, success will hinge on obsessive audience focus, wherever fans show up. For brands, attention will be earned through creative, long-form storytelling that feels additive, not interruptive. And for the industry as a whole, podcasting’s competitive advantage remains trust-based attention, now increasingly measurable and commercially provable.
2026 is framed as the birth year of the “Narrative Influencer”, prioritising resonance over reach
Omnichannel discovery rewards platforms that connect data, planning and execution end to end
Trust-based attention is positioned as podcasting’s strongest and most defensible metric
💡 Podcasting’s next chapter won’t be won by who scales fastest, but by who earns attention most deliberately, and proves its business impact. 🧠
Spotify Is Redefining What B2B Marketing Can Look Like 🎧📊
📌 In a recent piece by The Brand Waves, Spotify is positioned as a case study in how B2B marketing is evolving beyond functional messaging into culture-led storytelling. Through an interview with Bridget Evans, Global Head of Advertising Business Marketing at Spotify, the article outlines how creativity, audience intelligence and cultural relevance are now central to how the platform engages brands.
Spotify’s approach treats advertisers less like buyers and more like fans and creators. From Cannes Lions-winning work like Spreadbeats to Tunetorials, Wrapped for Advertisers and Gen AI Audio Ads, the platform shows how data-rich environments can still feel expressive, human and entertaining. Rather than explaining value, Spotify’s B2B marketing demonstrates it, using the same emotional and cultural language that made the consumer brand iconic.
At the heart of the strategy is trust-based, multi-format storytelling. As podcasts, video and display increasingly converge, Spotify is building a B2B ecosystem that follows people throughout their day, pairing deep audience insight with creative tools that make advertising feel relevant rather than interruptive.
Spotify blends creativity, culture and data to make B2B marketing entertaining, not instructional
Podcasts and podfluencers are framed as high-trust environments, especially for Gen Z
Multi-format campaigns combining audio, video and display consistently outperform audio alone
💡 Spotify proves that B2B marketing works best when it stops talking at brands and starts creating experiences people actually want to engage with. 🎶
Source: The Brand Waves, “How Spotify is redefining B2B marketing through creativity, data, and culture” (Substack, Jan 2026)
Jaden Smith’s I Love You Restaurant Puts Dignity at the Centre of Giving 🍽️🌱
📌 The I Love You Restaurant, founded by Jaden Smith, expands on his original “I Love You” food truck project with a permanent restaurant concept designed to feed unhoused communities in Skid Row. The model is simple but intentional: people experiencing homelessness eat for free, while those who can afford to pay are asked to cover more than the cost of their meal to support others.
Launched after Smith began the food truck initiative on his 21st birthday, the project reframes charity as shared responsibility rather than one-way giving. By removing judgement and centring dignity, the restaurant uses food as both immediate support and a statement on inequality, access and community care.
The initiative sits within a wider pattern of Smith’s activism, which includes his work with JUST Water and leadership on clean water access projects in underserved communities, including Flint, Michigan. Taken together, these efforts position social impact not as an add-on to fame, but as a long-term commitment.
Unhoused guests receive free vegan meals, no conditions attached
Paying customers are encouraged to pay forward, covering food for others
The project builds on Smith’s wider work in food justice, water access and inequality
💡 The I Love You Restaurant shows how purpose-led initiatives earn credibility when impact is designed into the model, not added on afterwards. ❤️
Elon Musk’s Grok Is Heading Into Pentagon Systems 🤖⚔️
📌 The US Department of Defense has confirmed it will begin integrating xAI’s AI model Grok into Pentagon networks later this month, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The announcement signals an acceleration of the military’s AI adoption, with Grok set to operate across both classified and unclassified systems as part of a broader push to embed AI across defence infrastructure.
The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of Grok, which is embedded within X and has faced recent backlash for enabling the generation of sexual and violent imagery, as well as producing extremist and antisemitic content. While xAI has since restricted some functionality, regulators in multiple countries have intervened, including temporary bans and formal investigations.
The integration sits alongside wider Pentagon AI investments. The Department of Defense has already selected Google’s Gemini model to power its internal GenAI.mil platform and has awarded contracts worth up to $200m to firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Together, these moves underline how rapidly experimental AI is being folded into military decision-making, even as governance questions remain unresolved.
Grok will be integrated into classified and unclassified Pentagon networks
The DoD has awarded up to $200m in AI contracts across multiple providers
Grok is facing regulatory action and public backlash over content safety
💡 Military AI adoption is outpacing governance, raising urgent questions about safety, accountability and the standards applied when experimental tech meets state power. 🧠
Winter Olympics Brands Are Doubling Down on Women Athletes ❄️🏅
📌 As momentum builds toward the Winter Olympics, brand partnerships continue to roll in, with a growing focus on women athletes as cultural leaders and commercial drivers. Recent deals include Team Canada partner Kala Therapy, International Olympic Committee partner Samsung, and beverage brand Bloom, all aligning with women competitors in the lead-up to the Games.
The pattern reflects a broader shift in sports marketing strategy. Brands are moving beyond visibility-led sponsorships and toward partnerships that tap into trust, authenticity and long-term cultural relevance. Women athletes are increasingly seen not as niche ambassadors, but as central storytellers capable of driving both values and performance.
Multiple Winter Olympics sponsors are prioritising women athletes in new partnerships
Brands span wellness, tech and beverage, signalling cross-category confidence
The strategy reflects growing belief in women’s sport as a premium platform, not a side bet
💡Women athletes are no longer the future-facing choice for Olympic brands, they’re the smartest commercial one right now. 🧠
🎙️ Saks’ Bankruptcy and the Future of Luxury Retail
The Debrief (by The Business of Fashion)
Hosted by Brian Baskin & Sheena Butler-Young
Featuring Cathaleen Chen, BoF Retail Editor
📌 What this episode is about
This episode uses Saks Global’s Chapter 11 filing as a real-time lens on the structural cracks in luxury retail. It goes beyond headlines to unpack what retailer distress means for brand power, wholesale dependence, inventory flow, and the cultural role of department stores as status infrastructure. It’s a grounded, insider look at how luxury’s commercial model is being stress-tested in 2026.
✅ Worth Your Time Because:
The episode clearly shows how retail instability forces brands to make hard trade-offs between cashflow, control, and cultural scarcity - while signalling where luxury is heading next: fewer doors, tighter assortments, elevated service, and experience-as-media. It’s especially useful for marketers thinking about how cultural capital survives when traditional distribution weakens.
🔥 Top 5 Things to Do This Week (26 Jan – 2 Feb)
🎾 Australian Open Finals (18 Jan–1 Feb) – The women’s and men’s finals at the year’s first Grand Slam turn Melbourne into the centre of global sport and celebrity attention.
🎬 Sundance Film Festival – Closing Weekend (22 Jan–1 Feb) – The final days in Park City are when the biggest indie deals land and awards-season narratives are quietly locked in.
🎥 International Film Festival Rotterdam – Opening Week (29 Jan–8 Feb) – Europe’s most forward-thinking film festival kicks off, spotlighting bold global cinema and new industry voices.
🏀 NBA Paris Game 2026 (29 Jan) – The league’s flagship European fixture returns to Paris, underlining the NBA’s cultural and commercial expansion outside the US.
🎮 League of Legends LEC Winter Split – Opening Matches (24–26 Jan) – Europe’s top esports league launches its 2026 season, setting the tone for competitive gaming narratives this year.
👀 Things to Be Aware Of This Week
🎬 Sundance Awards Announcements (31 Jan–1 Feb) – Jury and audience winners emerge, often signalling which indie films will dominate the cultural conversation next.
🎾 Australian Open Champions Crowned (31 Jan–1 Feb) – New Grand Slam winners (or defining legacy moments) shape tennis, sponsorship and media storylines for the season ahead.
🏀 NBA Trade Deadline Momentum Begins (late Jan) – Front offices start positioning moves that can quietly reshape playoff narratives weeks before the deadline.
🎮 Esports Calendar Fully Reactivates (late Jan) – Major leagues across League of Legends, CS2 and Valorant move from offseason into full competition mode.
🔥 £132.8m – Total revenue generated by the top 15 women’s football clubs in 2025, up 35% year on year, with the top three accounting for 46% of all revenue. (Deloitte)
⚽ 90% – Year-on-year revenue growth at Chelsea Women, driven by £16m in commercial income, highlighting how sponsorship is now the main growth engine in the women’s game. (Deloitte)
🤖 “Low billions” – Expected advertising revenue OpenAI projects from ChatGPT ads in 2026, as conversational AI becomes a monetised media surface. (Financial Times)
🎧 69% – Spotify users say they are interested in video podcasts, reinforcing the shift toward multi-format, trust-led audio experiences. (Spotify Culture Next)
🏔️ 4x faster – Battery-powered E-Skimo skis can reduce ascent time by up to four times, mirroring the access-versus-authenticity debate seen with e-bikes. (Financial Times)
🎮 Multiple incidents in 12 months – Anti-ICE protests have repeatedly appeared inside Roblox role-play environments, showing how digital platforms are becoming spaces for symbolic civic expression. (Teen Vogue, Good Good Good)