Brands are finally recognizing the value of investing in women's sports — and Ally Financial is helping pave the way.

Stephanie Marciano, Head of Sports and Entertainment Marketing at Ally, is responsible for the nation's largest all-digital bank's strategic direction and execution of sports partnerships. She unpacks the importance of women's sports to brands, how Ally is overcoming media challenges and what's ahead.

1. First things first: In the past 12 to 18 months, what have you noticed in terms of brands investing in women's sports?

Marciano: At Ally, it's been all about expanding our portfolio in women's sports. The first quarter alone in 2024, we've done seven deals — and all of them have been in women's sports.

• A few of our deals so far this year include partnering with the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) to become the presenting partner of the U.S. Women's Open, partnering with the Las Vegas Aces as their first-ever jersey sponsor and renewing our Ally Tipoff, which is the premier 'tipoff' event of the women's college basketball season.

Our foot is on the gas, and we are also aggressively pursuing our 50/50 pledge, which is our commitment to spend equally in paid media across men's and women's sports.

• We launched the pledge in May 2022. We started at 90/10 — spending 90% of our media in men's sports — and that's probably where a lot of brands still are today. Currently, we are almost there, but there is still work to be done.
• It's who we are now. That's how we plan. We are now a brand that spends 50% of our sports media in women's sports, and it's been doing wonders for our brand.

Women's sports is a business driver. We have seen the highest brand recognition, sentiment and awareness in our company's history. Our brand value has gone up 30% year over year.

• That means our brand is worth 30% more than it was last year — and last year was a really tough year for the financial sector.
• There were a lot of challenges across the market, and the reputation of all banks went down. But our trust amongst consumers went up 10% year over year and is at a historic high.

There's no question in our book that women's sports is driving our business forward — and we're just beginning to scale this market and see that growth.

2. The challenge: Brands have struggled with the lack of ad inventory in women's sports. Have you noticed this at Ally? How can brands overcome this challenge?

Marciano: Women's sports inherently have fewer established leagues that have the opportunity to be on linear TV.

• We're competing with men's sports and TV in general, which have proven to deliver for media companies. They may feel sometimes it's a risk to change up a model that's historically worked.

But it's getting better. There are a lot more media companies that are leaning in, and there are properties that are building out additional opportunities.

We partner and invest a lot with ESPN. They are an official media broadcast partner of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), and we are now one of the presenting partners of their weekly games.

• One of the biggest things we challenged ESPN with — and they leaned in — is promoting. We have media companies creating new inventory and putting more things on linear TV, but if you don't promote it, then it doesn't matter.
• I was tuned into the Oscars, and the first spot coming out of the Oscars was a promotion of the league promoted by Ally. That was incredible for me. You never see the promotion of women's sports after a feature program like that.

There are so many incredible emerging media platforms out there — it's not all about linear TV.

• When you build out your media plan, it's not just about spots and dots. We all want to talk about scale, but if you build a robust media plan that has live, emerging, athlete-led content opportunities, you can meet that moment from an inventory perspective.

3. Looking ahead: What is Ally's strategy as the brand continues to form intentional partnerships in women's sports?

Marciano: As a brand, we've been really laser-focused on diversification.

• We've been in women's soccer for a long time. We're now in golf, the WNBA and deeper in college sports. We're adding players to our Team Ally roster.

One challenge I'm seeing in the market right now is there's so much good, and there's so much excitement, and we're all responsible and accountable for creating value — but I do think we're also seeing a little bit of inflation in how we're pricing things.

• As a buyer, my job is to be a steward of my brand and my budget. We want to spend, and I think we all need to rightsize this market because inventory is worth more than it has been historically.
• What we can't do is grow too fast. We have to grow sustainably, and we have to be consistent with our growth.

If you're a seller, I know it's a hot moment, and I know you can strike while the iron is hot, but make sure you're securing the right brand partners that are going to lean in and activate.

• For us as a brand, we're smaller in our category, so if it's just the price tag, we may not be the right partner. But if you want someone who's going to lean in and activate and promote and commit to you, then we are the right brand partner.

We're all excited, and we're all building value — but let's just make sure we grow in the right way and that we have the tools to value our partnerships so we can deliver the right ROI.

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