This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

NBA: The league notched its best ratings for opening playoff weekend since 2011, with an average of 4.05 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and TNT, Front Office Sports reports.

Wieden+Kennedy: The agency landed an NFT client with Boss Beauties coming aboard as it looks to expand its brand positioning. The move is the latest in a series of wins for the agency, which recently rolled out its first work for new client Hotels.com. (Fans of Captain Obvious won’t be happy, though, as the agency and client gave him the boot.) W+K also announced some organizational moves, including promoting Rebecca Groff, formerly global director of communications and public relations, as its first chief marketing officer.

PETA: Who says the animal rights group can’t get along with fast food giants? In an unusual collaboration with a normal adversary, PETA bought worked with McDonald’s operators in Texas and California for a bulk purchase of McPlant burgers—without cheese and mayo—for a giveaway. Franchisees might be the real winners, as the buy boosted sales.

Losers

Lucky Charms: Lucky the Leprechaun has bigger problems than keeping the kids away from his charms. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the General Mills-owned cereal brand after consumer complaints about getting sick after eating it. 

Netflix: The streaming giant’s loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter dominated business headlines this week and sent its stock price into a tailspin. But Netflix’s loss could be the marketing industry’s gain, as the drop forces the company to consider creating an ad-supported tier, which would open up coveted inventory to brands.

Read more: How Netflix can build its ad business—with advice from industry leaders

Roblox: Ad watchdog group Truth in Advertising accused the gaming brand of deceptive advertising this week in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission. A letter TINA submitted noted that Roblox does not distinguish between what is advertising from brands like Nike and Hyundai and what is not—a potential issue for the more than 25 million children who comprise Roblox’s daily active user base. Brand safety has been a key concern for the metaverse, which some have described as a Wild West of advertising.

Revolve: The retailer infamous for a fat-shaming sweatshirt four years ago is in the hot seat once again. Los Angeles-based Revolve came under fire this week when influencers compared its recent Revolve Festival to the well-known and disastrous Fyre Festival. Some called Revolve’s event, where many who paid to attend had trouble getting food, water and transportation, “Frye Festival 2.0.”

In response, Revolve recently said that its event, which was near the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, involved close work with “all appropriate city and safety authorities.” The retailer also said, "With an event of this magnitude, city regulations mandate an off-site location for guest check-in and parking, as well as licensed shuttle transportation to and from the venue. The off-site lot was set up with guest parking, as well as rideshare drop-off and pickup access with added WIFI for car booking, restrooms, shade, water, medics and security." 

More marketing winners and losers

CNN: That was quick. The network announced Thursday it was shutting down CNN+, its short-lived streaming service that was launched in March. The decision was made as part of CNN’s new management structure following the merger of CNN parent WarnerMedia with Discovery. Hundreds of CNN employees may be laid off and CNN+ customers will receive prorated refunds.

Tweet of the week

Number of the week

48%: Share of U.S. adults who say they could not get by without their smartphone, according to Kantar. The number is actually down from an average of 61% between 2012 and 2019.  Smartphone usage has not declined, of course, so “it appears Americans’ love affair with their phones has tempered over time as they’ve gotten used to the tech,” Kantar states. 

And here is a troubling sign for smartphone marketers: ”Most Americans, from teens to their grandparents, don’t feel there is much differentiation in the current smartphone market,” Kantar reports, “with 56% reporting that ‘smartphones today are all pretty much the same.’”

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Quote of the week

“It never turned the corner. We felt that, after sitting with the product team and looking at the evolution of the product and where it’s going to be in the next few years, [the Captain Obvious] platform didn’t do any more justice—we needed to press reset and do something more in tune with where we are going.” —Hector Muelas, senior VP of global marketing and creative at Expedia, on Hotels.com's decision to ditch long-time mascot Captain Obvious.

On the move

Real estate platform Cadre appointed Dustin Cohn chief marketing officer. He had been head of marketing at Goldman Sachs for the Marcus brand and wealth management.