This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

NBC: The network enjoyed a boost from a host of Thanksgiving week programming. The NFL delivered, as usual, with the 49ers-Seahawks Turkey Day game drawing 26.9 million viewers across NBC TV, Peacock, Telemundo, Universo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital platforms, according to the network, which called it the second-most watched Thanksgiving primetime game ever. But the “The 97th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” also carried on NBC platforms, actually outperformed football, attracting 28.5 million viewers across the live NBC broadcast, an encore broadcast and Peacock, making it the most-viewed Macy’s parade ever. 

As if that weren’t enough, NBC was tossed a bone by “The National Dog Show Presented by Purina,” which aired immediately after the parade and drew 11.5 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, which was up 5% and 7%, respectively, from last year. Of course, the real winner was Stache the Sealyham Terrier, who took home “Best In Show.”

Retailers: Despite a rash of early holiday shopping forecasts that offered more tempered results, consumers came out in droves on the Black Friday-Cyber Monday selling weekend, adding some much-needed cheer to retailers’ fourth quarters. A record 200.4 million consumers shopped over the five-day holiday weekend of Thursday through Monday, far surpassing last year’s 196.7 million spenders, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation. Worried about spending, retailers have flooded their marketing with deals and promotions this holiday season. The NRF said shoppers spent $321.41 on average over the weekend, about the same as 2022’s $325.44 average, but not adjusted for inflation, according to CNBC.

Lexus: The luxury auto brand took the top spot in Consumer Reports’ 2023 auto reliability survey, with sibling brand Toyota coming in second, reports Automotive News. Chrysler game in last. But the big takeaway from this year’s report is the finding that electric vehicles are far less reliable than gasoline-powered vehicles, which Consumer Reports pegged to the fact that they rely on newer tech. “The longer a vehicle or a technology is in production, the more the bugs are worked out,” Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, told Automotive News.

Losers

Chopt: Finger salad might not be on the official menu of the 70-unit lunch East Coast lunch chain, but it was allegedly on offer earlier this spring for one unfortunate diner, according to a new lawsuit. Filed this week in Westchester County in New York, the lawsuit alleges that a patron’s salad had the remains of a Chopt manager’s finger in it when she visited a location in April. Though the employee went to the hospital, the finger and contaminated food were left behind in the assembly line, according to the filing. The customer is suing Chopt for “serious personal injuries” resulting from the health code violation.

Family Dollar: The discount chain owned by Dollar Tree might not be such a big part of the family as much moving forward. Dollar Tree this week said it is reviewing the Family Dollar brand and may close underperforming stores or rebrand them as Dollar Tree instead. Overall, dollar stores have performed well with consumers for their low-cost offerings at a time of inflation. Such retailers have also become savvier on social media by leaning into trends such as TikTok hauls.

Mars: The candy giant is the subject of a CBS News investigation published this week alleging that the company has not done enough to stop child labor on the small farms in Ghana that harvest cocoa beans Mars uses in its chocolate. The story suggests that systems put in place to keep children in schools, not on farms, have failed—one cocoa field supervisor, who spoke to CBS News on the condition of anonymity, said that “almost every data” used to make up the lists [documenting kids in schools] “is cooked ... or is not accurate,” adding that he had personally “made up lists before.” 

Mars told CBS News, “We condemn the use of child labor. Despite our requests, CBS did not provide specific details of their investigation to Mars ahead of time in order for us to investigate claims of misconduct at the time of this report.”

The reporting comes the same week the company touted a sustainability effort that involves recycling old ads.

Social post of the week

Read more about Spotify Wrapped 2023

Number of the week

71%: The share of consumers using so-called GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic for weight loss who are Gen X or millennials, according to market research firm Numerator. 

Quote of the week

“Someone just fucked himself for sure.”—technology journalist Kara Swisher, responding on X after Elon Musk in a Thursday on-stage interview at the New York Times DealBook conference  told advertisers that recently stopped spending money on X to “go fuck yourself.” 

Read more: Musk bluntly tells off advertisers that pulled ads from X

On the move

Merrell hired Pallav Tamaskar as chief marketing officer. He was most recently executive VP and managing director of Myprotein North America, a sports nutrition brand. He replaces Janice Tennant in the CMO role, which has been vacant since her promotion to global brand president in May.

Inspire Brands promoted Scott Murphy to chief brand officer, tasked with overseeing Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, Sonic and Baskin-Robbins. Murphy was previously the president of Dunkin’.

Freshworks, a software company with generative AI offerings, hired Mika Yamamoto as chief marketing officer and chief customer officer. She had been executive VP and chief marketing and customer engagement officer at F5.

HP hired Antonio Lucio back as executive VP, chief marketing and coporate affairs officer. The veteran marketer had been global chief marketing and communications officer of HP from 2015 to 2018, when he left to become global CMO of Meta, a post he held for two years.

Contributing: Erika Wheless