This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

High Noon: The 3-year-old vodka-based seltzer is now the largest spirits brand in the U.S., surpassing Tito’s Vodka, according to a new report from liquor trade publication Shanken News Daily. The E.&J. Gallo-owned brand grew sales by an astonishing 85.6% last year, when measured by millions of 9-liter cases, according to Shanken. The rise is evidence of the surging popularity of spirits-based canned cocktails. Tito’s is still chugging along, posting 5% growth. No. 3-ranked Smirnoff slipped 2%.

Read more: Behind the canned cocktail surge

General Motors: The automaker reclaimed the U.S. sales crown after its vehicle deliveries reached 2.258 million last year, up 2.5%, besting Toyota, whose 2.1 million U.S. sales marked a 9.6% decrease from 2021, reports Automotive News.

Shopify: Meeting haters might want to subtly clue in their bosses about Shopify’s recently announced goal for 2023—fewer meetings! The Canadian tech company, which provides e-commerce services to retailers, said it plans to clear calendars of “all previously scheduled recurring meetings involving three or more people,” according to a report in CNN. Shopify will also have meeting-free Wednesdays and Thursday meetings with groups larger than 50 people will occur only in a six-hour timeframe, the company said. In the Zoom era of remote work, too many meetings has been a common complaint among staffers—and perhaps with good cause. Some studies show that 70% of meetings actually prevent employee production. Let’s hope Shopify is onto something other employers will follow.

Losers

Equinox: A January campaign from the high-end health club inadvertently attracted some backlash this week. Equinox said it would not be accepting new members on Jan. 1, and ran an ad in print and on social media claiming it does not “speak January.” While some thought the campaign made sense—Equinox has typically embraced nonconformity as a brand—many criticized Equinox for shunning potential customers who are trying to improve their health and wellness. 

The campaign also attracted the attention of fellow gym chain Planet Fitness, which promoted its January fluency on social media this week.

Meta: The Facebook and Instagram owner was slapped with a $414 million fine by the European Union’s main privacy watchdog, which found that its method of using personal data for ads violated EU policy. Bloomberg has more.

Amazon: The e-commerce giant was one of a host of companies that announced new layoffs this week—however, its cuts ran the deepest. Amazon said it will be cutting more than 18,000 staffers, marking its biggest employee reduction ever. Though the cuts amount to just 1% of the company’s workforce, the number is nevertheless staggering and a negative sign for the year ahead. Others making cuts this week include clothing retailer Stitch Fix and software company Salesforce, both of which announced a second wave of layoffs following cuts made in 2022. 

Things don’t look much better at agencies: Anomaly is slashing its U.S. headcount by 8%, and media agency Empower is making a 15% cut.

Ad Age is tracking all big layoffs here.

Tweet of the week

Number of the week

500: Percent increase in Levi’s content needs since 2020, according to Chief Marketing Officer Karen Riley-Grant.

Quote of the week

“TikTok audiences gravitate towards and engage with brands who are ‘in on the joke’—understanding the shared humor on the platform.”—Tyler Wentworth, strategy director at Movers+Shakers, on Kohl’s response to a NSFW TikTok video. 

On the move

Julie Fussner was named chief marketing officer of Culver Franchising System, Inc., parent of the 890-unit Culver's restaurant chain. Fussner is the company's first CMO in its 38-year history. She spent the last five years as Culver's VP of marketing.

Contributing: Jon Springer