This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

Ring Concierge: The 10-year-old New York brand turned lemons into lemonade when it used its own store robbery to grow its brand awareness. After a break-in last month at its new flagship, Ring’s marketing team put together a heist-themed digital and in-person campaign. The brand promoted certain styles as “burglar-approved.” As a result, social media engagement grew to record levels for the brand–on Instagram Stories, Ring saw a 142% higher than average engagement level, according to Glossy.

Jimmy Choo: The high-end shoe brand topped a recent list of the Most Loved Brands in the U.S. from consumer intelligence company Talkwalker and social media management firm Hootsuite. The report looked at over 1,500 global brands and based its rankings on passion, trust and customer satisfaction, and also examined each brand’s environmental, social and sustainability issues. A holiday advent calendar that went viral on TikTok helped Jimmy Choo grow in popularity with influencers such as Kim Kardashian. A wedding video on YouTube where the bride wore Jimmy Choos also contributed to the brand’s rise. Downy and Dolce & Gabbana came in second and third on the list.

Apple: The digital giant unveiled a host of new features at its Worldwide Developers Conference this week, including upgrades consumers have been clamoring for, such as an edit text message function and lock screen widgets. A new Apple Pay Later feature will put pressure on existing buy, now pay later companies such as Klarna and Affirm. In addition, Apple’s new MacBook Air, though higher-priced, received favorable reviews.

Read more: What Apple Pay Later means for marketers

 

Losers

Celebrity crypto endorsements: It was another tough week for crypto. This U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned investors about the dangers of cryptocurrency in a public service campaign. “Investing is not a game,” a voiceover cautioned as one spot showed a woman losing when playing a category called “Celebrity Endorsements” during a "Jeopardy"-type game.

Read more about the SEC taking on crypto here

Wieden+Kennedy: The acclaimed agency lost its second big brand in nine months, when Anheuser-Busch InBev put Bud Light into review and W+K opted not to defend it. It comes on the heels of KFC parting ways with the shop late last year.

Related: 5 agencies changing the Bud Light account

Burger King: The fast-food chain’s move to sell a “Pride Whopper” with “two equal buns” in Austria is the kind of surface-level stunt that LGBTQ+ advocates advise against. Negative headlines came quickly, including from the New York Post, which rounded up some of the consumer backlash.

Related: How brands are celebrating Pride Month

Tweet of the week

Quote of the week

“The gravitational force is definitely around the metaverse.” —Donnie Williams, executive VP and chief digital officer of Horizon Media, on Chapter & Verse, Horizon’s new Web3-focused division that he co-founded. He added that consumers appreciate how the metaverse appears to be a commercial or in-game activation, which is opening the door for new marketing strategies.

Read more: Horizon Media enters the metaverse

Number of the week

$623 million: The amount travel brands invested in advertising from January through April, a 43% increase over the year-earlier period, according to advertising intelligence platform MediaRadar.

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On the move

Jane, an e-commerce retailer, appointed ​​JP Knab as chief marketing officer. He had been senior VP of marketing at Aura, a digital security company.

CoinFund, an investment firm focused on Web3 and blockchain, hired Margaret Gabriel as head of talent. She had most recently worked as head of learning and development at Gemini, the crypto firm.