This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

Caitlin Clark: The University of Iowa basketball phenom—who will lead her team in the Women’s Final Four tonight—is a breakout March Madness star. “The 21-year-old Des Moines native has entered that rare Steph Curry meets Connor McDavid space where you kind of have to drop everything to watch her play,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay. She already has a multitude of NIL deals, including with Nike, Buick, Topps, H&R Block, Bose and Hy-Vee, reports the Des Moines Register.  “Her on-court play produces viral moments on social media and has garnered attention from national sports pundits, professional athletes, musicians and entertainers,” the newspaper stated.

Pepsi: The soda brand’s new logo is netting mostly positive reviews among designers, who typically are not afraid to throw shade. “Pepsi explodes out of its dreary millennial design malaise. And it comes out swinging,” Brian Collins, co-founder and chief creative at Collins told Ad Age. Read more reviews here.

Related news: Inside Pepsi's rebrand

Foundation to Combat Antisemitism: The campaign released earlier this week as part of a $25 million effort to bolster awareness about the recent rise in antisemitic incidents introduced a blue square as a call to action. But it was a series of ads featuring supportive acts from bystanders that were particularly powerful at driving the FCAS’ mission.

Losers

Burberry: The upscale brand found itself the subject of mockery when its $2,890 tote bag appeared in the Season 4 premiere of HBO series “Succession” Sunday night. Cousin Greg, the character played by Nicholaus Braun, brings a woman carrying a large Burberry bag to a birthday party for wealthy patriarch Logan Roy, and is ridiculed for the tote’s size. It’s “ludicrously capacious,” says Tom, who is played by Matthew Macfadyen, noting the bag could be used in a bank job. The internet reacted:

Metaverse: Massive layoffs in Disney’s metaverse department this week, which follow similar moves by Microsoft and Meta, prompted the Wall Street Journal to snarkily call the virtual reality landscape the “Meh-taverse” in a headline. Meh indeed. It seems most of the advertising world is already on to the next big thing–AI.

Read: What Disney's metaverse exit means for Web3 marketing

Agency employees: Salaries in the industry are falling from highs reached during the Great Resignation, as supply now catches up with demand, Ad Age reported this week. “I have seen a noticeable back-to-reality level for salaries since they and titles were inflated in the months post-COVID,” said Tony Stanol, president of industry talent firm Global Recruiters of Sarasota.

Read more: Ad salaries come down from Great Resignation levels

Tweet of the week

Number of the week

200%: Increase in annual sales of Crocs since 2019, according to a New York Times article about the brand’s continual success. Crocs’ 2022 revenue was $3.6 billion.

Quote of the week

“You can’t fake it, it has to be real. This is a wake-up call for marketers, agencies and allies in DE&I because it becomes lazy to create an image rather than putting in the work to find the right person. It’s a lazy approach to an issue that deserves better.” –Jerri DeVard, founder of the Black Executive CMO Alliance, about Levi’s decision to use AI-generated models to increase diversity.

On the move

DICE, a ticket-buying platform, hired Katie Soo as chief business officer. Soo, a former Ad Age 40 Under 40 honoree, had most recently been chief marketing officer at learning subscription site KiwiCo.

Kristin Harrer, who was hired as global chief marketing officer of Vans two years ago after working as CMO of Dollar Shave Club, is no longer with the footwear brand, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Stephen Curry extended his deal with Under Armour to include the role of president of the three-year-old Curry Brand.