This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

Elf: Son of a nutcracker! “Elf,” the comedic Christmas classic starring Will Ferrell in the titular role as Buddy the Elf, is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a special series of events with the Empire State Building, which many will recall had a starring role in the film as housing the office of Buddy’s human father. The ESB is planning to host a special tower lighting, film screenings and themed decor through the holidays. In addition, On Location Tours is offering Manhattan tours of locations from the movie. Other brands joined in the festive spirit on social media.

Planet Fitness: The fitness chain bulked up revenue by 14% to $277.6 million in the third quarter, topping analyst expectations. Profit, at $39.1 million, was a healthy jump from the year-earlier period’s $26.9 million. Planet Fitness also raised its yearly guidance as executives expect gains to continue. Long known as an inexpensive gym option, the brand may also be testing a price boost, increasing from $10 to $15 for a membership in some markets.

Nintendo: The gaming giant is following its mega-hit “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with a film based on its “The Legend of Zelda” game franchise—and investors are impressed. The company’s stock price soared 6% on Wednesday in the wake of the announcement, its biggest jump in three years, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Losers

WeWork: As expected, the one-time poster child of the coworking office space trend has filed for bankruptcy protection. The filing is a staggering fall for a company valued at $47 billion as recently as 2019. As part of its restructuring, WeWork plans to let go of 70 of its leases; it owes nearly $100 million in rent.

Dunkin’: It’s not a good look when one of your top endorsers is caught with a competitor—and that is exactly what happened this week when a picture of Ben Affleck holding a Starbucks cup circulated on social media. Granted, it was an old photo—the paparazzi shot was originally taken in 2014, according to The Independent. But the picture’s newfound attention comes soon after Affleck starred in his third Dunkin’ ad in less than a year.

The Sphere: The Las Vegas-based arena that took five years—and $2.3 billion—to create reported significant losses this week. Sphere Entertainment Co. noted an operating loss of $98.4 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30; in addition, Chief Financial Officer Gautam Ranji has exited the company after 11 months. The news prompted a series of inevitable jokes.

Tweet of the week

Number of the week

9.6 million: Viewership for Sunday’s Chiefs-Dolphins game in Frankfurt on NFL Network, making it the most-watched international game on record for the network.​​

Quote of the week

“Treating workers well is its own form of good advertising because then you aren’t risking an angry employee going viral about you online.”—Joanna Piacenza, head of industry intelligence at Morning Consult, on a new report showing that internal company actions resonated with customers more than external advocacy.

Read more: Most consumers aren’t interested in brand political stances

On the move

Quantum computing company IonQ hired Margaret Arakawa as chief marketing officer. She spent 20 years at Microsoft and most recently served as CMO for Outreach and Fastly.

New Belgium Brewing has named Shaun Belongie as its new CEO, succeeding Steve Fechheimer, who stepped down earlier this year. Belongie had served as New Belgium’s CMO for the last five years.

Contributing: Jon Springer