Marketing winners and losers of the week

This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers. Winners On: The popular Swiss brand might be winning the sportswear race. The company, which is backed by tennis pro Roger Federer and even sports its own “Roger” collection, reported stellar earnings this week. For the third quarter, net sales rose 46.5% over the year-earlier period to $540.2 million, led by strength in On’s direct-to-consumer offerings, which rose 54.6%. Front Office Sports compared the 13-year-old brand’s progress to rivals Nike, Under Armour, Adidas and Puma, which have all had weaker sales results in recent months. Thanksgiving travel: Consumers are expected to hit the skies and roads next week ahead of Turkey Day. The AAA released its Thanksgiving holiday forecast earlier this week and predicts the weekend will be the third busiest since 2000, when it first began tracking such travel. Some 55.4 million travelers are expected to go at least 50 miles from home for the travel period, a 2.3% increase over last year, AAA said. Airlines are ready to entice with lower fares. The average price for a U.S. flight around the Thanksgiving holiday period was down 9% from last year, according to a recent story in the New York Times. Read more: Why Delta is opening a pop-up shop in JFK Airport Plus: Thanksgiving food mashups from DiGiorno and more Dove: The beauty brand has put forth a practical solution for the problem of Black gamers believing video games poorly represent textured hair. The Unilever brand teamed up with Open Source Afro Hair Library to create the first complete guide for coding natural hair in video games. Also read: Dove helps bring Black hair styles to gaming See all of Ad Age’s Breakout Brand Leaders here Losers Marvel: The superheroes might need a superhero of their own after this box office blunder. “The Marvels,” the 33rd movie from Disney’s Marvel Studios, opened last weekend to box office results of just $47 million in the U.S. and less than $100 million globally, the lowest opener since 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk.” The new female-centric film stars Brie Larson reprising her Captain Marvel role, alongside Ms. Marvel, played by Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. Disney might be banking on another popular franchise to boost its film prospects. The company just confirmed “Frozen 4” is definitely happening, along with the forthcoming “Frozen 3.” Let’s hope consumers suffering from superhero fatigue might want to build a snowman. Oreo: The Mondelēz brand is the latest victim of claims of “shrinkflation,” a phenomenon when product portions are pared back to deal with rising costs. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Oreo fans allege the cookies have less filling. Mondelēz denies the claims, saying it hasn’t messed with the cookie-to-creme ratio, the Journal reports. But enough people are concerned to fuel a Reddit forum on the topic. Higher gas prices? Well, OK. Higher prices at the grocery store? Well, I guess I'll deal with it. Higher prices (shrinkflation) on my Oreos? Now I'm mad!!https://t.co/SfncrFBRlK pic.twitter.com/kdiZEtEG1z— Robert Falcon (@FinanceTaxPlan) November 14, 2023 Electric vehicles: The EV market is not living up to the hype, at least so far. While prices are falling, consumers think the vehicles are still too expensive, with cost emerging as the top barrier to purchase, according to a new report from S&P Global Mobility, according to Automotive News, which reports that about two-thirds of S&P’s respondents said they were open to purchasing an EV—a 19-percentage point drop from 2021. Social post of the week every brand is searching travis kelce’s old tweets rn pic.twitter.com/QG6Rn8713L— Rachel Karten (@milkkarten) November 16, 2023 Number of the week $975,000: The price of a one-of-a-kind Cadillac Carmen Celestiq, one of eight “fantasy gifts” in the 2023 edition of the Neiman Marcus annual holiday catalog. Automotive News has more. Quote of the week “Fans of women’s sports are younger, more affluent and better educated.”—Thayer Lavielle, executive VP of Wasserman’s The Collective, on the rise of women’s sports, which is drawing new brand interest. On the move Scott Johnson has been named chief marketing officer of restaurant chain Checkers & Rally’s, succeeding Dwayne Chambers. Johnson most recently served as VP and head of marketing for Jollibee Group, where he led marketing for Smashburger and JFC North America. RainFocus, an event marketing company, promoted Ashleigh Cook to chief marketing officer, a newly created position. She had been senior VP of marketing. Mattel hired Michelle Mendelovitz as head of Mattel Television Studios. She most recently worked as executive producer at Hiddenlight Productions. Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2023 Ad spending, rankings and analysis for the top 100 advertisers Click here

Marketing winners and losers of the week

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