This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

Iowa Pork Producers Association: With NIL deals becoming more commonplace, it’s harder for brands to stand out. So the pork trade group deserves credit for its newest deal, which involves NIL deals with four Iowa State University Cyclones football players: Myles Purchase, Tyler Moore, Tommy Hamann and Caleb Bacon—whose last names form the sentence “Purchase moore hammann bacon.”

“After the ‘Hamann Bacon’ photo went viral on social media following the Cyclones’ season opener, we knew we had to jump on this opportunity,” Trish Cook, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said in a statement.

NFL: Just when you think the league could not get any bigger, here comes Taylor Swift. The pop star’s appearance at Sunday’s Chiefs-Bears game to watch Travis Kelce earned a ton of attention, especially among Swifties. TV ratings among women were strong for the afternoon game on Fox.

There’s no telling how long the Swiftie bounce will last (maybe as long as the tight-end/pop star romance endures?)—but luck is on the NFL’s side. Swift is expected to appear in New Jersey on Sunday to watch Kelce’s Chiefs battle the Jets, and it just so happens to be NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” matchup, which is a ratings blockbuster even without her.

Read more on how the NFL is taking advantage of the Swift era

Plus, how brands are getting in on the Swift-Kelce fun

Related: Gannett is drawing nearly 1,000 applications for its new Taylor Swift and Beyoncé reporting beats, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Honda: The automaker has expanded production of its Shogo vehicles, which are electric cars that young children can ride while hospitalized. Sixty of the vehicles will be sent to hospitals nationwide. The first Shogo has been in operation at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California since December 2021.

Losers

Linda Yaccarino: The CEO of X caught flak on social media and from news outlets following her interview at the annual Code Conference. During the on-stage exchange with CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin, Yaccarino appeared at times to be unaware of certain plans announced by Elon Musk, X’s owner. At other times, she was unable to provide concrete figures on questions about daily active users. The fumbles prompted Insider to dub the interview a “car crash.” The appearance came on the heels of the former NBCUniversal executive’s interview with the Financial Times, another source of fun for social media commentators.

Amazon: The Federal Trade Commission sued the Seattle-based e-commerce giant, alleging Amazon inflates prices and overcharges sellers to create an online retail monopoly. Seventeen states, including Connecticut, Minnesota and New Jersey, joined the FTC in the lawsuit.

Formula 1: Could there be a dent in the racing league’s seemingly unstoppable growth? Data Analytics firm Buzz Radar asks, “Have we reached peak F1 popularity?” in a new report that reveals social mentions of F1 falling by 70% this year compared to 2022, with new followers across major F1 social accounts down 46% and overall social media reach down 64%. “Fans are using much more negative language like ‘boring’ and ‘annoying’—a big departure from the highly positive terms like ‘exciting’ and ‘interesting’ we found to be common in 2022,” states the report, which suggests the sport has become too predictable with “Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s almost-permanent residence on the top podium.”

Social post of the week

Number of the week

15%: The jump in Peleoton’s stock price, to approximately $4.70 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, following news of the fitness brand’s new partnership with Lululemon. (It rose another 5% on Thursday, but is still down nearly 40% this year.)

Quote of the week

“It’s about customer experience and customer journey over customer marketing. I can show an ad to someone that might pique their interest, but what I want to know is what brought them to me, what do they like about the service, why are they coming back and how can I continue to promote that service and behavior to repeat that positive influence on the customer experience?” —Robert Ayala, director of contact center consulting at Wunderman Thompson, on why retailers such as Foot Locker and Victoria’s Secret are investing in chief customer officers.

On the move

Seedtag, an advertising company, hired Seraphina Davey as global senior VP of publisher partnerships. She was most recently the leader of the EMEA publisher business at Taboola.

Peloton hired Nick Caldwell as chief product officer. He had been a general manager at Twitter, the company now known as X. He joins fellow Twitter veteran Leslie Berland, whom Peloton hired in January as chief marketing officer.