This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.
Marketing News & Strategy
Marketing winners and losers of the week
Dunkin’s new velour tracksuits are a hit and Disney scores with ‘Moana 2’—plus, why it was a bad week for Roblox, LG and Sonos
Dunkin’s tracksuits are bedazzled.
Credit:
Dunkin' Donuts
Winners
Dunkin’
The chain’s new line of Super Bowl-themed merch—specifically bedazzled Juicy Couture tracksuits in Dunkin’s orange and pink brand colors—quickly sold through most of its inventory minutes after launching Thursday morning. By afternoon, all that remained of the limited run were a few small sizes of orange pants. The “DunKings” and “DunQueens” velour products are part of Dunkin’s Super Bowl campaign this year, which stars Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck (a longtime Dunkin’ fan) and Jeremy Strong making light of his infamous method acting strategies. Last year, the brand also released a line of merchandise.
Disney
The media giant is riding a “Moana 2” wave after it partially attributed strong fiscal first-quarter results to the movie’s recent success. Disney reported quarterly revenue of $24.7 billion, up 5% from a year earlier. The company also said that its streaming operation and film studio helped usher in a 31% rise in operating income for the period, which ended Dec. 28.
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Non-alcoholic beer
A recent survey from 84.51˚, Kroger’s data science company, suggests that non-alcoholic beer may get a prominent seat at the Super Bowl table this year. The group found that 29% of shoppers plan to purchase such beverages for the Big Game. In particular, those consumers ages 35 to 44 scored especially high on purchase intent.
Losers
Roblox
The gaming platform posted disappointing fourth-quarter results that included daily user declines. In the quarter ended Dec. 31, Roblox said its daily active users fell 4% to 85.3 million from the prior quarter—Wall Street analysts had expected the figure to be 88.4 million, according to Bloomberg. Bookings, at $1.36 billion, were also less than the expected $1.37 billion.
LG Electronics
The brand issued a recall of 500,000 electric ranges, of both slide-in and freestanding styles, on Thursday. LG warned the ranges’ front knobs could unintentionally activate; the issue has led to at least 86 reports of unintentional activation, including more than 28 fires, eight human injuries and three pet deaths. LG had sold the products from 2015 through last month.
Sonos
The audio brand laid off 200 staffers this week as part of restructuring, news that was first reported by the Verge. In a memo, Interim CEO Tom Conrad wrote that Sonos has become “mired in too many layers that have made collaboration and decision-making harder than it needs to be.”
Quote of the week
“It’s a real tongue and we had tongue puppets too—live tongue artists with tongue puppets. It’s not CGI, it’s a live tongue dancing its way because it loves Coffee mate cold foam.” —Daniel Jhung, president of Nestlé USA’s beverage and coffee business, at an Ad Age virtual event this week discussing Super Bowl 2025 advertising.
Social post of the week
Number of the week
11.9%
Increase in the price of cherry tomatoes this Super Bowl Sunday over last year’s Super Bowl, according to data examining food price changes from Wells Fargo, which also found that fresh avocado prices will be up 11.5%.
On the move
Just Salad promoted Jennifer Lally to chief marketing officer from VP of marketing.
Sam’s Club promoted Diana Marshall to chief experience officer. She had been chief growth officer.
Upstart beverage brand Gorilla Energy has named Oliver Holzmann as its chief marketing officer. Holzmann spent more than 20 years at Red Bull, serving most recently as U.S. VP of marketing.
Contributing: Jon Springer
