This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

Gap

The retailer’s turnaround strategy earned it an upgrade from a JPMorgan Chase retail analyst earlier this week. The analyst, Matthew R. Boss, cited new moves around trend-right product and appealing stories implemented by CEO Richard Dickson. Dickson, a former Mattel executive responsible for Barbie’s revival, joined Gap Inc. last year. Indeed, recent music-centric marketing efforts from the long-struggling brand have resulted in Gap’s return to the cultural zeitgeist.

Read more: The Best DTC marketing of 2024

Thom Browne

The designer prevailed in a lawsuit with Adidas. The sportswear giant had accused Browne, who used four stripes together in an apparel design, of trademark infringement on its three-stripe mark. A U.K. judge said this week that Adidas does not own the stripes, Fast Company reported.  

TikTok Shop

The e-commerce platform is having a happy holiday. The service, which debuted in September 2023, drove more than $100 million in U.S. sales on Black Friday, a representative told Ad Age, tripling its year-ago take. As Bloomberg reported, TikTok Shop also drew a 165% annual increase in shoppers for the two days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and there were more than 7 billion views of posts that included the hashtags #tiktokshopblackfriday or #tiktokshopcybermonday.

Losers

Twitch

The Amazon-owned gamer-oriented service is dealing with an advertiser revolt. AT&T Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Dunkin’ Brands have all pulled ads in the wake of allegations that Twitch is promoting antisemitic content, according to Bloomberg. “Despite what a handful of online personalities claim, we do not tolerate antisemitism on Twitch,” a Twitch spokesperson said.

Coca-Cola Co.

The beverage giant is being accused of greenwashing after quietly removing from its website a pledge to have “at least 25 percent of all beverages worldwide by volume sold in refillable/returnable glass or plastic bottles or in fountain dispensers with reusable packaging by 2030.” Its new goals, published Dec. 2, do not mention a percentage goal for the use of reusable packaging, reports Plastics News.  

Greenpeace USA blasted “Coke’s abandonment of its reuse commitment,” calling it a “disaster for the planet.” Coca-Cola pointed to the portion of the company’s press release indicating plans to expand its use of refillable packaging in certain markets where infrastructure is in place, according to Plastics News. The criticism comes months after Coke won a Cannes Grand Prix for its “Recycle Me” billboard campaign intended to promote recycling on a mass scale.

Taylor Swift

The singer received some rare criticism this week following the release of “The Eras Tour Book.” The coffee-table book, which is exclusively selling at Target for $39.99, is riddled with typos, grammatical errors and blurry photos. The problems were first noticed by Swifties and posted online.

However, the book’s mistakes are not stopping sales. “Eras Tour” sold 814,000 copies over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the Associated Press reported, citing data from market research firm Circana.

Quote of the week

“Underpinned by our desire for everyday pleasures, PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse expresses a level of thoughtful indulgence. Sophisticated and lush, yet at the same time an unpretentious classic, PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse extends our perceptions of the browns from being humble and grounded to embrace the aspirational and luxe.”  —Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, on 2025’s Color of the Year Mocha Mousse.

Social post of the week

Number of the week

15

The age of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” whose cast members recently gathered to celebrate in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, to celebrate the series’ 15th anniversary. The show “changed the reality TV game the moment it hit MTV, becoming an instant smash hit and the highest-rated series in network history. And let’s be real, a lot of its lingo is still going strong today,” according to TMZ.

On the move

Etsy promoted Chief Brand Officer Brad Minor to chief marketing officer, effective in January. The online marketplace also hired Nidhi Gupta as VP of growth and marketing. She was most recently senior director of marketing and head of global media and performance marketing at eBay.

Lyft hired Suzie Reider as executive VP, Lyft media and Lyft business. She had been managing director of partnerships and programs at Google.

Bumble said Chief Marketing Officer Selby Drummond is exiting the brand in January.

Fanatics brought Jeremi Gorman on as a senior advisor, a role in which she will lay the foundation for a new advertising and brand partnership strategy. Gorman is a former president of advertising for Netflix, a former chief business officer at Snap, and spent seven years with different advertising teams at Amazon.

Melissa-Ann Chan has been promoted to CMO of Arta Finance, a digital wealth platform founded by former Google executives. Chan joined the company in 2021 as head of marketing after previously serving as head of product marketing for Google Pay, according to her LinkedIn.

Contributing: Jon Springer