Taking stock of this week’s brand winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

NBC: It was a good week for NBCUniversal: Its fledging Peacock streaming platform on Thursday announced it secured $500 million in upfront ad commitments. That news came the same day NBC revealed that it had already sold out 85% of its Super Bowl broadcast ad inventory—seven months ahead of the Big Game.

Oreo: Just when we start to get tired of the cookie brand’s nonstop marketing stunts, it comes up with something truly original. The brand dressed its Oreo Thins in packaging camouflaged as something else—such as a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook or a Ford truck owner’s manual—in a ploy to disguise the cookies from kids. The Community, 360i, MediaMonks, VaynerMedia and Weber Shandwick were among the agencies involved in this one.

Apple: The tech giant dominated the Emmy nominee list released this week for  Outstanding Commercial. Apple accounts for three of the six ads on the list. Do you remember who won the 2020 Emmy? Answer here.

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Losers

Burger King: The Home of the Whopper got some negative PR this week over an incident at a Lincoln, Nebraska, location when employees quit en masse over unsatisfactory work conditions. They didn’t just walk out, they announced their exit on the Burger King sign: “We all quit,” which caught the attention of national news outlets including WGN.

Chevrolet: General Motors’ electric vehicle push—which has included major marketing spending—suffered a setback this week when Chevrolet was forced to urge approximately 50,000 owners of its electric Chevy Bolt to park the cars outside and away from homes because of fire risks. The precaution involved advising owners not to charge the vehicles overnight, as Automotive News reported.

Twitter: It turns out the business case for Fleets was fleeting. Twitter this week confirmed it would shut down its disappearing video functionality after less than a year. The function was Twitter’s attempt to replicate what is offered by competitors including TIkTok and Snapchat. But advertisers and major brands never fully embraced Fleets, Joshua Lowcock, chief digital and global brand safety officer at UM, an agency within IPG Mediabrands, told Ad Age earlier this week. 

Number of the week

222.5%: The year-over-year surge in the number of monthly TIkTok users in Mexico, as its monthly user base jumped from 4.6 million in 2019 to 15.0 million in 2020, according to a new eMarketer report,  

Tweet of the week

Quote of the week

“When we say the word ‘NFT’ in a presentation, clients get excited.”—Craig Elimeliah, executive creative director at VMLY&R, on why more agencies are getting involved with all things NFT.

On the move

No major marketing exec moves to report this week. But spice marketer McCormick is looking for a Director of Taco Relations. Among the responsibilities: “Keep tabs on taco trends, trolling TikTok, partaking in virtual calls to learn more about unique taco offerings from taco chefs across the country. Share these findings with the McCormick team to keep everyone taco-ing about tacos.”

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