Netflix wins big at Golden Globes as ‘Queen’s Gambit’ keeps fueling chess sales: Monday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters. Netflix wins big at Globes Streaming platforms dominated the winners at last night’s Golden Globes awards, which wasn’t too surprising after a year of pandemic-related production delays and audiences binge-watching at home. But the biggest winner of all was Netflix. As per The Verge, “no studio or streaming service took home as many awards as Netflix,” with awards for “The Crown,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “I Care a Lot,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “The Queen’s Gambit,” of which more to follow. Amazon also performed well, with awards for Sacha Baron Cohen's “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and John Boyega in “Small Axe,” its joint production with the BBC, while the Disney+ movie “Soul” won two awards. No wins though, for the Netflix show “Emily in Paris,” which attracted controversy for its two nominations, including, as reported in an investigation by the L.A. Times, the fact that more than 30 Hollywood Foreign Press Association members were treated to a stay in a five-star Paris hotel while visiting the set of the show in 2019. (Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler even mocked the show in their opening monologue, with Fey joking that she couldn’t wait to find out it was a musical or a comedy.) Checkmate “The Queen’s Gambit” was both a ratings hit for Netflix and one of the Globes’ success stories, taking awards for best limited series and best actress for an anthology series for Anya Taylor-Joy. And, as Ad Age’s Ilyse Liffreing reports, the show “continues to be a winner for the chess industry.” Its influence has boosted sales of chess boards, social media posts, a boom in online chess players and streamers and appearances in brand campaigns and sponsorships. A chess set broke into Amazon’s top 25 toys category in January and February, according to e-commerce performance analytics platform Profitero, while top chess players are also seeing more interest from companies and brands. Fabiano Caruana, the top-ranked chess player in the U.S., has secured a sponsorship deal from Intel and has just signed a deal with an undisclosed company for a new brand campaign. ‘Cannes Light’ News emerged just before the weekend that the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity may be backtracking on its previously announced plans to hold a live, in-person show on the French Riviera this June. Ad Age’s Judann Pollack reports that “Cannes is now rethinking the event to become a hybrid of digital and in-person, with the latter component significantly scaled down and perhaps dispersed geographically.” Under this "Cannes Light" option, in plans to be finalized this month, there might be a small gathering on the ground in Cannes for Europeans and a gathering in New York and perhaps other cities, while the awards and judging would go on virtually. Cannes Lions has yet to comment on the report, but industry insiders say they are seeing little interest in an in-person event; one holding company exec described the idea as "massively super-spreader." Beyond yogurt Chobani might be known best as a Greek yogurt brand, but it’s now preparing to showcase itself as a broader player in the overall food and beverage business. Ad Age’s Jessica Wohl reports that the brand is debuting a new campaign, featuring a diverse group of animated characters, that "shows a range of Chobani products—everything from oat milk to cold brew coffee, creamers to probiotic drinks and, of course, yogurt." The push on its oat milk definitely makes sense, with rival Oatly—which ran an ad in the Super Bowl—planning its U.S. stock market debut, according to several reports this weekend. Join Ad Age on March 23 for the Ad Age Next: Food & Beverage virtual conference, where industry leaders will share lessons from the past year and offer perspectives on what happens next. Register here. Just briefly Rebirth: “Ebony” magazine is set to relaunch digitally today under new owners, reports the Chicago Tribune. The longstanding title, which documented the experience of Black America, was bought out of bankruptcy for $14 million in December by Louisville-based Bridgeman Sports and Media. There are no plans for it to return to print. The Week Ahead: Chrissy Teigen is speaking at Pinterest’s first advertising-focused summit on March 3. Plus, Zoom, Target and Gap are all reporting earnings this week. Check our weekly calendar roundup here. Just beachy: Zoe Saldana, the new face of Corona’s 90 calorie light brew Corona Premier, joined Snoop Dogg and Bad Bunny in an ad debuting during the Golden Globes; Creativity editor Ann-Christine Diaz describes it as “like a beachy take on Budweiser’s “Whassup!”—but with Corona.” Watch the spot here, and don’t forget to catch up with the Creativity team’s live review of the Top 5 creative ideas of the week. That does it for today’s Wake-Up Call, thanks for reading and we hope you are all staying safe and well. For more industry news and insight, follow us on Twitter:@adage. From CMO Strategy to the Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, we’ve got newsletters galore. See them all here. Subscribers make the difference. 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Netflix wins big at Golden Globes as ‘Queen’s Gambit’ keeps fueling chess sales: Monday Wake-Up Call

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