Marketing winners and losers of the week

This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers. Winners Hotels.com The Expedia-owned brand may have sent former spokesman Captain Obvious packing, but its new mascot is an even more natural choice. Bellboy, an 18-inch tall hotel desk bell, made his debut on social media this week with tips for travelers around hotel upgrades, price drop alerts and room upgrades. He’s even got his own jingle. Bellboy was conceived in-house at Hotels.com, which worked with BlinkInk to create a physical puppet and CGI version of the rhyming songster. Fast-food chicken Fast food eaters can’t get enough chicken. McDonald’s and Taco Bell this week introduced new chicken items, continuing a poultry popularity contest that shows no signs of slowing down. McDonald’s on Thursday revealed McCrispy Strips, the first time its added a permanent menu item in the U.S. since 2021. Meanwhile, Taco Bell brought back its Crispy Chicken Nuggets, with sauce options including Hidden Valley Fire Ranch Sauce. They were last available in December, when they sold out nationwide in less than a week, according to USA Today. Limited-service chicken sales among Top 500 restaurant chains grew 10.2% last year, according to Restaurant Business, which recently noted that Wendy’s is looking to up its chicken game. All the chains are chasing Raising Cane’s, whose strategy to only sell chicken fingers has powered phenomenal growth, landing it on Ad Age’s 2024 Marketers of the Year list. Plus: Raising Cane’s has a new spokesman—and so does Zaxbys Adidas Amid widespread tariff fear among most retailers, the German sportswear brand offered a rare bright spot by reporting better-than-expected earnings. First-quarter sales increased 13% from a year earlier to €6.15 billion ($6.6 billion) while operating profit rose 82% to €610 million ($653 million). Gen Z consumers have been flocking to Adidas’ retro shoes, including the Samba and Gazelle styles. Learn about the Ad Age Data-Driven Marketing Summit Losers Uber The rideshare and delivery brand is under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which this week filed a lawsuit alleging it charged consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent. It cites several “deceptive billing and cancellation practices,” including that users are “forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel.” “Uber One’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear, simple, and follow the letter and spirit of the law,” an Uber spokesperson told NBC News. Apple The tech giant promoted several AI features for its iPhone 16 as available now, before consumers could actually use them, according to an inquiry by the National Advertising Division. The division, a self-regulation arm of the ad industry, found the claim listed atop the Apple Intelligence webpage and above detailed feature descriptions of functionality such as priority notifications, image generation tools (Image Playground, Genmoji, and Image Wand), ChatGPT integration into Siri and writing Tools and new Siri capabilities. “Although Apple launched these features in staggered software updates between October 2024 and March 2025, NAD found that these claims were not properly supported at the time they were first made,” the division stated. The features are all now available, but NAD told Apple to avoid the practice in the future. Hair-loss medication The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about dangerous side effects from certain spray forms of hair-loss medications containing a drug called finasteride. Telehealth brands including Hims, Keeps and Ro sell such medications under the brand Propecia but do not disclose any adverse effects, according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted side effects such as sexual dysfunction and suicidal thoughts. The FDA’s reporting system had received 32 cases about the medications between 2019 and 2024. “In some cases, consumers expressed they were not aware of the potential adverse events associated with the use of topical finasteride, and other patients reported that they were told by the prescribers that there was no risk of any adverse event because the product was topical,” the FDA wrote in its warning. Quote of the week “The past few months have been a roller coaster. It reminds me of the early days of getting my period—I wasn’t sure when it was going to happen, or how bad it would be—I just knew I had to be prepared.” —Joanna Griffiths, founder and president of menstruation underwear brand Kt by Knix, in an email to customers about how the brand is trying to handle the impact of tariffs on its operations. Read more: Tariffs and recession fears—tracking the ad industry’s response to the economy Social post of the week Number of the week 4.8% Increase in price to $2,200 of LVMH’s Neverfull GM bag in the U.S., compared with last week following tariffs, according to Bloomberg On the move Peloton confirmed the departures of both Chief Marketing Officer Lauren Weinberg and VP of Global Communications Letena Lindsay. The brand plans to split marketing into two divisions reporting to a new CMO and a new chief communications officer. Peloton is searching to fill both roles, the company said. Verizon hired Guto Andrade as VP of creative. He was most recently head of creative at indie agency 1992 and served as head of creative for Amazon Prime in North America. Miami-based fintech Versapay appointed Elizabeth Bramlage chief marketing officer following a nearly five-year stint as CMO of fraud detection company ComplyAdvantage. Jenny Nelson was promoted to chief marketing officer at Audacy. She previously was executive VP for marketing solutions and strategy at the audio brand. Contributing: Brandon Doerrer Sign up for Ad Age newsletters

Marketing winners and losers of the week

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