Marketing winners and losers of the week

This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers. Winners Puma As the sportswear brand continues its push into running, it unveiled “5AM High Drops,” a new offering designed to reward athletes for their early morning jogs. Puma will offer free pairs of its new Deviate NITRO 3, Forever Run and other models to runners at 5 a.m. in cities around the world, including Boston, New York, Mexico City, London and Tokyo, on select dates in April and May. Puma plans to announce the drops ahead of time on its Instagram channel. The push is part of Puma’s new “Go Wild” brand campaign, its biggest to date. CBS Rory McIlroy’s dramatic playoff Masters win delivered big-time for CBS. The network’s broadcast of Sunday’s final round averaged 12.99 million viewers, peaking at 19.9 million viewers in the 7 p.m.-7:15 p.m. ET timeframe, Sportico reported. That is good news for the Masters Tournament’s highest-level sponsors—Mercedes-Benz, Bank of America, AT&T and IBM—which hold exclusive TV ad rights for the tourney. Also read: How Mercedes is navigating unique ad rules at the Masters Royal Kingdom The mobile game’s new campaign has some serious star power, with LeBron James and Kevin Hart appearing in new ads. One spot, called “Conspiracy,” makes light of James’ penchant for reading books. Some people have tried to question his reading habit, an accusation the spot humorously leans into by showing him merely using books to conceal his smartphone while he plays Royal Kingdom. As of Thursday, the video had already racked up more than 3 million views. The Hart ad, called “Acting School,” was not far behind with more than 2.5 million views. Manhattan-based brand consultancy The Robot Co. handled both spots. The consultancy is owned by Fulwell Entertainment, which was recently formed through the merger of James’ and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Co. and Fulwell 73. Learn about the Ad Age Data-Driven Marketing Summit Losers Revolve The clothier came under fire this week when the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California filed a $50 million proposed class action lawsuit against it. The complaint alleged that Revolve did not properly disclose its partnerships with social media influencers on Meta, for example; instead, such creators concealed the fact that they were compensated for promoting Revolve products in a deceptive marketing scheme. Heineken USA The brewer this week reported that organic net revenue and beer volume declined by “a high-single-digit” in the U.S., citing “a beer market particularly affected by weak sentiment among Hispanic consumers.” A bright spot was its non-alcoholic Heineken 0.0, which grew by “a high single digit.” Kroger The supermarket chain has been sued by singer Jewel for allegedly backing out of an agreement to run a health and wellness conference that Jewel co-founded with Kroger. Former Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen is expected to testify in the trial; McMullen abruptly resigned last month after an investigation into alleged personal conduct issues. Social post of the week Quote of the week “Just waiting now for someone at Microsoft to return our calls.”—NotCo CEO and founder Matias Muchnick in LinkedIn post begging Micrsooft to collaborate on a plant-based “NotChicken Jockey” product to seize on a viral moment in “A Minecraft Movie.” Number of the week 55% Share of consumers who say they will likely change their purchase behaviors for social or ethical reasons within the next year, according to a recent survey of 3,000 people in the U.S. and Canada from creative agency Public Inc. Recent news: Gen Z demands accountability amid corporate DEI rollbacks On the move Uber Advertising promoted Megan Ramm to global head of sales. She was most recently head of the Americas. Carla Hassan, chief marketing officer at JPMorganChase, is the new vice chair of the Ad Council, which this week also elected 17 new board members. Sign up for Ad Age newsletters

Marketing winners and losers of the week

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