Good morning. This is Megan Graham filling in for Nat Ives. Today, how protein bar maker David has been firing back against lawsuit claims that snowballed into meme territory. 

David Protein stayed mostly quiet at first after a lawsuit accused it of understating its bars’ calories and fat content in January. Then some social media posters started comparing themselves to Regina George.

By invoking the character in the 2004 comedy “Mean Girls” who gets tricked into eating weight-gain bars, the TikTok post with 1.3 million views and others like it have turned the lawsuit’s allegations into a meme.

That put David on the hunt for an equally effective retort, in a reminder how abruptly the narrative around a company can change when social media is at work and how hard it can be to respond.

“We live in a very dynamic, hyper-connected society that’s high on speed and low on context, and so the narrative can get away from you incredibly quickly. And I believe that’s what has happened to David in this instance,” said Evan Nierman, founder and chief executive officer at crisis public relations firm Red Banyan.

“They’re also on the back foot because too many people believe that if you become the target of a lawsuit and allegations are made, then you must be guilty of something, and there has to be truth to it. But that’s not the case.”

In January, the company was named in a lawsuit by three plaintiffs claiming that independent testing showed the bars contained more calories and fat than shown on their nutrition labels.

Only once the lawsuit gained attention on social media did David get louder in its defense.

“No one is getting Regina Georged,” the company wrote on social media, moving into an explanation of the right and wrong way to calculate food calories.

Nielsen’s latest effort to update how it estimates who’s watching what and where is getting delayed, the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Patrick Coffee reports for the newsletter.

Late Friday, Nielsen told clients that plans to change the way it measures viewership by bringing in additional data to complement numbers drawn from its own panel, would be postponed until fall, with the firm reverting to its previous approach in the meantime.

“We understand that there are diverging opinions on this among our broad client base, but we believe this is the best and least disruptive path for the industry,” the email announcement read.

Last week, I reported that unreleased data from the February edition of Nielsen’s monthly Gauge ratings report would show that broadcast and cable were usurping streaming in U.S. TV viewership, a reflection of the new methodology as well as NBC’s airing of the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics last month.

The February data, which had already been delayed by one week following concerns raised by streaming platforms over how the new approach might negatively affect their ratings, won’t be released at all.

The Video Advertising Bureau, a nonprofit trade group that represents linear-focused businesses from ABC and ESPN to ad measurement firm iSpot, will release a statement Tuesday calling for a reversal of Nielsen’s delay in implementing the new methodology before TV’s annual upfront sales events begin, said Sean Cunningham, president and CEO.

The delay serves the interests of the streaming industry at the expense of linear TV publishers, said Cunningham. A Nielsen spokesman disputed that claim, and said delaying the methodology change is meant to minimize disruption during upfronts.

Danone has agreed to buy nutrition startup Huel for about $1.2 billion, seeking to tap growing demand for meal-replacement shakes popular with gym-goers and late-night workers, Margot Patrick and Aimee Look report. 

Founded by an online marketing guru in 2015, Huel sells protein shakes and snacks that have become a fixture at gyms. Buoyed by word-of-mouth and influencers promoting its products online, the company generated revenue of more than $335 million last year.

The British startup, which takes its name from the words human and fuel, had already secured investment from private-equity funds and celebrity endorsers. Earlier backers included Morgan Stanley’s investment-management arm and actor Idris Elba, who said he used Huel while beefing up to play Heimdall in the Thor movie series.

A fund manager at Morgan Stanley said his team got interested in Huel when they saw people drinking the brand’s products at the bank’s London office.

Huel, which sells directly to consumers via its website as well as in grocery stores, says it has delivered 600 million meals in more than 100 countries since 2015. Some consumers subscribe to the brand’s products, and use them to plan out their meal consumption.

NBC Gambles on a British Future for ‘SNL’ With U.K. Version. [WSJ]

Leo Radvinsky, the reclusive billionaire who turned subscription service OnlyFans into an adult-content powerhouse, has died “after a long battle with cancer" at 43. [WSJ]

These business owners say they can’t raise prices even if they wanted to. [CNN]

Apple Inc. is preparing to introduce advertising in its Maps app, part of a broader push to generate more money from services. [Bloomberg]

Bang & Olufsen cuts guidance on disappointing product launch and global uncertainty. [WSJ]