Good morning. Today, brands and celebrities get dinged for ad practices; the NFL gives advertisers a Thanksgiving Day feast; Chappell Roan becomes an underground infographic; and marketers resist discounts despite their instinct to sell, sell, sell.

Year-in-Review Season is officially upon us, and while celebrations of success go some way to staving off pessimism over the direction of the world, it’s always a little delicious to look back on the year’s misadventures, Katie Deighton writes for the newsletter.

So let’s celebrate the Key Cases of 2025 just assembled by the National Advertising Division, a self-regulatory group within BBB National Programs, and its sibling Children’s Advertising Review Unit.

These marketers and endorsers are back on the “nice” list after modifying certain claims and disclosures, but the naughty list this year has included:

• Brittany Mahomes and Lana Del Rey
  … for initially skipping “#ad” labels on Instagram posts for Skims. The brand argued that Mahomes’ posts didn’t require disclosure because the captions didn’t say “Skims” and consumers would assume such a stylized fashion shoot was a paid endorsement. But Mahomes had tagged Skims in the images—enough to make them endorsements, NAD said, but not enough to count as disclosure.
   
• Boxed Water
  … for overstating its “renewable” and “sustainable” sourcing, according to NAD. The finding came in response to a complaint lodged by—in true “ad court” tradition—the International Bottled Water Association. The case showed how competitors are increasingly challenging sustainability claims that could sway eco-conscious consumers, NAD said.
   
• Kevin Hart
  … for talking up JPMorgan Chase but putting the “#chasepartner” disclosure behind a “more” link, and for promoting Fabletics without mentioning that he owns part of the company.
   
• Olly
  … for not sufficiently substantiating claims that its “Kids Chillax” supplement had calming or relaxation effects. “When advertisers make health claims for children, the bar is highest,” said NAD chief Phyllis Marcus. “Parents deserve proof, not promises.”
   
• MrBeast
  … for content that blurred the lines between entertainment and advertising his Feastables brand. MrBeast said viewers weren’t supposed to take seriously the mock taste test he posted on YouTube in which all testers picked Feastables’ new chocolate bar over “top European chocolates.” CARU said that was a lot to expect from kids.

More than 57 million people watched the Dallas Cowboys upset the Kansas City Chiefs on CBS this Thanksgiving, setting a new viewing high for a regular-season National Football League game, Joe Flint reports.

Combine that figure with the other Thanksgiving games—Fox’s coverage of the Green Bay Packers defeating the Detroit Lions and NBC’s broadcast of the Cincinnati Bengals toppling the Baltimore Ravens—and the NFL last Thursday drew some 133.3 million viewers for advertisers across broadcast and streaming, per Nielsen.

Thanksgiving NFL games always draw strong audiences, but this year’s lineup was a reminder of the power of the league to draw big crowds in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

More: The NFL has changed its tune on Nielsen’s new metrics. [Front Office Sports]

Megan Graham sends a note from the underground:

Spotify is promoting its annual Wrapped feature—a shareable summary of users’ listening habits—with a Chappell Roan takeover of New York City’s Union Square subway station. Roan’s song “Subway” received more than 240,000 streams in New York City when it came out this summer.

A decal of Roan’s hair will span a millimeter for each of those streams, meaning it will extend more than a tenth of a mile, according to Spotify.

Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava is standing firm against offering discounts even though it recently cut its same-store sales outlook for 2025, blaming the same skittish consumers that other restaurants have cited as they rolled out deals.

Discounting comes with a price, Cava CFO Tricia Tolivar told Jennifer Williams: It trains customers to expect deals and undermines pricing power. “We don’t think that has value over the long term,” Tolivar said.

Cava instead is looking to its marketing team to pitch its everyday value.

The pressure is real, but AlphaSense earnings transcripts show that the risks of discounting are clearly front-of-mind for marketing leaders:

Wingstop CEO Michael J. Skipworth was undaunted on avoiding discounts despite a 5.6% dip in domestic same-store sales in the latest fiscal quarter, as he explained on the earnings call:

Ralph Lauren expects this quarter to be its weakest of the year in North America partly because of “planned strategic reductions in off-price wholesale.” Again worth it, in the mind of execs.

And Dr. Martens last month said its “revenue quality” was improving through “a focus on full-price sales and a reduction in our markdown sales.” The company would participate in events like Black Friday and “deal with seasonal product that we want to move quickly,” CEO Ije Nwokorie said.

“But we will do that in very specific seasons,” Nwokorie said, “and then return to that focus on full price.”

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Diaper Diplomacy is making the news more palatable by using AI to turn public figures into toddlers. [WSJ] 

Other content creators are cashing in by making AI slop that appeals to babies. [Bloomberg]

The creator of AI actress Tilly Norwood considered making her half-robot, but decided to go all-human because “as an artist you want to always provoke a reaction in the audience.” Hollywood, at least, has been provoked. [Deadline] 

Ulta appeared to dominate ChatGPT AI replies about Black Friday beauty deals, possibly because it created content ahead of time about upcoming offers. [Modern Retail] 

The New York Times and its intelligence reporter Julian E. Barnes have sued the Trump administration, saying the Defense Department’s new press rules violate their free speech and due-process rights. [WSJ]

Charli xcx is the face—and anorak model—of a grainy new campaign for Saint Laurent. [Dazed]

7-Eleven has begun selling its Japanese-Style Egg Salad Sandwich at stores in the U.S., following the “signature item” strategy that restaurants regularly use to lure visitors. [Restaurant Business]

OpenAI executives are taking to social media to swat down viral examples of supposed ads for Target and Peloton in ChatGPT replies. [Futurism]