Calm won the election
Plus: Lidl and Gap are both on a streak & appliance brands need thoughts and prayers
Morning,
My perspective is that the best ideas come from a little space. If this email is finding you too soon, I’ll see you when you’re ready.
If you only read one thing in this letter I recco: KEEP CALM, BE GENEROUS.
As always, the lens of this letter is a best-of-the-best on culture, trends, marketing, etc. What I’m dropping to friends on Slack or finding useful in meetings with brands.
Let’s dive in!
CULTURE
ALTERNATIVE HOLIDAYS -> As Seen On // Friendsgiving is fast becoming the more favored event of the season. This year, Graza and Hey Day Canning (who brilliantly have launched a Cranberry Sauce) have already announced Friendsgiving events. I love the concept of these events, and
astutely pointed out people are keen to be ‘friends’ with brands. But a campaign celebrating the magic of a good Friendsgiving would have been more fun.KEEP CALM, BE GENEROUS // Not much good happened on Tuesday but Calm’s ad was a success. It was an actions-speak-louder-than-logos moment. They could have made a high-production ad with the same message, and it wouldn't have been nearly as strong. The action was loud enough—and by that, I mean it wasn't loud at all. I also loved and shared this with Adweek, how it was rooted in generosity. It offered the product experience without asking anything of you. Big claps.
START BUILDING STOVES // Have you placed your inventory orders? Tuesday’s news means that imports from China could be subject to +100% tariffs. According to WWD, retailers are front-loading orders, especially in goods like toys and home appliances, +85% of which are made in China. What remains to be seen is how fast fashion will be affected by all this, when their moat is price. But if you’re sitting around what to do with your worry, maybe start a made-in-the-USA appliance company. Try to time it for a housing market rebound though.
F&B
AG TECH ISN’T TECH TECH // In light of Bowery Lettuce shutting down,
shared a great article written by the former co-founder of Small Hold. It’s a good read if you want to learn from their lessons—it’s refreshingly transparent. The short story is ag tech can’t scale as cheaply or as quickly as tech tech. Perhaps that’s obvious, but the story of how they fooled even themselves is a good one to read if you’re a founder.GIVING THE GIFT OF FOOD -> As Seen On //
called Flamingo Estate the Tiffany’s of groceries (I love her brain). The green boxes have become iconic. But what Ghia’s doing for the holiday feels relevant, too. One thing I miss about FoxTrot is the gift box feature they used to have.OWN THE OPERATION, OWN THE MARKET // Celsius bought their co-packer. This allows them to stay nimble and create limited-time products. The energy drink market is ultra-competitive—smart move.
SIMPLE PROTEIN // Another day, another letter with me telling you private-label could own this protein craze. This week, Gym Kitchen, the frozen food brand, expanded into the dairy aisle with milk that offers 60g of protein. They do it with a special filtration system that extracts water to condense the protein. If they don’t immediately launch a cottage cheese, I’d be shocked. If they are smart and reading the room, they’d make it without gums (a rare but hotly desired attribute).
LIDL STOLE COKE’S TRUCK // Honestly, whoever is at the helm of Lidl right now needs a raise. For the holidays, they recreated Coca-Cola’s famous truck but branded it with Lidl’s private-label cola Freeway. It’s just too funny. Similar to Coke, they are taking it on tour. Unlike Coke, they’ll be giving away free groceries. I think it will be popular.
DRUGS & BOOZE
BUZZY MARKET // Sparkling Sake searches have increased by +2.4M QoQ. In Paris, lots of places serve it. Popularity is growing. It’s delicious. An N/A version could also work.
ADAPTOGENIC BEER // The N/A market has long been a fan of adaptogens but adaptogenic beer is new to me. Collider just raised just under $1M to make it a thing. The branding is fun. With this and Bero out now, Athletic Brewing needs a facelift. Want to put me in touch?
RETAIL
BACK AND BUILDING -> Feed Me // Fresh from buying back the company, Cassandra Grey is building back bigger. Violet Grey is building 20 stores with ‘committee-vetted selection of products’. They are also working on what sounds like an AI search for the site with a “white glove e-commerce” experience. I did say recently: a bougie Sephora would do well.
HARMONIOUS JOY // Gap’s on a roll. This holiday ad is delightful. The song is great. But what’s so good about what Gap’s doing is that it’s taking s**t people like online and just translating it to the brand. Good choreography—check. Acoustic music—check. It’s not rocket science. They are just giving it the classic Gap look. And it’s working.
TECH
AI APPLIANCES // This letter is about appliances today. Chinese appliance company Fotile has created a proprietary LLM. Frankly, tech-enabled appliances have been trying to take off for decades and people don’t bite. You don’t need an AI oven hood. The inevitable hassle of a difficult repair is reason enough; which is why chef-grade kitchen tools and appliances are surging. In this space, people want luxury-meet-durability.
CHEAP CONSULTANTS // Costa Rica built their new 10-year strategy with AI. Apparently, they worked in tandem with a traditional consulting firm but surely this isn’t where the industry wants things to go.
SPORT
LUXURY STRENGTH // Mark Wahlberg is building a gym. It will be, the “first time in history that luxury and serious fitness meet…Recovery, rejuvenation therapy, juice bars, cafe, retail stores – only the best vitamins and supplements for you. Big, crazy collabs.” Can’t wait to see what this means.
ADULT DAVE & BUSTERS // There’s nothing particularly timely about this, just came across it. F1 Arcades are expanding. Picture a bar that has a lot of driving games. Honestly, this could work.
TRAIN LIKE THE BEST // D1 Training is a fitness concept that gives you Division 1 style training. They currently have 115 open locations with 250 in development. Given how much strength training professional athletes do, this tracks with what we’ve been seeing. Also, athletes are the only celebrities people are excited about right now.
GRAND FINAL // League of Legends Worlds is the biggest E-Sports day of the year. This year, it was held at London’s O2 Arena. At the peak, it had 6.9M viewers and was broadcast in over 20 languages, with 14.5K fans live at the arena. E-Sports often gets overlooked by brands but it shouldn’t. This is convincing.
WELLNESS & BEAUTY
ARE THOSE MUSHROOMS IN YOUR EARS? // I came across this brand because they share the same investors at ReScale, the co-packer finding service. Gob makes earplugs out of mycelium. They are biodegradable, and the branding is fun.
CO-INVESTING IN EGGS // Cofertility is a new startup looking to tackle the common obstacles of egg freezing and egg donation. By offering 10 years of free egg if participants agree to donate half of those retrieved, they are increasing the donor pool. The fees for the freezing are paid for by potential parents. It’s an interesting model for a challenging problem.
TRAVEL
NO CLEAR WAY UP? // CLEAR is having growth issues. “Ultimately they have visions of a ‘walk-through experience’ that genuinely takes no time for a passenger to be identified. This would speed up CLEAR and allow it to grow without degrading the passenger experience (to a point). However, they are nowhere close”. My recco: come to Europe and make a speedier system for processing all expats with residence visas but not EU passports. You’d make a killing.
FUN FOR THE WEEK
Dreams aren’t made. They are earned. This is a campaign.
Sephora Polly Pocket would sell. So would a Trade Joe's.
Love these coloring posters. Someone work with these guys.
Sporty & Rich x The Carlyle Hotel on merch feels so obvious—in a good way.
This Glossier ornament is so good. Flamingo Estate or Lowew could easily make these sell too.
For $11, you can buy a 13.5-oz can of Lake Como air. The area is not known for its air quality, and its pollution levels are similar to London's.
Engraving is back.
This Hermes pop-up in Zurich looks fun.
This conversation was refreshing and very needed today. If mental health is your cause, this is your guy.
It’s heartbreaking to know things are coming to this, but photographers are banding together to offer LGBTQ+ folx free elopement photos before January.
I think we could all use a laugh. This worked wonders for me.
That’s all, folx.
-Chris
If you read this and liked it, that little heart is there for that. The algo and I appreciate it.