Lithuania is the new culture hub to watch
Plus: Sleep tourism is booming and is Welch's winning the fruit snack war?
Morning,
Stoked and feeling very grateful for all the new eyeballs. If you shared this with someone and that’s why they are here: thank you.
This week I’m testing something new. A midweek ‘podcast’. A deeper dive into the latest letter (this one is last week’s). Not a verbatim reading but fun insights, gossip, backstory, and, strategic thinking behind a few key points in the letter. Send midweek or separate email list is the debate. Thoughts? Drop a note in the comments.
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
Many of these are cross-sectional, so they are living under ‘culture’.
SLEEP ON THE BRAIN -> The Hustle This week, Neurotech company, Elemind launched a headband that reportedly helped 76% of participants fall asleep faster. Given that sleep is the #2 health and wellness trend of 2024, this feels well timed. Tech libraries’ in wellness centers are getting popular and this should fit right in. Hospitality companies are already offering more sleep amenities. Sleep tourism is estimated to increase by $409.8 billion from 2023 to 2028, according to researchers at HTF Market Intelligence. In the US, 78% of people are looking to improve their sleep. It’s an even bigger target market than Ozempic—just saying.
SUMMER SCHEDULES ARE NO JOKE Lots of people are talking about the demise of Summer Fridays. Summers are feeling less fun? Summer camps schedules are also contributing. We’ve written about it a few times but if you’re a brand and you aren’t considering a summer camp collab (or full-on creation) next year, let this be the sign that the opportunity is ripe for the picking.
BOOZE FREE GAMES -> As Seen On For the first Games ever, non-alc is going to sponsor the Olympics. Yes, I know the subject line last week said non-alc was over but, obviously, we know I was joking. This past World Cup was big sporting moment for booze-free and wasn’t the disaster everyone expected—it was a huge success. But booze-free or not, the question is: how to make sure the sponsorship work with the Games (and all sports, really) being consumed in a totally different way. “The difficulty for a sponsor is that, while there may indeed be millions watching the pole vaulting, and by extension the sponsor’s brand in the background, millions more…are watching the pole vaulter’s unbranded TikTok video of what they had for breakfast.”
F&B
THE DOCTOR OVERTAKES PEPSI -> The Hustle Dr Pepper’s has moved from #3 to #2 in the soda rankings. No small thing. How? The WSJ breaks it down to 3 things: #1 The kids love novelty and Dr. P is delivering with things like their new creamy coconut variant. #2 They are leaning into weird on TikTok. #3 They are not afraid of being an indulgence. To me, #3 is the most important to pay attention to, the other 2 feel like pay-to-play at this point. Dr. P is ok with not being healthy, bucking the general trend (and blanding) that’s happening with a drive towards wellness.
SENSATIONAL CEREAL You’re new here if you don’t know the whole Swelh-to-Seed-Molly-Baz timeline. But if you’re a regular then welcome to the next chapter. Special K must have read
’ take on the importance of speed/timeliness. This week, with 13 days until her due date, and a last-minute shoot organized over a national holiday, Special K put the very pregnant and very glowing Molly on a limited edition (How limited? No idea/doesn’t matter) cereal box. So good.ADULTS HAVE LESS FUN Airheads made an underwater vending machine. To ‘pay’, you had to do a cool pool trick. The driving insight was that 75% of adults didn’t get in the pool as much as when they were kids. Airhead wanted them to have more fun. Frankly, looking at their social for this campaign it feels meh (where are the adorable vids of silly underwater moves?) but conceptually, this is an insight that many brands could have fun with.
JAPANESE MALL TAKEOVER -> Feed Me Two letters ago we mentioned that Boba is now more popular than pizza with Gen-Alpha. Now Round One is opening arcades filled with Japanese video games, takoyaki, and karaoke at malls across America—well-timed. Places made for kids that are fun for parents is an under-tapped segment. I’m not sure the mall is exactly where I want to find it but malls are making a comeback (in big part due to food).
DRUGS
Moving booze into drugs this week. The right place for it?
FIZZ HAS NO RIZZ Hereby promising to never use ‘rizz’ again. All this talk of soda and the kids don’t like bubbles? But if anyone knows it’s
: “I’ve had a hypothesis that Gen Z hates fizz based on a few podcasts and TikToks, and I’m thrilled to see someone reported out a whole story on this, confirming my hunch: Bubbles are unappealing to young people.” Gen-Z drinkers equate bubbles with bloating Now that I live in Italian sparkling wine country I can tell you ‘fizz’ has levels so this could be a value-prop if you have finer carbonation.BEER IS THE NEW YOGURT Chobani founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, has purchased Anchor Brewing. He bought it all: taproom, factory, the whole thing. It’s an almost identical story to his purchase of the Chobani yogurt factory. Very excited to see what they do.
RETAIL
HOME TAKEOVER Zara opened not one but two Home flagships this week. One in Milan and one in Paris. Similar to Wayfair, Zara is taking a page out of the Ikea playbook. “The revamped concept showcases all of Zara Home's collections and product categories, distributed over two floors and organised according to the rooms of a house.” I’ll be doing a Milan retail deep dive soon so I’ll report back (anywhere you think I should go, drop in the comments). Meanwhile, I’m not sure about the effectiveness of this type of social content but I did enjoy it visually.
MARA NO MORE Every woman with boobs going to a non-bland wedding might be shedding a tear this week. Mara Hoffman announced it’s shutting down. This isn’t a shock as she announced her NYC store location closing a while back. There’s a big void to fill here. (Brands should be snapping up this team). While my experience with their customer service was lackluster, the clothes always delivered. This departing letter certainly felt better than the new trend of unannounced closures.
OUTLETS ATTRACTING GEN-ALPHAS Gen-Alpha fave, Sephora is opening locations in the Tanger outlets. I must admit that compared to many Americas I think my outlet game is weak but I find the fact that the stores will be full-prized interesting.
D2C TO RETAIL CONTINUES Halara, a popular brand on Tiktok, known for comfy pants and sportswear, opened its first pop-up in NYC. The pop-up looks basic but this part of the interview was interesting: “We need physical space for people to give us feedback because that feedback is how we make critical decisions about products and market strategy.” That and retail experience (if done right) can be the best expression of your brand. Not sure they hit that level yet but it’s early days.
OUTDOOR VOICES COMEBACK OV got acquired by Consortium Brands Partners. They are also the majority stakeholders of Draper James (Reese Witherspoon’s apparel brand). The plan is to expand the brand’s distribution internationally and add new product categories. When it was great it was great. If they can pull off an Abercrombie, I’m here for it.
TECH
ETSY IS TEMU IN DISGUISE Search and curation has always been Etsy’s downfall IMO. It sounds like they are trying to curb the Temu cross-listings—good—but figuring out curation should also be top of their list. Pinterest does good job of learning your visual taste and Etsy should easily be able to pull that off with the help of AI. This would be a LOVELY use of AI for the haters out there.
SPORT
METS ARE BETTER ENTERTAINERS THAN PLAYERS? Execs at the Mets want to make a BTS show. Not just because it would be good ‘TV’ but because it would be good for sponsors. I’ve written a lot about serialized content becoming a popular social strategy. This would solve some of the problems mentioned about sponsorships above. I could see it working IF it’s entertaining. They need to hire well for this work. Now do this for the WNBA and we have something.
WELLNESS
GEN-X BEAUTY GETS THE SPOTLIGHT -> As Seen On The former CEO of Victoria Beckham Beauty, Sarah Creal, has launched a beauty and skincare brand for women over 40. Brooke Shields also launched one. Readers know I am a big fan of brands that target older consumers and don’t just focus on Gen-Z. We’ll see a lot more of this. And more brands for over 60 too.
NOTHING ORDINARY ABOUT $1.7BILLION Estée Lauder acquired The Ordinary’s parent company, Deciem, for $1.7 billion. Love this for them. I do think that there is going to be a pivot away for the active ingredient space soon. Anecdotally, too many women I know are experiencing odd skin conditions and the number one thing they are being told is to ‘stop watching TikTok and combining all these actives’. There’s campaign fodder here for sure.
TRAVEL
LITHUANIA’S ABOUT TO ALL OVER YOU FEED -> AfterSchool Lithuania topped this year’s World Happiness Report rankings for the under-30s. The article mostly focuses of the cost of living and the ability to get by (well) as an artist. This is not new news but anywhere becomes a hub for artists (eg. Berlin), eventually becomes the hub for culture. So maybe a trends trip to Lithuania next year.
RAMP IS COMING FOR AMEX Ramp, which is quickly overtaking finance departments worldwide and this week launched Ramp Travel. Ramp, for the uninitiated, offers a corporate card (the gateway drug) but its main products allow for smart accounting and expense reports. They are quickly destroying competition like Expensify by making things like expense reports painless using—you guessed it—AI. They are now doing that with corporate travel. They’ll use AI to streamline bookings, offer personalized corporate travel policies, and correlate and compile receipts with trips. Soon all you’ll have to say is: “I need to go to the Marketing Offsite in Miami in March.” No booking, no reporting, just traveling. Another great use case for AI for the haters.
FUN FOR THE WEEK
Audrey Gelman, former founder of the Wing, is opening a hotel.
Well, we told you: Zendaya x On
Quiet luxury camping gear is here. Loro Piano has launched an outdoor collection.
Cute chip branding
Jacquemeus shop-in-shops get revamped.
Prime must of been on Más’ (Messi’s new energy drink) moodboard
Louis Vuitton has a new president. Bigger focus on beauty coming?
Yowie x LeSportSac (Yowie as a tastemaker partnership = smart)
What’s this Vogue World thing? Something for the Olympics?!
The Nue Co rebranded. Not sure how I feel about their metallic green lids.
Luxury brand beach clubs are having a moment
This Adidas post is fun (a
find)Jenna Lyons’ closet sale was all over the feed this week. This woman is a phoenix.
McDonald’s shaker fries. I can see this working.
This caption about this ‘fruit snack war’ made me literally laugh out loud. Savage. “Your move Mott’s”—💀
Fun little campaign by Christofle and Roland Garros. Lacoste tie-in is good.
Snaxshot is opening a store 👀
This poem is a very deep insight into motherhood that would make a great start to a campaign
Paris revives this waiter race (also a nice activation idea for an F&B brand)
Gjelina’s founding chef is opening a new spot. Should we plan a group dinner?
Cute postcards at the Lacoste cafe at KaDeWe Berlin (you have to zoom in / the space is too sparse, cute but needs more for the size)
Victoria Montanari working hard for Tommy Hilfilger
Love the ‘cake’ at the Kin x Ghia Target Launch party.
Merch may be ‘dead’ but the swag offers for the Underberg rewards program are fun
That’s all, folx!
- Chris
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