Malin & Goetz is advertising on pizza
Plus: There's no more furniture at the furniture fair & brands are getting botox
Morning,
Obviously, Italy (well, Milan), is all over everyone’s feeds this week because of Design Week. We’ll touch on that. And lots that’s not that.
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
EVERYONE’S MOVING IN WITH THE FURNITURE
Milan Design Week (Salone del Mobile) is in full swing. Perhaps it feels different because I’m here but is it bigger than ever? What to know?
It’s no longer just for the ‘industry’. Fashion brands, food influencers, beauty, it’s way bigger than furniture.
Spectacle-driven activations showed up more in my feed. For example, Mango Man (not a brand you think of often) killed it with this dinner table moment (tapping into the dinner party trend) and La Double J’s presentation who nailed it. Max Siedentopf’s work is always a delight.
Ikea went all out but it was nowhere on my feed. It should have been more iconic IMO. Rimowa x La Marzocco cafe did iconic well.
These Alessi masks were fun.
Amica, Dezeen, and Wallpaper all have had good coverage if you haven’t been inundated enough yet.
For Scale (a chaotic-good Substack about furniture and interior design) had a fun letter on why fashion brands are infiltrating and, obviously, some good coverage on the actual furniture at the show.
BOOMERS ARE STEALING GEN-Z JOBS -> The CQ
No one is ready to retire. Only 43% of non-retirees think they’ll have enough money. 20% of Americans 65+ think they’ll continue working or are choosing to ‘un-retire’. I The latter could also be a mental shift to older workers valuing themselves more, considering themselves ‘Modern Elders’ (a term I recently learned from one of my fave leadership coaches, David Dressler). There’s a lot brands that could play with this mindset shift.
COACHELLA DID NOT MAKE THE MAIN STAGE
Most of my feed was filled with people lamenting the fact that low Coachella attendance means no break in LA traffic. Is Coachella over? The lack of feed-time any of the brand activations got was telling. (My take? Nothing was ‘spectacle’ enough to go viral). Perhaps the only two that stood out as fun were Pinterest’s—not spectacle-y but very tapped into trends—and Rhode’s cute photo booth.
The New York Times Cooking team shared a series called “Where Do NYC Cab Drivers Eat?” The problem? It’s a knockoff. Kareem Rahma, a beloved creator, already had the exact same show called Keep The Meter Running. Needless to say, the comment section on the NYT show is not pretty. Brands, please stop doing stuff like this. Hire the people to make you something original—it’s not rocket science.
TIME TO TRAIN THE AI ON YOU’RE VALUE PROPS
Companies are growing more concerned about how AI LLMs are perceiving their brand. Because LLMs organize words and phrases, including brand names, according to their meaning and context, an LLM might say associate the name of a lotion product with the term “gentle.” Since AI will get trained on not just articles but video (in the future), brands will need to think about the ‘context’ they want to appear in and not just the keywords they want to be associated with. Time to start making the content you want AI trained on.
It used to be that brands would do a refresh about once a decade or less. Well, times have changed. Now, it’s more like every 5-3 years. This is especially true for brands where industries are being disrupted, like F&B and the great undoing of the DTC model and the return to wholesale. Andrea points out that very few brands are pulling off timeless these days, with many opting for trends that don’t last. Lesson? Invest well in the rebrand or get ready to repeat it in a couple of years.
F&B
Burger King Argentina recently released a campaign that features older couples seen in steamy embraces and declaring love for each other ’70 years later’. Brands should have more fun like this.
HEINZ IS OFFERING STAIN INSURANCE -> The Hustle
Heinz Arabia is running a cute campaign covering laundry for ketchup stains. Of course, they have 57 types of claims you can file under. As the mom of a toddler, ‘#24 Young Picasso: The claimant’s young offspring use the ketchup for artistic purposes, resulting in a messy masterpiece.’ resonates. Very cute concept, the VI could use some work.
Sweetgreen is increasing its CPG line, adding to products like their Green Goddess Chips (in collaboration with Siete—smart) with a new hot sauce dressing. More interesting than the product is how they are positioning it. They are selling it at FoxTrot—obviously, trying to reposition themselves as a ‘cool’ brand which they once were but are no longer. In somewhat the opposite direction, Erewhon is releasing a Kefir soda but selling it beyond their owned retail locations—bougie for the everyman.
DRUGS
PRINCE PIZZA IS PLAYING ALFRED
Prince Street Pizza is taking a page out of the Alfred’s Coffee playbook. This week for 4/20 Malin & Goetz is advertising on their pizza box. Pizza for 4/20 is a smart move.
THIS 4/20 BYOW - BRING YOUR OWN WEED
4/20 is the new latest ‘holiday’ to get brandified. More brands are jumping in but, oddly, few seemed to involve actual cannabis or cannabis brand collabs. True cannabis lovers will see right through that so you’d be trying to appeal to newbs which maybe isn’t the best strategy for this holiday. KFC’s Saucy Nuggets dispensary is not getting good engagement on social. Jimmy Delicious Dope Dime bag shows a rolling tray and then appears to not come with said rolling tray—not great. Whereas true canna-brands like Edie Parker did more fun things like this StJohn collab (this casting!) that got way more traction. Much like all holidays with a specific audience, it’s best to tap into the actual culture and work with brands/influencers who are part of it.
ALPHAS & ZS
Foodies might be a stretch. But food has overtaken fashion in terms of spend. Gen-Z and Alpha wallets are going towards food. 24% of teens’ expenditure is now going towards food, 20% on clothing. Chick-fil-A remains number one in food, and McDonald’s is newly number two, with Chipotle, Raising Cane's, and Texas Roadhouse rounding out the top five. Pretty shocked Taco Bell wasn’t in the top five. They might need to take a look in the mirror.
RETAIL
A McKinsey study found that companies that prioritize creativity have 67 percent above-average organic revenue growth and 74 percent above-average net enterprise value—amazing. But creativity takes time and doesn’t really align with companies wanting quick wins. Take Calvin Klein’s Jeremy Allen White campaign. 40M views on Instagram, 85 percent YoY brand engagement increase. Yet, CK’s stock fell 20 percent and sales in North America dropped 8% YoY. “The dismal sales figures are a reminder that turning around a brand as big as Calvin Klein takes time — and more than just one campaign”. Is brand building back?
Denim-themed croissant shop anyone? Not much to say about this other than I love Asian retail. Honestly, this is not my cup of tea BUT nowhere else could you pitch a denim themes croissant pop-up and get it built. Need to organize a retail trends tour in APAC, there’s so much to learn. Let me know if you want in.
Umbro turned 100 and made this very underwhelming pop-up exhibit. Umbro could pull off a New Balance-like move and be cool again but this isn’t going to do it.
Everyone’s favorite shopping letter just got a new menswear section that will “speak to a lot of different scenes, without being beholden to them.” Substack is really becoming the best place to find brands.
TECH
ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER PLATFORM -> LinkInBio
Social media managers brace yourselves for yet another channel. Airchat is the latest platform to take off though mostly just in Silicon Valley for now. It combines the feed aspect of Twitter with the audio-first format of Clubhouse. Currently, it’s “filled with tech enthusiasts, early adopters, venture capitalists, and journalists”. Rachel Karten, social whisperer, says to just ‘watch and see’ but grab your brand handle. It might be a good place for ‘online’ founders more than brands.
Rachel’s been on form the last few months, I highly recco subscribing. This week she had a fun deep dive into the ‘Close Friends’ trend. Here are a few of her thoughts:
Use it to engage “super fans” with exclusive deals, fun messages, and sneak peeks.
Use it like Billie Eilish. Use this to tease a new product drop or menu item only via close friends. This incentivizes new followers to get on the list.
Try a location-based close friends list. For example, if you are opening a store in a new city or wanting to promote something to a specific city.
Add all influencers that follow your brand to your close friends. Use it to share product updates, new campaigns, and etc.
SPORT
People are loving the TikTok content from The Masters this year. This video about fixing the divots is just one good example. It’s very interesting to see sports like Tennis and Golf gain new traction on social. It’s funny how people are totally unwilling to watch an all-day tournament on TV but very willing to spend 4hrs watching ‘the best’ bits on social. Not a revelation but a good thing for brands remember.
FIGHT CLUB -> Cultural Currents
Girls’ wrestling has become the fastest-growing high school sport in the country. Expect we’ll see some wrestling-themed art direction soon.
WELLNESS
FUNCTIONAL INFILTRATES FRAGRANCE
‘Functional’ first started with food (as so many big trends do) and now functional has made its way to the fragrance department. Charlotte Tilbury has launched a line of six emotion-emotion-boosting perfumes that are backed by neuroscience. Scents include Love Frequency, Joyphoria, Magic Energy, Calm Bliss, More Sex, and Cosmic Power.
Tata Harper secured a collab with Sky High Farms and instantly upped their cool factor. Making the product pink is a genius way to make it more shareable and a nice tie in with Sky High’s strawberries. The art direction is a bit too weird, Sky High has done better, but still fun.
TRAVEL
If you’ve been to Venice, and even if you haven’t, you’ve likely heard of the Bauer Hotel. Well, it sold and the new owners have really upset people. They have stripped the interiors, auctioning off $1.6 million worth of Murano glassware, custom silks from Rubelli, a pair of Venician lion-topped sconces, and, basically, everything else. The Venice Biennale is now without its ‘clubhouse’. Why do people do this to great brands?
WHAT TO PACK IS TRENDING -> Feed Me
Another shopping newsletter everyone loves, Shop Rat has a new column, Hotel Rat. Sharing essentials to pack and what they are packing for various trips. Magasin has been doing something similar. Travel is a big ‘reason to buy’—brands can get in on this.
FUN FOR THE WEEK
If you love marmite you might find this funny. I did.
There’s a goldmine of parent humor ideas in this comment section.
How cute are these contest winners? Rachel (LinkInBio) says this concept can be adapted for industries and I agree.
London’s LN-CC has reopened.
Dead punctuation marks we actually need
The Venice Biennale kicked off this week. Here’s the US Pavilion.
John Deere is pulling an Olipop and looking for a Chief Tractor Officer to run its TikTok. Let’s hope they learned some lessons from Olipop and do it right.
This Athletic Propulsions Lab sneaker store’s vanity rooms are cool.
Minimal Viable Personality — rule of thumb for product building.
Vocabulary lesson for the week from Dictionary of Fine Distinctions: Nuances, Niceties, and Subtle Shades of Meaning. Love these illustrations.
Make features people want (also via Trung Phan)
This Brand Universe checklist by Sota.
That’s all folx!