Mira Fertility made the best ad—of all time?
Plus: Bieber and a supermarket wrote your summer anthems, and tokens are taking off.
Morning,
I’m going to be in Chicago the last week of July. Let’s connect.
If you only read one thing in this letter I recco: DIY DIAGNOSIS, PCIKY BITS or TOKEN TIME.
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
SUBSTACK EXTREMES // Substack is having quite the week.
launched a Substack to livestream Demna’s final collection. The 17-likes they got on this post indicate they didn’t partner well for this debut. A miss. Video on Substack is still terrible. But, regardless, it shows what a force Substack has become with the fashion set, that they’d even test the waters. The gatekeepers have changed (very aligned with the latest GOOD SIGNS podcast.) But the very same week, on the downside, we had Substack’s co-founder, Hamish, squabbling with his top talent, , and writing a recurring column on a Beehiiv newsletter. Odd and immature. If I were on the board, I’d be asking some tough questions.ORACLES & KINGMAKERS // Substack is quietly becoming the best place to understand an audience through surveys.
’s been doing them for years. just ran a paid one for a GLP-1 brand (solid Substack advertising). is running her own. ’s survey uncovered that women are into Old Navy—fascinating. I could go on. Surveys aren’t new. It’s who’s running them. Not Ipsos. Creators. Say it again: the gatekeepers are changing. Substackers are launching job boards, too. Emily’s launched just this week—watch out, LinkedIn!A NEW REVOLUTION // This week’s issue of
letter was on the critical importance of differentiation—can I get an amen? But while I agree that differentiation is going to become increasingly essential in our next technological chapter, there are indeed commonalities in the examples. Rainmaker, whose founder recently appeared on TBPN with a great haircut and sharp takes on climate adaptation, has very biblical, prophet vibes. Monumental Labs, which uses AI to sculpt your cat and restore the Frick, is giving ‘industrial revolution’. And Atelier Missor, who are going viral for reviving statues, feel very ‘renaissance men’. The age of blanding is over. Tech has entered its new aesthetic era. Make way for prophets, titans, and world-shapers.NEW BUT OUTDATED // VC firm Hannah Grey released a few AI tools for their portfolio. One is called “Persona Resonance Architect.” Sounds smart—unless you’ve spent 5 mins thinking about how AI actually works. Niches are over. And so are personas. AI doesn’t care how old your customer is or what they do for work—it tracks what they watch, buy, follow, and how it all connects. Technically, you can call this semantic understanding, but in plain English, it’s just pattern recognition. And pattern recognition demands better input than “Gen X Women | Suburban | Burned Out | High-Functioning Overwhelmed.” But before you run off in the “everything should be personalized” direction, stop. That will happen in real-time in LLM, but
is right: personalized subject lines and ads aren’t going to save you. Brands should be focused on three things: 1) Behaviors. 2) Cultural relevance. 3) Brand clarity in chaos. The future is all about the context. Is your brand relevant enough to show up? If you want to understand this, I’ve got a keynote for your next offsite. Let’s chat.F&B
FANCY FOODS // Fred Hart continues to do the lord’s work and visit all the food trade shows so you don’t have to. Notable to me in his Fancy Foods round-up? Unhinged is the new yassified. Case in point: Mad Mutz mozzarella sticks (worth noting that, similar to Dr Squatch, unhinged doesn’t mean bad ingredients). And the rise of Indian flavor profiles, which I told you Juicy Brick predicted would boom back in January.
PICKY BITS // Marks & Spencer’s created a song to celebrate everyone’s favorite summer pastime: the picnic. The song is in support of their summer campaign, Picky Bits, which positions M&S as the place to run into to get all your nimble needs. “It’s not dinner, but it’s not lunch, it’s some nibbles in the sun.” This and SWAG are my summer playlist.
DRUGS & BOOZE
LISTEN UP-> For Starters // Pop-up listening bars continue to grow in popularity. Valentino had one in May. This one by Malik Acid, a creative food and beverage studio that concocts specialty drinks for brands like JW Anderson and Burberry, is being hosted at AwayKin (who High Snobiety also mentioned The Future of Retail is Offline). Track this.
MEMBER CLUB // Another fun find from For Starters (give it a read, it’s a fun letter, thanks for the rec, Emma!). Fernet Branca’s bartender coin is not a new thing. The brand has been making coins for 13 years. Initially given only to bartenders, the coins have become collectors’ items and status symbols. Love the idea of ‘member’s card’ for brand loyalists—something more brands should play with.
SILVERS, ALPHAS & ZS
INVITE THEM IN // Silvers want to hang out with the youngs and vice versa. The wisdom is flowing in both directions. If you’re ‘targeting’ Gen-Z today, you’re also targeting Silvers you don’t even know about. Throw out your audience segmentation, pls.
LAND LINES & LAZY DAYS // Parents are installing landlines for their kids, and the screenless summer might also be making a comeback. Unsurprisingly, it turns out, the digital-native generation is better than others at navigating it. “[T]eens can be quite sophisticated about phones. They know, just as we do, that the devices can make you feel gross and steal your day, and they take steps to mitigate those effects, without getting rid of the devices entirely.”
had more evidence in her letter this week.RETAIL
BRIGHT BLUES //
says we’re emerging from pastels into primaries. “After the inspiring Celine and Dior shows, I could practically hear merchants exhale…First, the color story from Celine—kelly green, Yves Klein blue, cherry red.” Here for it.GOOD TRIP // When influencer trips become “too literal, too staged, it breaks the spell. You stop feeling transported and start feeling marketed to. That’s the difference between storytelling and a campaign.” Love this observation by
. Rhode’s new hotel campaign is a prime example (though thoroughly on brand). J.Crew’s did result in their most ‘made for social’ content they’ve made in a while, but you certainly knew the gathering wasn’t a meeting of kindred spirits. Hotel Il Pellicano’s birthday trip, though? Spellbinding.TECH
THE HIDDEN LAYER // Puck just added an AI letter, the Hidden Layer. I’m already loving its non-Kool-Aid-drinking takes.”The truth is that large language models remain bound, for now at least, by many of the same constraints as existed in 2022: persistent issues of bias and reliability…And while Duolingo is now an “A.I.-first” company, others, like Klarna, have backtracked after diving headfirst into AI.” I’m picking up what Ian Krietzberg is putting down.
DARK CRYPTO // Jack Dorsey released Bitchat this week, a peer-to-peer communication system that works “on mesh networks,” aka via Bluetooth. Meaning you don't need the internet, and more critically, it’s untraceable. “This is how you build real crypto anarchist communities,” says
. No surprise, this is what it’s being used for. On a less insider note, expect everyone from hair stylists to personal trainers to opt for this over Venmo.TOKEN TIME // In a surprising turn of events, the talk of the investing town is in Europe. First, Texas invests in psychedelics. Now this. The world is truly upside down. But if you want to have shares in OpenAI and SpaceX and are worried that no IPOs mean zero liquidity, Robinhood wants to rescue you. This week, they announced, poolside with a chalkboard, that they will now be offering ‘tokens’, allowing you to invest in non-public offerings. While “they aren’t technically ‘equity,’ the tokens effectively give retail investors exposure to… private assets.” Europe’s tech and financial futures just got a lot more interesting.
SMALL CHANGES // Medium, the company that is kicking themselves that they aren’t now Substack, announced some updates this week. You can now—wait for it—edit the About page and have an archive. Yikes. There are VERY few times I’d suggest brands building in private, but unless you plan to pull us into your big vision, backend-only changes are best made private. The rate and expectation of tech development have changed drastically in the last year. Snail's pace does little for your dinosaur perception. Happy to help.
SPORT
SOCIAL SPORT ->
// The Wimbledon social team put out 373 in one week. Talk about a strong rally. “Some of the most watched videos on the Wimbledon account aren’t of famous tennis players or intense match moments—they are of the spectators.” Overheard at Wimbledon is yet another example of ultra-human content thriving. As more artificiality creeps (or storms) in. Expect more of this.ATHLETE TRAINING // I mentioned that Fanatics Fest was offering athletes access to business coaches. They aren’t alone.
says Pro Athlete Community (PAC) has $7.6MM to help athletes navigate diversifying their earnings. They currently have +650 current and former pro athletes across +10 sports and leagues. It’s B-school for athletes.WELLNESS & BEAUTY
DIY DIAGNOSIS // This might be the best, paid ad in history. Catchy jingle. Check. Bang on consumer insight. Check. Waits until the very end to let you realise it’s an ad. Check. Perimenopause is a huge driver for a growing, global distrust in medical institutions amongst women (endometriosis is the other). By giving a hyper-shareable voice to the frustration, Mira Fertility has won itself a few thousand fans. Now they need to leverage it.
MYO MY // The preventative health sector won’t stop. Nor should it. The demand is there. You know I’m big on fascia flossing. For a more mainstream audience, there’s Myo, a sleek and expanding physiotherapy startup. “Nearly half of [Myo’s]...aren’t dealing with a major injury—they’re [there] to prevent one, improve posture, or feel more in control of how their body moves—fascinating. Their focus on pelvic floor PT is also notable (4th trimester is now a mainstream conversation). Fitt Insider pointed out that there’s more room to expand their thinking. “Mental and physical therapy are deeply intertwined, but both are fragmented and underresourced…Next-level clinics could craft care plans spanning 1:1 PT to ancillary services like peptides, shockwave, PRP, acupuncture, float therapy, osteopathy, neuromodulation, CBT, and MBSR.” This is the future, if you ask me. Also interesting in the preventative health market: Sensifai Health. It’s an AI preventative tool to detect systemic inflammation. Inflammation is a growing conversation in both the longevity and fertility space.
TRAVEL
SWIPED RIGHT // Tinder’s co-founder and his brother have purchased Santa Barbara’s historic El Encanto Resort for $82.2MM from Belmond. And
wasted zero time getting us the scoop. “No velvet ropes, no Soho House clones. We want something more intimate, more grounded. A mix of Santa Barbara locals, LA creative nomads, and Europeans who disappear for a month at a time. A space where you can have a mezcal at 3PM on a Tuesday and talk architecture, not TikTok.” Book me a room.FUN FOR THE WEEK
Evidence champagne is not dead. This would make a funny campaign insight.
Disney movies in a Yinka Ilori-designed outdoor movie theatre? Say less.
More mountain pop-ups to come this winter. Are you ready for the Winter Olympics?
This is funny, Snapchat.
Forget getting a meeting, what you need to succeed today is a WhatsApp invite.
Welcome to Aura Farming. In case you don’t know why everyone is dancing like this.
Gifting suites and Printemps private dinners, Paris is getting more like the US every day.
Brands are trying to make National Creatine Day a thing. Please stop.
- has been saying this, Gen-Z abstinence isn’t health-driven, it’s financial.
Celine parked branded bikes outside of their show—cute.
Diabetic Barbie. Love this.
LL Bean got the message about being useful. Love to see it.
Gmail’s “Manage subscriptions” feature is an ‘Apple’s no tracking’ moment for brands.
What’s happening at SeaWorld? Genius or unhinged. Maybe both?
Sign this kid. So cute. And, unrelated, work with this lady. Too funny.
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.