Tower 28 gets brand positioning. Pretty Little Things, not so much.
Plus: Frida needs a photo of your nipples, and YouTube's sports sponsorships make professional sport's look amateur.
Morning,
This letter is coming to you from SF. I rode in a few Waymos. They were all Jaguars. Actions are the best way to reposition brands. Think Jaguar could have done a few more before they rolled out their new look.
If you only read one thing in this letter I recco: related to the about PRETTY MESSY but CALLING ALL CRACKED NIPS or YOU THE STAR are strong choices.
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
CALLING ALL CRACKED NIPS // Hot on the heels of their great snot-covered campaign, Frida is searching for cracked nipples to put on billboards with their Frida Uncensored casting call. They are asking women to show everything from episiotomy scars and at-home insemination (and yes, cracked nips). Much like campaigns featuring breastfeeding, many (relatable) images of women are rejected for OOH and TV spots. Love a campaign that pokes at some seriously antiquated thinking.
PRETTY MESSY // Growing up is hard. And frankly, it doesn’t happen (and shouldn’t IMO) overnight. Pretty Little Things rebranded from young, brash and pink to bright to sophisticated maroon elder overnight. The problem is they didn’t walk the walk before talking the talking. Repositioning through actions versus jarring rebrands is always the way, I don’t understand why more brands don’t get this.
F&B
PUT ON AN APRON // Protein, butts, and retro were big at Expo West this year. We discussed the giant butts and protein on the podcast with Fred Hart. What’s interesting about most of the retro packaging is the references to 1950s housewives. I did say Trad Wife vibes would grow in 2025.
SEEING CLEARLY // Buffalo Wild Wings has a clear vision of its consumer. For March Madness, they are rolling out goggles that allow people to watch multiple screens simultaneously. Such a fun swag. But their promotion of it is downright disastrous.
MOON OVER SUN // To celebrate the total lunar eclipse this week, Capri Sun launched a Capri Moon Punch collection. The ‘collectable’ LTO pouches have various phases of the moon that glow in the dark—cute. The moon is scannable and opens a SnapChat link to enter a competition—somewhat interesting.
DRUGS & BOOZE
SEX AND BOOZE -> As Seen On// They say kids don’t like alcohol and aren’t having romantic relationships, but Alix Earl and Emily Oberg want to prove them wrong. Alix is now an investor in SipsMargs. And Emily‘s new Sensual Sport officially launched, including a Substack (
’s interview with Emily is great). Both women are tapped into what their audiences want, so pay attention—two sides to every coin.DRINK YOUR WAY THROUGH -> The Hustle // Moosehead wants to ensure Canadians don’t lose out on their favorite beer because of the tariffs. They’ve launched a Presidential Pack with 1461 cans, enough for one a day of the term—hysterical.
SILVERS, ALPHAS & ZS
GIVE IT A REST -> AfterSchool //
laughed (as we all should) at a new term ‘restival’ being used to describe a trend of Gen Z no longer attending music festivals, instead opting to rest or watch them online. Let’s be clear. It’s not about rest. People are sick of the cost and bloodsport of concert-going. Even Beyonce’s hive is over it—so you know it’s bad ( letter on Beyonce’s brands = classic, must-read)GOOD OLD ROOMATES // If you read this letter, you know intergenerational living is on the rise.
says people are not just moving in with their own relatives. People sharing living spaces with non-relatives increased by +500K in 5 years. Nesterly, Padsplit, and CoGenerate are facilitating it. Every brand should be tracking this.RETAIL
TARGETING THE FUTURE // Target’s AI is listening. They are using their AI to watch for things that are trending on social, say leopard print, and using that information to gather relevant collections online to quickly take advantage. It’s a smart start, but once AI agents become table stakes, all of this will happen automatically, and that will be big.
UNMISTAKABLE WIN // Set Active accidentally made an entire collection too small. Sizing errors aren’t unusual (hence the ‘runs small, runs big’ features). But what owning the mistake is unusual. They made it into a campaign, and people loved them for it.
NORTH STAR // The NorthFace is making an effort for relevancy. In Feb they new collab with Aime Leon Dore. They’ve been going big for Paris Fashion Week with a Dover Street Market installation with Yukari Hotta for their Cecilie Bahnsen collab (even though outdoor is out, rock climbing photography is very in). And their latest campaign with musician Griff makes the Mountain jacket look great.
TECH
VIBE MARKETING // The words on everyone’s lips in tech this week are ‘vibe coding’. Andrej Karpathy coined it, but I particularly enjoyed Andrew Chen‘s letter on how it might relate to other sectors. ‘Vibe coding’ makes software trivial to build, and ‘vibe marketing’ is on the horizon. With AI agents doing the work, you’ll give the AI a goal, and it will build out your marketing, play by play, without you having to do very much at all.
A SPOT OF MISOGYNY // Spotify woke up this week and thought to itself: ‘Let’s invite an accused rapist to have a show about how to control women’– I don’t even know where to begin. Speaking to a reporter this week, I said there is very little that brands can do in 2025 to get canceled, and this is evidence.
GIVE US SPACES // While giving insightful takeaways on SxSW, Kirsten said everyone is desperate for IRL community. I guess Shopify agrees. They’re hiring for more roles for their ‘Shopify Spaces.’ As AI rises, we all want to connect with other humans. Related: Boardroom is starting a member’s club. A club based on sports but not playing—smart.
CUSTOM CRIMES -> The Hustle // The producers of Law and Order have started a new gaming studio. Their first title, Public Eye, takes place in a dystopia where the public is enlisted to solve crimes. Players use an AI assistant to collect evidence, and the AI will generate new cases, interview clips, and crime scene photos– this is gonna be popular.
SPORT
YOU THE STAR -> Offball // I’ve said it before, amateur athletes are the new professional athletes. Sidemen FC, a YouTube influencer team, played their annual charity match against the YouTube All-Stars (the All-Stars consisted of MrBeast, Logan Paul, Kai Cenat, etc). More impressive than the $6M raised was the number of sponsors they had. Many sponsors paid more for this one match (with crazy viewership) than they would pay to sponsor a Premier League team for a year—wow.
SET MEAL // French tennis player, Ugo Humber, made news this week for saying that rather than hiring a tennis coach he hired a professional chef while playing tournaments in the US. Food as (sports) medicine is getting louder.
WELLNESS & BEAUTY
BLUSH LIVES // Loved
’s interview with Tower 28 re: their new Tiktok comedy series, The Blush Lives of Sensitive Girls (great name). The series is very much in line with the Instagram premium trend. My favorite line, because it relates to active positioning (Pretty Little Things, take notes): “Our ongoing goal is for Tower 28 to become synonymous with the word sensitive…and really own this positioning.”TRAVEL
HIGH HOTEL BAR // There are few places better than a great hotel bar (even if you are drinking N/A). There’s a certain atmosphere that comes with people being in transit. So, it’s nice to hear that many hotel bars are starting to take their drink programs seriously by investing in celebrity bartenders. At the TY Bar at the Four Seasons, Toby Maloney’s is making “liquid love [letters] to New York City.” Who wants to meet up for a drink?
// According to Amex, 1/2 of Millennials and Gen-Z travel to a destination to find high-quality items that are handmade /authentic to the destination they are visiting (58% “designer goods”, 43% home and decor, 46% beauty products). There’s a big opportunity to overhaul the souvenir store space (in cities and airports). If you want to partner on that, I’m here.FUN FOR THE WEEK
Two Paris thing: This super cute cosmetic store via
+ guerilla sales.Love this stunning runway moment. Quite the visual/tonal contrast to Coperni’s.
This hand-painted packaging is pretty gorgeous.
Hermes made a post office. I guess luxury brands think the post office is glamorous.
Poppi is getting acquired by Pepsi. This
meme is hysterical.Zeghna and Ferragamo both cast Silvers in recent campaigns. Love to see it.
Mercedes is impressing me lately.
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.