Friday bite
Marriage is scary, what if they don’t want to use cost caps?
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Everything has been heavily election focused this week and many US brands have been quiet on social. So this week it’s a slightly lighter edition, but that hasn’t stopped us from gathering the latest trends for your Friday lunch doom scroll.
In brand and culture
Lush Cosmetics is likely heading towards a restructure. Investment bank Blackrock invited influencers to an financial event last week, which has raised some eyebrows. Teenage boys are getting heavily into skincare, which potentially leaves space for some new brands targeting male Gen Alpha.
Modern Retail reports that there’s an evergrowing rise of “green fatigue” with eco-brands needing to lean more heavily into performance than green credentials. This is something we’ve seen for a long time on ads (and the same goes for B Corp and similar) too.
And an interesting read this week over on Telling the Bees with the knowingly clickbaity title of The Mainstreaming of Loserdom, which analyses the shifting the culture of ‘going out’ from 90s Buffy and Charmed through to Brat Summer today.
This week on TikTok
I never see you at the club
Fittingly given the above article, a TikTok template spreading at the moment is the ‘I never see you at the club’ phrase followed by a niche or wholesome activity that they do instead. It’s defensive by nature: ‘yes you may think I’m boring but do I care?’
I never see you at the club, ok well I never see you reading through the Friday bite?
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Marriage is scary…
People have been utilising this trend to highlight their non-negotiables, whether broad or niche.
Marriage is scary, what if they don’t want to use cost caps?
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Everyone is a princess
This TikTok trend captures the ‘one guy working in an office full of women’ dynamic. In these videos the camera focuses on the women in the office whilst an audio says “I love you all, you’re beautiful, and never forget that everyone is a princess”. The camera then pans to the one male member who lets out a high-pitched giggled.
At Ballpoint we have a 3:1 female:male ratio in the office, so it’s only a matter of time before I’m roped into this.
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Life is worth living
People share simple pleasures to Justin Bieber singing “life is worth living”. Whilst some people share genuine pleasures like their favourite takeaway or a freshly stocked fridge full of Diet Coke, others have of course taken a comedic angle: life is worth living when your mum shares her ice cream with the cat.
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It’s always tricky for brands to return to social after such a prominent election, so will be interesting to see how things are next week. But we imagine given the impending demands of Black Friday, Christmas Gifting, and general Q4, they’ll find a way.
What do you think?
We’re considering breaking this out into its own separate newsletter. A question for you: would you immediately sign up to it? Give us a comment/reply with your answer.