For all the new subscribers this week, Friday Bite is our new shortform newsletter to keep you up to date with the latest social and brand trends. It’s in MVP mode at the moment. Please continue to provide feedback. What you like, dislike and everything in between.
Two products have stuck in my mind recently. The first is Lucy: nicotine pouches that are purposefully high in nicotine advertised as above. And Overdrive – an “overdose defense” against fentanyl that’s branded in a oddly marketable way. Everything we read today still tells us that Gen Z (and the emerging Gen A consumer) are less vice-driven than older counterparts, but these brands presumably aren’t appealing to no-one.
Heinz has removed two ads this week from circulation after a backlash for reinforcing racist stereotypes.
Abercrombie & Fitch is continuing its rebrand away from its prior 2000s image. But before it maintained its anti-far persona, the brand was the outfitter of adventurers. Henry Schlesinger in Airmail wrote a great company history to dive into.
Aled Maclean-Jones has written a thoughtful piece on Crossover Creativity about how creative work is “highly inefficient” by nature. Given today’s societal demands for efficiency, and how much of today’s work is truly creative work, this poses good thought for how we should approach our 9-to-5s.
There seems to be a growing trend of brands broadening away from core product offerings. The Yellow Bittern is a new 17-seater, phone-reservations only restaurant opening in London soon from the team behind Luncheon magazine. This follows in the footsteps of London’s most famous magazine-cum-restaurant Noble Rot.
In fashion, this is pretty common. Everyone from Ralph Lauren to Arket seems to have a coffee arm. And Café Leon Dore has almost as much cult status as the hero brand Aimé Leon Dore.
It’s highly unlikely that DTC-only businesses could reach £1bn valuations by themselves again, and so broadening out into adjacent lifestyle areas might be part of the trick to broaden brand + revenue.
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To the Succession main title theme, comes the “I lied. Put your clothes back on” meme that is followed by something niche that interests them.
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“I was running away from the police and…..” has continued to spread, with brands like Sheerluxe doing their own versions. And we expect it won’t be long before the below meme makes the jump into Instagram.
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And finally, there’s this. Where people are going into shops, saying “If it’s below X, I’ll buy it” and then doing the big reveal on price. This feels like a fairly easy one for physical product brands to have some fun with.
Enjoy your weekends.