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What's up, Future Party people? It can be a shot in the dark to guess where the economy’s going, but one indicator seems to be a pretty reliable signal: Super Bowl ads. Yep, you read that right. The history of recent bubbles is surprisingly intertwined with ad themes from football’s biggest weekend. Read more below.
In other news… Pharrell Williams succeeds Virgil Abloh, Super Bowl ads signal economic directions, and meet Buzzy The Robot.
Top Trends
YouTube → “The Summoning” - Sleep Token
Twitter → Valentine’s Day
Google → Dave Hollis
Reddit → Tesla
TikTok → “Big Boy Speed Up” - DJ Kampung
Spotify → “golden hour” - JVKE
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FASHION
LVMH thinks Pharrell looks good on them // Illustration by Kate Walker
Pharrell Williams is LVMH’s next menswear designer
The Future. Louis Vuitton has hired Pharrell Williams to succeed Virgil Abloh as creative director of the brand’s menswear department. The appointment — which capitalizes on Williams’ celebrity as a musician — is a departure from typical industry practices, and might bring celebrities further into the fold of fashion companies if it’s successful.Deets of the dudsWhile Williams is a nontraditional candidate for the role, he still has a long history with the fashion industry.
In the past 20 years, Williams has collaborated with many designers and brands, including Nigo, Diesel, CHANEL, Moncler, and adidas, with whom he has a co-branded line of shoes and clothing.
Williams also collaborated with LV back in the early aughts, and he was close friends with Abloh.
In November, he launched Joopiter, a platform where fans could buy pieces from his personal collection.
Williams received the CFDA Fashion Icon Award in 2015.
Pharrell’s first collection of designs will be showcased this June.
Major come upsLVMH (Louis Vuitton’s parent company) recently hit a growth spurt and snagged the largest stock market valuation in Europe, doubling its 2018 $10 billion valuation in just four years to become the largest luxury brand in the world.
Another recent trend: LVMH has partnered more often with major musicians, including Rihanna. It’s hard to say whether these musicians are directly responsible for LVMH’s success, but whatever they’re doing, they should probably keep doing it.
BUSINESS
Is the Super Bowl a crystal ball? // Illustration by Kate Walker
Super Bowl ads can show us where the economy is going
The Future. With 30-second spots that cost $7 million, Super Bowl ads are the most expensive ad placements in the US, and companies only buy them if they expect to scale way up — meaning, companies in bubbles. Consequently, Super Bowl ads could be used as a (loose) indicator of what’s about to crash.
Ups and downsThe history of recent bubbles is surprisingly intertwined with Super Bowl ad themes.
The 2000 Super Bowl featured ads from 14 dot-com companies. The next year, the bubble popped, and the software industry couldn’t afford spots.
Crypto met the same fate. Last year, so many crypto firms ran Super Bowl ads that some called it the Crypto Bowl — but this year, following a crypto crash and the implosion of FTX, there was only one crypto ad.
This year saw a return to classics like beer, snacks, and cars, turning away from the pandemic-era shift to digital goods. The only major new player on the scene? Electric vehicles.
Fumble or touchdown?One might guess from the uptick in EV ads that electric cars are in a bubble of their own, and they might be right.
But bubbles like these might point to a resurgence in the long term. The dot-com bubble popped but then gave way to the software boom of the 2010s; the crypto bubble might give way, in time, to widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. Some Hail Marys get caught.
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TECHNOLOGY
BuzzFeed and quizzes. Name a more iconic duo... we'll wait // Unsplash
Meet Buzzy The Robot
The Future. Last month, BuzzFeed created a stir when it announced that it would partner with OpenAI to enhance its quiz experience. Yesterday, the collaboration went live with six “Infinity Quizzes” powered by “Buzzy The Robot,” which is based on OpenAI’s publicly available API trained on a mix of text, code, and information. While the outcome of this partnership is still TBD, if it’s profitable for BuzzFeed, it might continue to generate investor interest in the media company, whose share price rose more than 100% following its AI adoption news in January.
Better than Mad LibsBuzzFeed’s wildly popular online quizzes saw 1.1 billion views in 2022 alone. Its new Infinity Quizzes (and resulting stories) are a collaborative effort between BuzzFeed’s quiz writers, Buzzy The Robot, and quiz takers themselves.
Infinity Quizzes give users a basic theme, ask a few keyword questions, and build a personalized narrative around their responses, which is theoretically “infinite” in its variations (hence the name).
BuzzFeed saves anonymized prompts and results from OpenAI to improve performance. OpenAI uses that data to decide what quizzes are built next.
The current Infinity Quizzes include four that revolve around Valentine’s Day, one sponsored by an advertiser, and one for premium subscribers.
Created by humans, enhanced by AILike other generative AI, Infinity Quizzes spit out customized — but sometimes clumsy — results.
Over time, BuzzFeed’s testing and fine-tuning could start to pay off, as Buzzy The Robot reboots not only its quiz experience but also its brand image.
The real gist of sports
Only 4% of sports news covers female athletes. The GIST is tackling that (see what we did there). They’re a women-led, inclusive sports newsletter that’s not afraid to talk about sexism in sports.
The GIST covers the biggest headlines — all written in a refreshing female voice. We find it easy to read, entertaining, and funny. And so do the other 600,000+ GIST readers.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Meet The Whales
Composed of animated NFT whale characters, virtual band The Whales is the latest venture from Def Jam and The Catalina Whale Mixer, as they seek to deepen the relationship between music and Web3 culture. The concept for The Whales was born when WAGMI Beach co-founders Ben Willis and Joshua Andriano “pitched the idea of a community-grown avatar group to DJ and [Def Jam’s DJ Mormile and Ryan Rodriguez] just got it.” While Def Jam has not yet confirmed the musicians behind the full-length album, it will involve a “who’s who” of musical talent. Nice.
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A leopard can change its spots
Research shows that at least two-thirds of people want to change some element of their personality. Well, good news: with the right psychological strategies (and enough effort), they can, according to a series of groundbreaking studies from psychology professor Nathan Hudson. Once people engage in regular activities that reflect the personality traits they wish to adopt, their traits do shift in the desired direction. We all have the power to shape our future selves.
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Liking crypto makes you hot
About 83% of participants in a recent Binance survey said liking crypto was an “attractive feature in a relationship,” while 70% said they would be more inclined to go on a date with someone if they found out they were interested in crypto. But only about 38% of respondents said their partner was as passionate about crypto as they were. Meanwhile, 27% congratulated themselves for introducing their significant other to Web3. What a time to be in love and investing.
Read More → techcrunch
It costs to be single
While more American adults are single now than ever before (38%), their wallets are feeling the burn. A recent Zillow analysis compares how much more singles pay to live alone in a one-bedroom apartment than couples pay in the same spot. On average, solo Americans pay a “singles tax” of almost $7,000 per year. At least they don’t have to consult with someone else about their spending or worry about what that person might be doing with their money. Silver linings, people.
Read More → insider
2022 was Airbnb’s first profitable year ever
As people continued to travel despite economic uncertainty, Airbnb recorded a profit of $1.9 billion last year — a huge upgrade from its $352 million loss in 2021. The company said guest demand was strong in 2022, with people returning to larger cities and crossing borders following a pandemic lull. Right on.
Read More → fastcompany
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Today's email was brought to you by Luke Perrotta and Kait Cunniff.Editing by Melody Song. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.