Together with
Sick kicks. Rumor has it, Nike SB is teaming up with none other than The Powerpuff Girls to release a line of Puff-inspired Nike Dunks. Expected to be in their signature colors of pink, blue, and green, fans anticipate the drop to happen in late 2023. It really takes you back to the good ol’ days, doesn’t it?
In other news… Hollywood flounders sans stars, Silicon Valley’s price hikes, and any company can have its Barbie moment.
Top Trends
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ENTERTAINMENT
Hollywood marketing wrestles with a no-star headache
The Future. With actors on strike, top talent is on the picket line instead of on the press tour. That’s a bummer for stars who were hoping to raise their profiles and support their work, but an even bigger bummer for studios who rely on the PR to open their movies. With a long strike likely ahead that’ll cripple the exposure generated by the fall festival season (Toronto, Venice, Telluride), companies may decide to push releases to next year when they can be given the attention they need.
PRoblems
Movies have a hard time capturing public attention without stars to promote them.
Hollywood got a small taste of that when Warner Bros. had to sit Ezra Miller out of The Flash due to personal behavior… and the movie flopped.
Now, with the strike, actors are barred from doing any PR for struck companies, which include nearly every studio and streamer (A24 is an exception).
So, without actors (and writers), studios have to put the burden solely on directors, as long as they’re not also writers — a heavy lift for original films.
Even late-night shows like The Tonight Show and tastemaking live productions like SNL have gone dark with the writers all on the picket line.
While streamers like Netflix and AppleTV+ don’t really do much marketing (unless they’re stumping for Oscars), companies that rely on theatrical revenue are dependent on the momentum created by press tours to open their films.
With the box office still in recovery mode, every bit of exposure counts — so much so that Tom Cruise even tried to intervene in the negotiations. But only a deal that properly addresses all actors’ concerns will put the press cycle back in rotation.
TECHNOLOGY
Breakin’ the bank // Illustration by Kate Walker
Millennials shoulder Silicon Valley’s price hikes
The Future. It’s not just you — services like Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix are getting pricier and pricier. That’s because the era of the “millennial lifestyle subsidy” has come to an end, and cold hard economics have come to ruin the hype parade. This doesn’t mean these platforms will sink under the weight of their margins (some, like Netflix, are now money-making market leaders), but a new era of paying the actual price of things may be upon us.
Deflating hype
If the last decade was all about how tech made millennials’ lives easier, this decade may be all about how unsustainable that lifestyle was.
Millennials embraced the plethora of apps that provided low-cost, efficient luxuries like rideshares and streaming despite being too cheap to be true.
That’s because they were. Silicon Valley VCs funneled in investment to keep prices low, knowing these platforms’ growth would skyrocket and become intertwined with millennials’ lives.
And by propping up these platforms’ unsustainable business models, it disrupted entrenched industries, undercut worker pay, gutted employee benefits, and hurt independent businesses.
Now, the other shoe has dropped, as the costs of these services rise, and a generation of workers feel like their financial security has been undermined.
And with these companies having gone public at record valuations — and seen their VC investors reap rich windfalls and then bounce once their valuations fell back down to Earth — Insider argues the whole scheme may actually be considered predatory pricing.
Yikes.
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ENTERTAINMENT
The future Hollywood? // Illustration by David Vendrell
Blue chip brands can become Hollywood players
The Future. Prolific manager and producer Michael Sugar of Sugar23 (Spotlight, The Knick) believes there’s a rich opportunity for brands to take a bigger role in producing and financing premium film and TV. With Hollywood studios recently crying poor because of their transition into streaming, the entertainment industry may welcome the opportunity to collaborate with some deep-pocketed partners.
Sugar argues that instead of pouring millions into traditional advertising and DTC marketing, brands should instead produce and finance movies and shows that reflect their audiences and values.
For example, that could look like Coca-Cola doing their version of Ted Lasso, or a sports apparel company doing their version of Friday Night Lights.
Sugar points to how popular titles have been a boon for featured products, like chess in The Queen’s Gambit and skateboarding in Back to the Future.
Sugar23 has already experimented with this model with its docuseries The Turning Point, which was financed by P&G and ended up on MSNBC.
So, what do brands get out of this arrangement? For starters, they get access to stars who don’t want to do commercials and stronger connections with their audiences. And that’s not to mention the ability to use product placement where appropriate, a bigger direct return on their marketing investment, and ad revenue from other brands that want in on what cool thing was created.
That’s some literal big-screen marketing.
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Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Jay-Z is cracking open a bottle of his best D’ussé Cognac after becoming the first Black male artist to score 10 multi-platinum albums, with US album sales totaling 33.5 million. Read more → hypebeast
“Barbenheimer” is upon us as theaters report a surprising number of ticket sales for double features of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Read more → variety
In the first Hollywood earnings call since the start of the strikes, Netflix reported a six million-subscriber bump due to its password crackdown, the elimination of its basic ad-free plan, and a lot of free cash flow (no projects to spend money on). Read more → deadline
Fashion & E-Commerce
Kering is elevating Saint Laurent CEO Francesca Bellettini to run all of the fashion conglomerate’s brands. Read more → bof
Jonathan Anderson’s LOEWE is Lyst Index’s World’s Hottest Brand, with searches soaring 13% and the brand’s Anagram tank top becoming a desired staple. Read more → hypebeast
A federal lawsuit against Shein alleges the fast-fashion platform’s algorithm discovers fledgling trends and then steals the designs of smaller labels to pump out product faster than any other retailer can. Read more → bof
Tech, Web3, & AI
Apple is working on its own AI system, “Ajax,” which will be the foundation for its very own chatbot, dubbed by some as “Apple GPT.” Read more → bloomberg
Tech giants like Bill Gates are pouring investment into drilling startup Koloma, which is burrowing underground to tap carbon-free hydrogen that continuously replenishes itself. Read more → forbes
After failing to stop the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Justice Department and FTC proposed 13 new guidelines for tamping down market-dominating M&A. Read more → bloomberg
Creator Economy
The rivalry between Twitch and Kick is the Musk vs. Zuckerberg of livestreaming. Read more → forbes
Roblox is allowing developers to offer subscriptions within their experiences. Read more → theverge
Snap is redesigning its Bitmojis to become fully 3D-animated avatars, which will help with AR compatibility. Read more → fastcompany
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Melody Song. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.