Ad Downturn Opportunity, Subscription Challenges, DTC Daily Cyber Mondays, Channel Shift for DTCs, Virtual Graduations, DTC Advice New Commodity, YouTube's TikTok Envy, Ethnic Barstool Sports
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Former AOL CEO Armstrong Predicts Ad Slump Will Be Worse Than in 2008
Former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, a veteran digital ad executive, predicts the coronavirus will devastate ad spending more severely than either the 2008 financial crisis or the recession that followed Sept. 11.And that is despite the fact that people are spending far more time watching TV and ...
Why subscriptions just don’t work for customers
For the past ~ 20 years, online purchasing has been filled with friction points for consumers. Long checkout forms, multiple pages, and…
For a consumer, by making purchasing as easy as messaging a friend, you remove the friction points of logging in and adding more details that previously held single transactions online back, whilst addressing the demands of speed, customisation and personalisation.
On the other hand, by taking aspects that vendors previously loved, like a low-barrier to purchase and an element of control over future revenue, but phase out the big commitment and lock-in psychology of a subscription, you create a model that reflects both parties.
Most brands aren't ready to win in e-commerce, report says
Just 17% of brand say they are ahead of the curve or leading in that space, while 71% reported they have a strong focus in e-commerce, but are catching up to or keeping pace with competitors.
According to a study released last week from Brick Meets Click and ShopperKit, 31% of households — roughly 40 million — have shopped for groceries online in the last month.
Profitero and Kantar's study, largely conducted before the world experienced COVID-19, reveals many brands treat e-commerce like another branch of their existing business instead of an entirely different experience.
E-commerce Not Enough to Save Fashion Retail
Web sales — the only revenue channel now for many retailers — have fallen sharply, highlighting challenges in an uncertain time.
E-commerce has offered some small ray of hope in the shutdown, but with stores locked and associates furloughed , the web business is hardly big or profitable enough now to support troubled companies for long (although in the midst of the turmoil there are some analysts looking to recovery next year and starting to pick winners).
“Unsurprisingly, our ratings changes favor companies with stronger balance sheets, more access to cash, strong global brands, higher margin structures that will be able to cushion the upcoming negative impact and the most recapture opportunity in a 2021 ‘recovery’ year,” he said.
How Draper James pivoted its drop strategy and capitalized on loungewear – Glossy
When Draper James realized more people were working for home and looking to buy comfy apparel, the brand moved up the launch of its biggest loungewear investment to date.
While Drape James had dabbled in pajamas and T-shirts in the past, CEO Taylor Rettig said its latest launch on March 18 was the company’s biggest foray into the loungewear category.
Over the last month, the brand has slowly released new products each week, from the lounge collection and a swim collaboration with Land’s End.
DTC Channel Shift: More Online Sales
In the chart, the axis on the left is total revenue sold through Commerce 7 (roughly $2 million in sales from 300 clients each week).
It appears that wineries are still getting customers to sign up even while tasting rooms remain closed (although not to the same levels as before lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders).
Campus is closed, so college students are rebuilding their schools in Minecraft
Just in time for graduation.
The boom of servers has inspired others to quickly organize around them, like Jasper Ty, a Drexel University freshman, who recently recorded and uploaded a Zoom presentation where he ranks the top five college campus builds.
University of Washington builders went as far as creating a “Building Standards” channel on Discord to formalize road widths, the variety of wood for signs, and the color of concrete blocks used in brutalist constructions.
In a time of mounting unknowns, advice has become a hot DTC commodity | Modern Retail
Brands are in uncharted territory as the age of coronavirus hurdles along. They have many questions and few empirical examples. As a result, a number of people and services are trying to rise the…
Founders are faced with conundrums of how to cut costs, maintain cash flow and how to stay afloat while the world changes dramatically every day.
Loose Threads launched a free hotline where small-to-medium-sized businesses can ask any question and receive text-based guidance from the retail consultancy.
YouTube Plans ‘Shorts’ to Rival TikTok
YouTube is planning to release a rival to TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing app, by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter.YouTube is currently planning Shorts, its answer to TikTok, as a feature inside its existing mobile app. Shorts will include a feed of ...
Coronavirus: A lesson in supply chain risk management
A quarantine put supply chains' risk management strategies to the test as it left manufacturing facilities without workers needed to reach full production, reduced demand for ocean freight and cut air freight capacity.
Factories producing goods for thousands of global companies remained shut down past the Lunar New Year holidays as employees couldn't return to work.
Soon, firms in other countries began announcing plans to temporarily suspend production because they couldn't procure parts from suppliers in China.
DTC Sales: Now, Every Day is Cyber Monday - BevNET.com
Typically, food and beverage represents only around 3.2% of total U.S. online sales. But through a combination of factors, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has accelerated the shift to web-based shopping.
For the month of March, California-based Cann, which produces a low-dose THC-infused beverage, has already exceeded its total combined order volumes for January and February, with sales traffic on the cannabis delivery app Eaze doubling for the last two consecutive weeks, according to the company.
Despite hiring thousands of new workers, online retailer leaders like Amazon and Instacart are dealing with a new set of labor challenges, with as many as 150,000 contractors for the latter planning to strike today demanding better safety protocols and higher pay.
Notion, Maker of Collaboration Software, Raises $50 Million
While many start-ups grapple with the fallout from the pandemic, this San Francisco company raised more cash to survive.
Ram Shriram, a venture capitalist who invested in Notion in 2013, said that at many businesses, “a lot of the products we use were designed in the 1990s.” There is room for new workplace tools that take advantage of the internet and other advances so people can collaborate and have the most up-to-date data while they work, he said.
It is also building new features into its software — like options for dictating who can access and edit documents — to satisfy larger companies’ legal, security and compliance requirements.
How brands are using new online events for data acquisition – Glossy
Fashion brands have long known that events are a great way to build a community, but in the days of coronavirus, when gatherings are impossible, some brands are taking those in-person events online. From workout classes to coffee meet-ups, brands are finding that doing events online isn’t just stopgap replacement for its live events, they can also be improvements since they allow for more opportunities for data gathering and scale.
Kudla said Vuori has not yet quantified what percentage of viewers on Instagram are new followers or existing customers, but a key goal for the brand is understanding this new online audience.
It featured trainer Triana Cristobal and welcomed several hundred participants, including members of the media and customers, reached through Yella’s email list.
What Today’s DTC Brands Can Teach Those of Tomorrow
We are smack-dab in the middle of a bold new era -- one in which the direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand marketer is reshaping the entire outlook of business and marketing. In this article, Pepperjam CMO Maura Smith takes a look at 5 key strategies many DTC brands have in common.
The digital age created more access than ever for consumers to voice their opinions and preferences about brands including the ways they expect to interact and make purchases.
Or pair traditional PR outreach with affiliate marketing around product launches - leveraging the interplay of press coverage, referral traffic, and conversions.
FaintFlex Vol. 19 - Why There's No Black Barstool
And who I think could build it.
In contrast, many of the most popular black internet personalities & comedians built their followings by focusing on creating funny relatable sketches that while low budget, can be more challenging to maintain & monetize at scale.
If Barstool’s top podcast Pardon My Take (1-2hrs) generates around 1 million downloads per episode, gets published 3 times per week, and they read 4 ads per show, that’s $15M+ alone annually, not even including merchandise sales driven from it.