Nike Acquisition Spree, Date the Customer, Bustle Cratering, White Claw Pulls Back, Apparel Apocalypse, Rental Economy Teardown, Can Apple Do It Again?, Amazon Go Expansion
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Nike Snags Startup By Seattle Seahawks QB For Undisclosed Sum
Nike , a multinational shoe brand, has acquired TraceMe , a startup founded by the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, Russell Wilson .
Despite how this translates on the street level for Nike, from the balcony we see the current appetite of the mega sports company looking a bit more tech than it did in the early 2000s, in a world where fans are able to stay engaged through feeds, leagues, and apps.
Date the customer, don’t battle the competition
During the age of Uber in Singapore, like clockwork, every Sunday a slick templatized email with Uber’s weekly voucher code appeared in my…
Aside from their viral and wildly entertaining video pitch , they were able to penetrate and compete with Gillette, which had 72% of the US market share, by putting themselves in the shoes of the customer.
DSC’s storytelling, and ability to connect with the customer by highlighting that buying overpriced razors sucked, brought them a captivated audience.
Insiders say morale at Bustle Digital Group is cratering as it quietly axes staff and loses focus
Two dozen current and former employees told Business Insider that Bustle Digital Group is undergoing massive changes in direction and values.
Bustle Digital Group, the digital-media conglomerate that has purchased Mic , Inverse , Gawker, and Nylon in the past year, has undergone stealth staff cuts, according to 24 former and current employees who spoke with Business Insider.
"I will always have love and loyalty for the Bustle / BDG team that I worked with at the beginning of my time there, but right now the new EIC appears to be hiring exclusively white women for top level editorial and wow it's pretty glaring."
White Claw hard seltzer cut media spending 30% as brand's popularity surged, study says
Across the "malternative" category, ad spending jumped 21% as several big brands vied for a share of exploding sales.
As millennial drinkers seek a lower-calorie alternative to beer, sales of hard seltzer have tripled in the past year, with more than half of that growth happening in July, according to Nielsen data cited by CNN.
Other brands looking to gain a toehold in the hard seltzer space have resorted to marketing stunts designed to drive virality, possibly in an effort to replicate White Claw's success and engage the category's target audience of younger consumers.
The 'retail apocalypse' is an apparel apocalypse
Most retailers in bankruptcy, or on the brink of it, sell clothes. Maybe that's their problem. So far this year, 10 of the 16 major retail bankruptcies were filed by companies that mostly or exclusively sell apparel and/or footwear: Forever 21, Avenue, A'gaci, Barneys New York, Charming Charlie, Diesel USA, Payless ShoeSource, FullBeauty Brands, Charlotte Russe and Gymboree.
That grassroots approach to fashion is making it difficult for merchandisers, at least those building seasonal lines from scratch, according to Lee Peterson, executive vice president of thought leadership and marketing at WD Partners.
Amazon will now ship you a single $2 stick of deodorant by tomorrow
Who can compete with that? “There’s no way that shipping costs are less than 75 cents, and there’s no way any other company that wants to sell a makeup brush could deliver that for free,” said Sally Hubbard, a former New York State antitrust enforcer who now works at Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly think tank.
It’s all a reminder that Amazon’s size and power mean that when it makes seemingly innocuous changes, like letting you buy a tube of toothpaste with free next-day shipping, it triggers a series of consequences: for brands selling on its platform, for traditional retailers trying to survive, and, potentially, for this planet.
Massive, AI-Powered Robots Are 3D-Printing Entire Rockets
Relativity Space may have the biggest metal 3D printers in the world, and they're cranking out parts to reinvent the rocket industry here—and on Mars.
“That’s Keanu Reeves’ stunt gym,” says Tim Ellis, the chief executive and cofounder of Relativity Space, a startup that wants to combine 3D printing and artificial intelligence to do for the rocket what Henry Ford did for the automobile.
To print a large component, such as a fuel tank or rocket body, the printer feeds miles of a thin, custom-made aluminum alloy wire along the length of an arm to its tip, where a plasma arc melts the metal.
How real is the rental economy?
An excerpt from my newsletter, Exponential View. Do sign-up! Renting homes, cars, dresses, appliances, even dogs, has appeared in the public consciousness under the horrible moniker of the ‘sharing economy.
Archcapitalists at the private equity firm, KKR, doyen of the world’s largest leveraged buyouts, have put together a detailed peek into the dynamics of the rental economy in The New Consumer .
In order to work, these services need to have core profitability rather than relying on regulatory arbitrage (as Uber and other ridesharing firms have done in treating drivers as arms-length contractors) or other financial wheezes (entire WeWork).
Sabra opens pop-up restaurant in NYC to showcase hummus dishes
"Whirled Peas" features a menu of original dishes created by celebrity chefs who use hummus as a key ingredient. The company collaborated with chef and cookbook author Einat Admony to transform her Kish-Kash restaurant into the "Whirled Peas" pop-up experience from Oct. 11 to Nov. 24, with reservations available through the Resy app and website, per a press release .
By opening a pop-up restaurant for a limited time, Sabra aims to highlight the versatility of hummus as an ingredient in a broader range of recipes rather than simply as a dip for snacking or parties.
Pardon the Disruption: Why grocers need better e-commerce platforms
They’ve set the foundation for an omnichannel future. Now they have to focus on improving the user experience.
Industry experts have pinned the lack of enthusiasm to two main ideas: That consumers find online grocery too expensive, and that they like to pick their own fruits, vegetables and fresh cuts of meat, thank you very much.
Take a spin through most online grocery sites and apps and you’ll see a storehouse of products ordered by department, a few assorted promos, a scroll-able list of items that are on sale and, if you’re signed into a profile, some suggestions based on past purchases.
YouTube Becomes Popular Side Hustle for Hollywood Stars
Six-figure deals for filming everyday trips to the store? It's enough to lure high-profile celebrities to the platform, but the global audience and creative freedom (plus ad revenue and marketing opportunities) help keep them there as growing an online following becomes "a great point of leverage."
In March, Zac Efron started a travel- and exercise-focused channel, and in June Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp joined the fray with a video featuring YouTube phenoms The Dolan Twins.
"It's not rivaling the role of an A-list movie star," cautions one talent agent, "but for a number of people, they can get to a place where they're generating a pretty healthy amount of revenue on the platform and getting an increasing flow of brand opportunities."
Apple has succeeded for so long on the back of the iPhone. What comes next?
“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two-and-a-half years,” Apple co-founder and then-CEO Steve Jobs said onstage at the 2007 Macworld convention.
Jobs paced slowly across the stage, then said Apple was fortunate enough to be releasing three revolutionary products that day: a “widescreen iPod with touch controls,” a “revolutionary mobile phone,” and a “breakthrough internet communications device.” He kept repeating, “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator.” Cheers grew as the audience caught on.
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The overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that human activities are contributing to climate-warming trends over the past century, and most leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.
Counterfeit is one of the few crimes specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, yet bad actors are undeterred and continue to push their products through online and physical stores, harming both consumers and the retail companies who serve them.
Amazon’s Innovation to Touch Down in Irvine
Though technological innovations in the past decade prove that online shopping is the future of consumerism, Amazon began opening physical grocery shops—namely Amazon Go—back in Jan.2018. Plans of …
They have been changing the marketplace over the past few years by introducing a new way for consumers to purchase anything with a click of a button and having it shipped to them within days.
This setup gives customers a convenient way to find their groceries, all while incorporating high-tech cameras and sensors that let them skip the checkout line.