Frank Ocean wants to rival Cartier with his new brand
In the latest episode of celebrities-starting-brands, Frank Ocean launched a 25-piece collection of fine jewellery under the brand name ‘Homer’. Targeting luxury spenders ("I'm perfectly happy wearing $3m worth of jewellery and going for a walk") he seems to be leaning heavily into exclusivity with no e-commerce, only a store in New York.
A strong visual identity helps taboo brands go mass market
When it comes to companies that are operating in ‘taboo’ spaces, visual design is a useful tool to change perceptions and start new conversations. Glaze - a smoking gadget company for “tobacco and other things” (read: weed) - attempts to move away from ‘stoner culture’, with an identity that's modern and mundane.
PSG's social media manager will be over the moon
I know nothing about football (sorry) but Lionel Messi's move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain, saw PSG's instagram double from 20m followers to 43m followers in just a few days. It reminds me that the commodified crop of influencers-for-influencers-sake are diminishing in value, and the real ‘influencers’ of tomorrow will be the doers: sportspeople, creatives, businesspeople.
The hardest part of being an influencer is getting paid, you're often subject to 90-day payment terms (at worst it's 180). London-based Lotanna Ezeike plans to build an entire financial ecosystem around creators and influencers - starting with paying their invoices instantly.
What does good performance creative look like?
A useful twitter thread about making performance creative that converts. The TLDR: Start with a hook (ideally mined from reviews and instagram comments), lo-fi UGC performs best, and measuring success according to how many people make it past the 3 second mark.
10 marketing lessons for early-stage founders
Penned by the former CMO's at Spotify and Zalando, Sophie and Christian share their notes-from-the-trenches of scaling consumer brands. My favourite: get your 3 USP's right once and forever. You shouldn't need paragraphs (or a 2-minute ramble) to explain why you're different.
The market for random objects is on the up
No-one wants a home filled with stuff from IKEA. We want our pieces to have a story behind them. To be a conversation starter. Likely accelerated by lockdown, a number of instagram boutiques have popped up to feed our desire for one-of-a-kind, interior objects. Intrigued to see if more established players - Hay, Trouva, Fy etc - follow suit.
The weird, glitchy, Amazon-ad that everyone is talking about
Amazon released an ad on TikTok that cut between a bunch of clips from the gaming platform Roblox, and a grainy video of a teen listening to Flo Rida's “Low”. Overlaid to the audio of a text-to-speech AI robot. (Just watch it). It's described as the ‘chaos edit’ - and any brands trying to speak to Gen Z should get into it.
Khaby Lame surpassed 100m on TikTok - the second to ever do so
If you find it hard to keep up with what's hot on TikTok, this is the report for you. Released weekly by the Kyra IQ team, this week's unearth that Tom Daley is now the fastest-growing creator in the UK, cleantok is the 4th most popular trend, and 75% of Gen Z get their fashion inspo from Instagram.
