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- #52 - Crocs, Thor & Dating Apps
#52 - Crocs, Thor & Dating Apps
Name a more iconic trio.
🐦 Inspirational tweet
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🐦 Twitter thread of the week
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🤖 eCommerce News:
“The Pinterest API for Shopping allows sellers to manage their product catalog and metadata. Its Product Tagging Pins now enable merchants to tag their products in their catalogue to branded content and images, the company said. With the new Video in Catalogs tool, sellers can now create videos for the items in their catalog, allowing shoppers to view their products from multiple angles. The platform also added a Shop tab on business profiles to help sellers better showcase their merchandise.”
“We're a couple of months out from Apple officially rolling out the next major versions of its various operating systems. However, you can try out iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, macOS Ventura and tvOS 16 right now. Apple has released a public beta, a few weeks after it offered up the first developer betas. To access them, you'll need to sign up for the Apple Beta Software Program and follow the directions.”
“Gymshark has introduced a new Gymshark Barbershop to allow men to comfortably open up to a mental health trained barber. The new launch provides a “non-judgemental safe space” for men to open up, offload and have a chat with professional mental health trained barbers, while receiving their free trim. The new barbershop, which is located in London’s Shoreditch, is called ‘Deload’.”
“The fourth Thor movie smashed its opening weekend at the box office, bringing in a mammoth $143 million in North America. That's the highest opening of any standalone Thor movie, although Thor movies have never lit the box office alight with their openings. The first movie, Thor, debuted to $65.7 million in 2011, while 2013's Thor: The Dark World achieved an $85.7 million opening.”
“Just Eat Takeaway.com NV’s shares jumped the most in almost four years after Amazon.com Inc. agreed to take a stake in its Grubhub business. The stake is part of a partnership where Amazon will offer US Prime users a one-year membership to the food delivery service, the Dutch company said in a statement on Wednesday.”
“Match Group, the parent company of several popular dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge, has acquired exclusive dating app The League, a spokesperson from the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, The League is a highly selective dating app designed to match ambitious and career-focused people looking for a long-term relationship”
“Today, the startup announced a $30 million Series B round led by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures. It was joined by Inditex, the parent company of fast-fashion retailer Zara; Milliken and Company; and Landsdowne Partners. “With this investment round, we’ve secured suppliers, purchasers, and major financial stakeholders to establish a much cleaner fashion future,” Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski said in a statement. “We already have all the clothing we need to make all the clothing we’ll ever need. Now, alongside our partners, we can make recycled garments accessible to every shopper.””
“Disney struck an advertising agreement with The Trade Desk, making it possible for brands to target automated ads across Disney’s linear and streaming properties — Hulu, ESPN+, ABC, Freeform, ESPN, National Geographic and FX. The news comes in advance of Disney’s launch of an ad-supported tier for its flagship service, Disney+, which would likely be another such target of such a deal.”
“YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan confirmed today a new milestone for YouTube’s live TV streaming service, YouTube TV. Speaking on a panel at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference, the exec said the service has now surpassed 5 million paid subscribers and “trialers” in just five years, he said. This figure initially seems to position the streamer ahead of its nearest rival, Hulu + Live TV, which now has 4.1 million subscribers as of April 2022. However, Hulu owner Disney does not include users on trials in its figure as YouTube does, so a direct comparison here is not possible.”
“TikTok has agreed to pause a controversial privacy policy update in Europe, which had been due to happen tomorrow, and would have meant the platform stopped asking users for their consent to be tracked to receive targeted advertising, TechCrunch has learned. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), TikTok’s lead privacy regulator for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), said the “pause” follows “engagement” between the oversight office and the tech giant yesterday”
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🎶 Tik Tok Ad Of The Week:
Why was this Ad good?
✅ Unique - Nathan Ramsay is a member of Diversity, the dance group that won the talent show Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. Over the lockdown, he’s built a bit of a cult following and has started a number of worldwide dance trends with his choreography. Getting Nathan to nail a dance in Crocs is a very cool way to promote shoes!
✅ Great Sound - Catchy, memorable and makes you want to dance. Keeps your attention on the ad for that bit longer
✅ Contrast - I think there is a lot to be said for combining elements that don’t normally go together. It really made me look at his feet as it’s not the normal footwear you’d expect someone to be able to dance so well in. Similar to the last ad I pointed out where a comedian/impressionist was selling jewellery by impersonating Conor McGregor.
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📈 Trends Of The Week:
“Movies are back with a vengeance
One interesting stat: The year-to-date box office is down approximately 30% from 2019. But the overall number of wide releases in 2022 is down roughly the same amount — meaning, on a per-film basis, movies appear to be doing just fine.
More than fine, actually.
Thor: Love and Thunder and Minions just combined for the first consecutive $100m+ opening weekends since 2018.
This past weekend saw $236m in domestic box office sales, up ~28% from the same weekend in 2019 when Spider-Man: Far from Home, Toy Story 4, Aladdin, Yesterday, and Midsommar were all in theaters.”
Source: TheHustle
“The three companies accounted for 65% of the $53 billion in global cloud-service spending in the first quarter of the year, according to Synergy Research Group, up from 52% of global sales four years ago. And their control of the crucial, rapidly growing market is expected to continue as their size makes them better able to keep investing and attract clients seeking stability in turbulent times, executives and analysts say.”
“Rumors have been circulating for at least the past month that Sweden-based Klarna, best known as a “buy now, pay later” service provider, was seeking to raise new funds. Klarna confirmed today that it’s now valued at $6.7 billion off the back of its new investment, representing an 85% drop on the corresponding figure reported in June, 2021.”