2PM - Monday Letter: The Newest Nostalgia

The Great Netflix Correction. This featured reports leads into a new member brief (join here) that reads the tea leaves for you. In it, we assess the sentiments of 12 recent articles and current events. We also consider a few shifts in nostalgic preference. Can you guess the new favorite decade? The conclusion is simple, we've had twenty years of 60s, 70s, and 80s nostalgia that have influenced everything from advertising to Hollywood productions (Stranger Things) to car design (The new Ford Bronco). Our latest report suggests that those decades will give way to 90s nostalgia. And with everything that's happening in streaming and direct-to-consumer inefficiencies, that may mean a shift back to familiar formats like marketplace-first strategies. 

For brands that could mean less reliance on Shopify and more reliance on in-store / online availability with Target, Walmart, JD, and Amazon. Shopify's most recent partnerships suggest that they understand that marketplace strategies benefit their merchants. And for streaming media, that may mean a consolidated approach to the streaming economy that resembles everything that we missed about cable.

Streaming is sadder now

Source / New York Times: All of us will start seeing the effects of this austere-ish streaming phase soon, if we haven’t already. If you’ve wondered why Netflix and some other streaming services are releasing episodes of series one at a time or in batches rather than all at once for our bingeing pleasure, that’s partly a result of growth concerns. Netflix wants you to subscribe for months to watch the new season of “Stranger Things” instead of watching all new episodes in a weekend and then canceling.

Performance marketing costs made DTC too pricey

Source / RetailWire: Changing customer acquisition strategies was a big area of discussion last week at The Lead Innovation Summit in Brooklyn, NY, particularly as it relates to direct-to-consumer (DTC) performance marketing. Attendees listened to executives from brands with established wholesale distribution operations discuss a more cautious approach when it comes to DTC.

UPDATED: The new DTC Power List was updated for July 25 with new data for 700 companies and notable changes to the rankings.

Amazon's One Medical acquisition raises data privacy

Consumer Data / Fast Company: For now, Amazon says it has only entered into a definitive merger agreement with One Medical, meaning the deal hasn’t closed yet. Those details, though, won’t stop this from representing an epic new layer of service bundling: Amazon, your online marketplace, grocer, streaming service, smart-speaker provider, and cloud-computing service, is soon to be your brick-and-mortar healthcare clinic, too.

Snap price dives 35%, while Twitter's revenue slumps

Advertising / Fortune: In a statement on Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the company was diversifying its business model to “reaccelerate revenue growth,” which included “investing heavily in our direct response advertising business.” Snap said in a letter to investors on the same day that external companies were cutting their digital advertising budgets amid rising economic uncertainty and inflationary pressure.

Trash it up with a very Chris Evans mustache

The Streaming Economy / Netflix: For The Gray Man’s brusque baddie Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), it’s a method of channeling pure evil — a gruff collection of hair follicles that form their own tiny highway to hell. And now, thanks to the Netflix Shop, you too can rock the facial hair that Ryan Gosling’s Sierra Six calls a “trash ’stache.”

China's bargain eCommerce king Pinduoduo is quietly expanding

eCommerce / South China Morning Post: Chinese eCommerce platform Pinduoduo, which is known for its cut-to-the-bone price offerings through social media sharing, has quietly expanded its presence in Hong Kong with new delivery and payment services tailored for local consumers.

Hearst's luxury eCommerce play is off to a rocky start

Linear Commerce / Glossy: According to the press release from December 2021, the first of the four Hearst brands was slated to roll out shopping on The Tower in the spring of 2022, with others to follow later this year. But, announced Thursday, Downing has moved on to Halston, leaving The Tower without clear leadership. According to a Hearst spokesperson, The Tower will be delayed to 2023.

The most popular consumer brands around the world, visualized

Brands / Digg: A study from BusinessFinancing.co.uk maps out the world's most popular brands. They also zoomed in on America's favorite brands and the world's most popular coffee shops, beers and more. Key Takeaways: Streaming giant Netflix was the most-searched brand, leading in 92 countries, but Amazon had the highest tally of global monthly searches (335.4 million).

Brands need to act like publishers on TikTok

The Creator Economy / AdWeek: Chao Williams knows how to turn conversations into ads. The creator approaches strangers on the streets of New York to ask questions like "Where are you going?" "What drives you in life?" and "What would make today a 5-star day?" And if Williams didn't have a branded microphone in his hand, you probably wouldn't know he was on the clock.

The New Nostalgia. What does a comedian, a content trend, and subtle changes in preferences tell us about the direction of commerce over the next several years? Life may imitate art. Consider these three categories of recent reports. (Read More)