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Partner Update: Several retail brands have already reached out wanting an introduction to this team. See why Canada Goose, UpWest, Burton, Suit Supply, and Pact have chosen this solution. Bold Metrics sizing solutions leverage Machine Learning algorithms trained on over 45 Million AI body avatars to match your shoppers to their best fit based on their unique body measurements.
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Memo: The year was 1984, and Nike needed a change.
Now a corporation with revenues that exceed the GDP of all but 80 or so of the world’s countries, Nike nearly 39 years ago executed one of the most important business decisions in history. On October 26, 1984, Michael Jordan agreed to a partnership that would alter the sports business for an entire generation. There is something sort of Orwellian about this year, when a shoe brand with $919 million in sales became one of the most powerful corporations on earth. To accomplish this, they signed an unproven NBA rookie to a contract format that had yet to exist in sports.
A New York Times report, eight long months after Jordan’s signing, detailed the company’s distress. It would snap out of it in two years’ time with the help of the NBA rookie.
Nike’s earnings declined 29 percent in the fiscal year 1984, the first drop in 10 years. ”Orwell was right: 1984 was a tough year,” Philip H. Knight, Nike’s co-founder, chairman and chief executive, said in the company’s annual report. Yet 1985 is even tougher. In its two most recent quarters Nike had its first losses ever.
Today, Nike isn’t just a shoe and apparel manufacturer. Its advertising and public relations strategies contribute to the national consensus. The company’s impact extends far beyond sport; it has reached the stratosphere of culture, economics, and even politics. It’s as much a part of the fabric of America as the flag’s fibers themselves.
The year is 2023. And Nike is still more recognizable than the names of many American presidents. But there’s been a seismic shift.
Read More Here
Editor's Note: you can watch the trailer to this film at Uncrate.tv
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Feature / The Atlantic (Excerpt): Online shopping as it is currently constituted—highly mediated by Amazon, Google, Meta, and now TikTok—causes such problems because it’s good at feeling highly informative. Before you buy anything, you can read reviews, look up terms you don’t understand, find out what everyone else is buying, and watch videos to get a better look at a product.
Takeaway: There is a great quote by former Yale Law Professor Walton Hale Hamilton (1931) included in the above link to The Atlantic. Hamilton appears to be expressing the idea that the average person is confronted with a vast system of sales tactics and persuasive techniques designed to influence their decisions and manipulate their senses. He suggests that the collective force of salesmanship can overpower an individual's ability to make informed choices based on their own needs and desires.
Hamilton foretold the way in which modern marketplaces are structured (in 1931!), with influencing sources using a variety of tactics to persuade people to buy products that they may not actually need or want. He implied that individuals are vulnerable to these tactics and may end up purchasing items that do not truly satisfy their needs. This is more of the current market than we'd like to admit.
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Advertising / WAPO: Our apologies to the ad agencies that endeavored to craft the perfect Super Bowl commercial because the strongest celebrity endorsement of Sunday night might have been Rihanna briefly pausing her halftime show performance to fix her makeup using products from her Fenty Beauty line. Oh, RiRi. Ever the businesswoman!
Ms. Fenty: Here is that moment; her companies are currently numbers six and thirteen on the power list.
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DTC Brands / Bloomberg: New York-based JRSK Inc., which operates as Away, is working with an adviser to solicit interest from potential buyers, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. It’s unclear what Away could fetch in a transaction, and it’s possible the company would opt not to be sold.
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DTC Brands / WSJ: They are taller than a two-liter bottle of Coke and the shade of an overripe tomato. Collectively, they weigh about as much as a newborn, a massive 3.5 pounds each. And they are easily the most attention-hogging thing I've ever put on my size 11 feet.
You can buy a pair from StockX here.
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Web3 / Vogue Business (🔐) "Hamid points to Starbucks and Nike’s efforts, adding that “we are now past the hype cycle and need to move to real-world applications”. According to the Vogue Business report, many designers who had previously expressed interest in using blockchain and other Web3 technologies in their collections have shifted their focus to more traditional aspects of fashion, such as fabrics, cuts, and silhouettes. Despite the declining interest in Web3, the article notes that some designers and brands are still exploring the potential of these technologies. However, it may take some time before Web3 technologies become more widely adopted in the fashion industry, and that in the meantime, designers will continue to prioritize more traditional strategies.
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People / Excerpt: Now, a CEO needs to have not only an instinct for what products customers want but also chops in other areas, notably supply-chain management, cybersecurity, sourcing, e-commerce, and store operations, as well as the ability to build teams and adopt a style of empathetic and inclusive leadership that employees expect of today’s CEOs.
Editor's Note: deep generalism 💡
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eCommerce / BoF (🔐): "Along with Shopify, there’s Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud, Adobe’s Magento, Farfetch’s FPS, BigCommerce and others." This BoF member article discusses the rapid growth and evolution of fashion eCommerce platforms, particularly in response to the pandemic. It notes that companies like Shopify, Farfetch, and Salesforce are becoming increasingly dominant players in the industry, providing a range of tools and services to help fashion brands expand their online presence and reach new customers.
The article also explores some of the challenges that fashion brands face when transitioning to eCommerce, including the need to balance the convenience of online shopping with the tactile and sensory experiences of physical retail spaces. It suggests that successful fashion eCommerce platforms will need to find ways to bridge this gap and provide customers with a more immersive and personalized shopping experience.
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Updated For Feb 13: 793 brands covered. We’ve cleaned up a number of errors published last week, apologies for that shortcoming. All categories of the list have been updated with major movement throughout the list. Newly ranked “top” brands include: BloomChic, Beis Travel, Petlab Co, Monos, Little Sleepies, Born Primitive, Papier, and Trinny London. We’ve updated the “previous” column to better illustrate positive (+) and negative (-) movement. A “0” means no movement at all.
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Surrender to TikTok / TechCrunch: The changes highlight the difficulties the U.S. market has had in making livestream shopping successful. The activity is already hugely popular in Asian markets, including China where apps like WeChat, Taobao Live and Douyin (China’s TikTok) have proven live shopping to be a popular and profitable endeavor. As the pandemic raged across the globe, many U.S. businesses looked to adopt live shopping as well, to help boost their own online retail revenues.
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Data / MarTech: That’s according to new data from Customer Engagement Platform SALESmanago, which surveyed 250 e-commerce marketers across Europe to determine whether the measurement of customer engagement elements is being neglected. Worryingly, almost half (48%) don’t think customer engagement metrics are important.
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Member Brief (🔐): These are eight direct-to-consumer running brands you may not have heard of; Nike and the rest are on notice that the rightful heirs of the running revolution are coming to America. Read “rightful heirs” as the fundamental pioneers of the sport before it was marketed to America, via a well-read work called “Jogging.” That book was the catalyst for Nike’s dominance of the sport and the hobby it spawned in the late 60s and early 70s. Prior to that decade, running was a global passion before it was an American phenomenon.
Sure, America has Tracksmith and District Vision. But they are being tested by a number of Shopify-equipped outsiders. We thought that Shopify’s reach would help American brands emerge as global brands with relative ease. It’s the case that the opposite is happening. I liken it to the 1964 invasion of The Beatles. The New York Times article on the Beatles began, “They Beatles Invade, Complete With Long Hair and Screaming Fans…” Here’s how the British Invasion was covered in February 1964:
Multiply Elvis Presley by four, subtract six years from his age, add British accents and a sharp sense of humor. The answer: It’s the Beatles (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah) .
There’s a new invasion of sorts. Brands that once faced an improbable climb to relevance in the United States are quickly becoming niche powerhouses in the United States. Running apparel is having a moment.
Read More Here
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