When Yu Oppel co-founded the clothing brand Cider in 2020, she admits she didn’t have much marketing experience. The most relevant recent experience she had, she said, was as a product manager at online clothing retailer Dolls Kill.

More than three years later, Oppel, who serves as Cider’s chief marketing officer, has gotten quite a bit of practice rolling up her fashionable sleeves. The womenswear brand, which according to Crunchbase has raised $140 million in funding, had a breakthrough moment this spring when Jennie, a member of K-pop group BLACKPINK, posted a photo of herself wearing a $16 floral top from Cider, rocketing the garment to best-seller status and causing a sell-out in nearly all sizes.

But the brand isn’t solely relying on viral moments to reach customers. This month, the brand is pushing into brick-and-mortar with its first-ever storefront, a pop-up that opened in New York’s SoHo neighborhood.

Its global marketing strategy, informed in part by its Gen Z employees, is designed to build out a robust online presence and boost brand awareness around the world, Oppel told us.

“We didn’t think it would be possible to build a truly global brand without real Gen Zers on the team,” she said.

Continue reading here.—JS

Promising? Cautious? Maybe a little of both? As marketers await forecasts for retail’s biggest selling season of the year, Klaviyo is coming through with all the deets for their peace of mind.

After surveying 3k US consumers to find out exactly how they plan to shop this Black Friday and Cyber Monday (given current economic headwinds), Klaviyo created The 2023 consumer spending report to share their findings.

This free report covers:

• actionable insights from experts that you can apply to your marketing
• current vs. future spending plans and budget allocation
• marketing strategies that can earn the biggest share of wallet

With the year’s most pivotal shopping season fast approaching, these insights couldn’t have come at a better time. Take a look.

There are many ways to measure a retail brand’s health, from customer acquisition to foot traffic to the inventory turnover ratio. But here’s one underappreciated indicator: Can your brand take a joke?

That’s the test that a certain purveyor of fruit arrangements faced recently, when one of the most popular shows on Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher, made it a punch line. In episode 3 of its inaugural season, Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel) confuses an assistant when she orders him to send an Edible Arrangement to an adversary.

“Toby, damn it,” Camille says. “Everybody knows that Edible Arrangements are what you send to people you hate.”

So the company sent Siegal an arrangement.

“Hey Kate!...just wanted to say no hard feelings ;)” the note began. “Sending this to you because we love you.” Siegal posted the note on Instagram, commenting, “Low-key brilliant @ediblearrangements.”

“People are not familiar with us like the previous generation was,” Kevin Keith, CMO of Edible Brands, told Retail Brew. “They think it’s like an old person’s kind of a gift from your grandma.”

There’s a way to be in on the joke rather than just the brunt of it, he continued.

“Brands that have a quirky and sometimes kind of a little bit of [a] punch line to them, I say, ‘Lean in on that; go with the grain as opposed to trying to fight it,’” Keith said. “But while you’re going with the grain you’re also resetting, you’re kind of surreptitiously changing people’s perceptions by leaning in on that joke.”

Changing perceptions, it turns out, is what the 24-year-old company is all about these days. As part of a brand refresh, it’s rolling out an offbeat advertising campaign, and adding non-fruit options, many at lower prices, to appeal to younger consumers.

But what might be most dramatic of all is that, like an SUV unhitching itself from an Airstream, the brand is pulling away from its tail end. It has become simply Edible.

Read more from Retail Brew here.—AAN

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

Mean (and singing) girls: The trailer for the Mean Girls musical, which includes the tagline “Not your mother’s Mean Girls,” has those who were perhaps old enough to watch the original movie when it came out feeling some kind of way. In another reminder of the unrelenting passage of time, some of the original movie’s cast, now all grown up, reunited for Walmart’s Black Friday campaign.

Ben Affleck remains a Dunkin’ man, we think: A photo of Affleck clutching a Starbucks cup made the rounds on social, leading some to accuse him of dropping his much-memed brand loyalty to Dunkin’. Internet sleuths were quick to point out that the photo is years old, so Bostonians can breathe a sigh of relief.

Deinfluencing, cont.: Some people don’t seem to be super stoked about TikTok Shop and influencer content on the app these days. As people debate whether social media is killing curiosity and causing everyone to buy the same thing, will we start to see even more pushback against influencer campaigns? TBD.

Now you hear it, now you don’t: To promote her new single, “Houdini,” Dua Lipa posted clips and teasers across social media. But perhaps the best marketing tactic so far has been her “leaking” the song herself to exactly one random person on the street outside of the BBC in front of a handwritten sign and a disco ball on a string.

Green flags all around: Minnesota is looking for a new state flag, and the submissions look equal parts bleak and hilarious. Graphic designers, the North Star State needs you now more than ever.

Not how pants work: The way Zara markets its products continues to be the eighth wonder of the world.—KH

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

*Squidward voice* fuuuuture: Predictions for the future of social media marketing.

PPC, easy as 1, 2, 3: Tips to master pay-per-click marketing in 2024.

Searchable: How to write blog posts that are optimized for Google Search.

Planning committee: Set 2024 up for success with Money with Katie’s latest and greatest Wealth Planner. Join the waitlist now and get 10% off when the product officially launches. Don’t miss out—sign up now!

’Tis the $eason: How do customers plan to shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Klaviyo surveyed 3k US consumers to find out. Prep for retail’s biggest selling season of the year with their free guide.*

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Stories we’re jealous of.

• Wired wrote about how some millennials and other first-generation social media users are choosing to leave the platforms behind.
• The New York Times wrote about the popularity of the word “citizen” in brand names.
• The Atlantic wrote about why CAPTCHAs have seemed to become even more annoying as of late (hint: it’s because of AI).