2PM - No. 386: Multi-SKU Creators

The Multi-SKU Creator

A. New Media / Hunter Walk: With more-and-more columnists leaving their outlets in favor of the likes of substack, the question of sustainability has been raised. Many likely won’t sustain themselves on their singular substack effort alone, and that’s more than okay. This will merely be one output unit for them - and they’re now a multi-SKU creator.

Walk's use of commerce lingo to frame the business of independent media is key here. For the solo operators running these small businesses, the economics of newsletters are just as front of mind as the creativity that drives them forward. We're all eCommerce operators now. 

Sort of meta but here goes: Newsletter Media's Tipping Point (2PM)

As the sole operator behind 2PM Incorporated, the workload can be especially tiring during extended periods of national tumult. Not only are you managing the attention spans and concerns of your readers, you’re more in tune with the limitations of your own. The work to maintain product consistency through periods of strife can be especially onerous for solo operators, and 2020 has seen more than its fair share.

Against this backdrop of vulnerability and economic insecurity, we’ve reached a tipping point in the popularity of newsletter-driven media entrepreneurship. Email is having its moment in the sun and the limits of the amateurism of today’s newsletter ecosystem is being pushed to its limits.

The idea adoption curve

B. New Media / Stratechery: This is a deep-dive into the idea adoption curve, and its immense relevance in many realms. The model helps us understand consumer psychology at each stage of assimilation. From here, that model can be utilized as a tool for further understanding, when it comes to the dynamic surrounding new-media’s monetization.

The second life of Princess Diana's most notorious sweater

Fashion / New Yorker: The famous black-sheep sweater, sported publicly on two separate occasions by Princess Diana, is symbolic for a multitude: empowerment, expression, autonomy, and more. Now, the sweater that was once worn twice is coming back for another run in the spotlight.

Here's a 2PM break down of Jack Carlson's strategy. It was one part execution, one part savvy marketing, and two parts luck.

On Backdated Heritage (🔐):  Not only does Rowing Blazers maintain an official partnership with the designers and manufacturers of the iconic sheep sweater, the SEO and advertising arbitrage have both led to record performance in visitors and conversions. And with Lady Diana Spencer as the focus of the next season of Netflix’s The Crown, the traffic will likely sustain for some time. There is but one place to acquire the famed Diana jumper. 

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FEMSA: The most interesting company in Mexico

Brand / Packy McCormick: FEMSA takes the long view. As a result, it has smartly and patiently put the right pieces in place over decades. It built bottling and distribution capabilities through its breweries that it parlayed into the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler by volume and the largest c-store chain in The Americas by locations. It’s leveraged its physical footprint to engrain itself in its customers’ routines and build their trust, which it used to create the country’s most popular debit card and turn itself into the physical manifestation of the Mexican internet.

The second Covid-19 spike is forcing retailers to refocus on eCommerce

🦠 eCommerce / Glossy: Much of Foot Locker’s recent efforts have been split evenly across eCommerce and its more than 3,000 stores. For example, the company’s 12 Days of Greatness holiday campaign, which sees exclusive drops from designers and brands like Jeff Staple, Chinatown Market and Kid Cudi x Adidas, are debuting over 12 days leading up to Christmas, both on its eCommerce site and at about a dozen stores.

Read the 2PM memo on this very thing: on paradoxes and reading waves

The twilight of the ethical consumer

Sociology / Atmos: An excellent 2010 academic study called the Myth of the Ethical Consumer found that most consumers consistently overstate their allegiance to social or ecologically-sound products (price is the most determining factor when we shop). Since then, the market for responsibly-made goods has exploded, and yet it remains unclear how much of these gains have gone to big companies, who’ve gotten better at marketing minimal sustainability efforts as green, or can be explained by increasing inequality itself (more rich people mean more buyers for pricey ethical products).

Transcript: entrepreneurship & eCommerce

eCommerce / Washington Post: What you'll notice is that it feels like the year 2030 that would have existed in terms of retail then, has been pulled back to 2020. So, what I mean by that is, eCommerce, as a percentage of total retail in 2030, would have been something in the neighborhood of 25 or 30 percent. That's what it is today. It was 15 percent only eight or nine months ago. So, this mass digitalization has happened.

Editor's Note: this report features the wise words of Executive Member Harley Finkelstein.

State of play: Retail in the pandemic

🦠 Retail / Protocol: Simon Mulcahy, chief innovation officer at Salesforce, said that many brands have relied on transactional forms of marketing over the years — sales and discounts that they hope will drive people into their stores. But when few people are visiting stores and everything is happening online, the way to stand out is by actually making an impression and showing customers something new, he said. "If you can get a customer to come back, purposefully, again, because they love what they got from you, that customer is worth 5x to you.”

Spotify has 300 million users. It wants more of them to listen to podcasts

Audio / Recode: Spotify wants to own the podcasting space, and it’s made that clear with a series of high-profile acquisitions and deals over the past two years — including the Ringer, Gimlet, Joe Rogan, and, most recently, Megaphone. Its next goal: get more of its 300 million users to start listening to podcasts.

Excessive branding ventures are killing hip-hop's soul

Brands / Pitchfork: Human IPO Travis Scott has spent much of 2020 trying to transform himself into a commodity. It probably worked. Following money grabs with Fortnite and McDonald’s, next up on his hit list is Sony’s PlayStation 5. Travis promised to reimagine the unboxing video with his PlayStation tie-in, but of course he didn’t.

More on Travis Scott's work in branding here: The Tale of Cactus Jack (🔐)

Google's new ad technology is under the regulatory microscope

Advertising / MarketWatch: James Rosewell, the director of MOW, said that the efforts of regulators to temper Google’s online dominance will be in vain if the Privacy Sandbox is launched before changes to law. “If Google releases this technology they will effectively own the means by which media companies, advertisers and technology businesses reach their consumers and that change will be irreversible,” said Rosewell.

As New York goes, so does the rest of retail. Across the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City, new retailers are opening the doors to those who can afford it. Well-appointed and with an aura of exclusivity, these storefronts are not designed for the democratization of goods but rather something to the opposite effect.Doom scroll through Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat or any other social platform and you may see signs that the pandemic doesn’t affect everyone quite the same. You have faithfully executed the solo quarantine for nearly nine months. Meanwhile, there are dinner parties and other high-profile gatherings going on around you.

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