2PM - No 695: THEE Strategy

The News 🔐/ Everlane's Next Chapter: As the pandemic ravaged the retail market, Everlane faced a barrage of criticism for failing to live up to its progressive values internally. It was a blow to the company’s reputation at a critical moment of opportunity; the pandemic was accelerating the trends toward digital and conscious consumption that helped fuel Everlane’s growth and the company’s claim to a leading position was slipping.

The Analysis: As other DTC brands seize the opportunity to go public this year – potentially putting an end to the no-exit narrative for the category – Executive Member Nate Poulin recently stated in Polymathic: 

The brand is now in the process of pivoting, with L Catterton in its corner. The private equity firm invested $85 million in the brand in September. Sales are projected to increase by 25% this year. But absent from the new Everlane narrative is any talk of a potential exit. While Everlane has weathered a storm of cumulative forces, it’s a reminder that apparel brands (even the disruptors) are on a different path than other DTC brands. Fashion is both crowded and fickle, and the companies that are surging right now are those that offer a fresh business model, by way of rental or resale or peer-to-peer selling. Everlane may have been the anti-Gap when it launched. With a murky sustainability bend and a plan to double its store footprint by 2022, what makes it so anti-Gap now?

2PM Data: Everlane's trailing 12 months

(Source: Charm.io)

Food52 acquires Dansk, plans for the Danish-designed homeware brand's revival

Linear Commerce / Architectural Digest: The new owners approach the acquisition as a type of historical revival project — keeping in mind what steps are required in order to make the brand last for another 70 years. The plan is three-pronged: Expand upon the color and size assortment of core heritage products, reissue select archival designs, and introduce fresh Dansk designs in limited-edition collaborations with partners to help continue Dansk’s legacy.

2PM Archives: Food52 and Linear Commerce 

The most viable companies across the digital ecosystem will share a common trait: established, organic audiences. Content and community are core to that outcome. For the well-executed linear commerce brands, retention rates will be high and CAC will be low. The road map is there for the brands looking for a sustainable advantage and improved optionality.

Wayfair's $112 billion plan to take over your entire home

eCommerce / Fast Company: It’s just everything the company can possibly sell, presented with a user experience that is meant to home in on your tastes before you stop scrolling. Wayfair is the opposite of a curated shop. It’s an infinite marketplace tucked into a simple website, ready to serve you an endless buffet of options until you find something you’d like to buy.

Travis Scott doesn't like 'branding' or 'marketing'

Brand / AdWeek: For Scott, however, creativity is primarily fueled by a desire to maintain a connection with his many, many fans (of which there are at least 38 million, if Instagram is anything to go by). The idea of formal marketing, Scott feels, only serves as an unnecessary barrier between himself and his fervent fan base.

2PM Archives (🔐): The Tale of Cactus Jack

Water, water, everywhere

Consumer Psychology / Snaxshot: Water has always had cult following around it, and who could blame us considering just how quintessential it is to our literal existence, we built entire civilizations next to it, similar to the Sun, but maybe not quite as popular, or maybe, just a bit more underground. The cult of water has a lot of sects, and sub-sects, stemming from a post-industrialization era and of course, capitalism.

What online retailers can expect as high street footfall increases

Retail Real Estate / Retail Insight Network: Brands that usually sell to customers in a physical store will need to tie together the online and offline experiences as customer expectations have changed. It is imperative for brands to learn from each transaction to have a truly successful D2C strategy. No longer is the sole purpose of having an online presence about reaching new customers and accessibility, but also to stay updated with current customers’ preferences.

How TikTok chooses which songs go viral

Capstone / Bloomberg: To drive downloads, TikTok tried to ensure that creators, musicians, and advertisers were making money, too. Executives in Los Angeles and Beijing, where ByteDance was founded, left little up to chance: TikTok assigned individual managers to thousands of stars to help with everything, whether tech support or college tuition, inspiring a sense of loyalty among creators.

Peloton is rolling out fans' most-requested features

Streaming Economy / CNN: It's bringing its fervent fans together — virtually, of course — for Homecoming, a free three-day event that can best be compared to South by Southwest for Peloton fanatics. Panel discussions, celebrities, special classes, fresh features and new instructors will be introduced to the more than 175,000 people who have registered for the online festival.

The rise of synthetic media & digital creators

New Media / Digital Native: Synthetic media is one of the most interesting and consequential new technologies, refined and improved and expanded every day. 

Seeding the wild

Sociology / Compost: In peer-to-peer networks, we ‘seed’ for one another. We spread our bytes like weeds, criss-crossing fenced-in property and open meadows alike, in our effort to grow digital abundance. Energies toward peer-to-peer decentralisation are rising again. 

How remote work is killing Manhattan's storefronts

Sociology / New York Times: The stores are a crucial contributor to New York’s economy and employment. While the city is home to some of the largest companies in the world, small businesses employed about 900,000 people and made up 98 percent of all businesses before the pandemic.

Instagram announces new creator monetization features

Relevant for 👇🏽 / Later: The company announced it is developing three major new monetization features for creators: Creator Shops, affiliate commerce, and a “branded content marketplace.” Here’s everything you need to know.

Relevant to today's Apple news. Apple’s intentions appear straightforward at first glance. The company wanted to improve the privacy of its end users. This virtuous effort came with a few additional outcomes.

By upgrading its privacy practices, Apple will impair large ad networks that have grown with the help of those end users. This could potentially cripple Facebook’s current model with its new privacy demands. Apple has also opened the door to an unintentional adjustment to its privacy mandate. In doing so, the Mark Zuckerberg-led advertising company (and social network) will adopt a new way to accomplish its most critical objectives: revenue growth and user utility. Facebook will become an eCommerce company instead.

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