Raisin Bread by MarketerHire - Why Peloton’s cult brand isn’t enough

Brands love Taylor Swift’s Red rerelease. Even Nascar?!

“The S in NASCAR officially stands for Swiftie,” Nascar’s (verified!) TikTok commented on Swift’s album announcement.

Other hype-brands in her comments: MAC, Wikihow and Calm. Good job, TikTok managers — follow those eyeballs!

In this week’s issue:

• The future of print marketing
• What’s Pelowrong at Peloton? (Sorry.)
• The buy-now-pay-later rat race

This loaf of Raisin Bread is brought to you by… Pawp.

Today, we’re sharing something a little bit different. Why? 

Because marketers are humans (yes, shocker, we know) — and if you humans are anything like us, two things are probably true:

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2. You really, really don’t love paying exorbitant vet bills. 

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Not too bad for less than $20 a month, huh?

EXPERT Q&A

3 ways augmented reality can transform print marketing

When Aya Abitbul was editor-in-chief of Bespoke Luxury magazine, she wanted to put QR codes all over the print magazine and make it interactive. 

“The creative director was like, ‘No, they’re ugly,’” Abitbul told MarketerHire. 

So Abitbul pivoted to augmented reality. Earlier this year, her company, Studio 96, published the first AR-enabled travel book, Kiss & Fly. Instead of scanning codes, readers scan photographs with an AR app to activate a video filter. 

This is the future of print, Abitbul argues. So how can marketers get in on the trend? Here are three ideas.

Print evergreen content that links out to the latest.

Abitbul is currently working on a scannable book for Showfields. The book is all black and white, but when it’s scanned, an AR filter colorizes the images and updates the content.

“It reduces the cost, but it also reduces the waste,” Abitbul said. When people buy the book, they’ll “never [be] done reading it,” because the digital overlays are always changing.

Trade your catalog for AR-enabled, shoppable editorial.

“The future of the catalog is really an editorial magazine,” Abitbul predicts. 

The images in that editorial magazine just happen to be shoppable. 

Imagine a magazine that’s all content and beautiful, shoppable photos — no prices, product descriptions or SKUs. 

To see those details, customers scan a photo with an AR app, and it surfaces a link to an online product page.  

“What you get to print — which is beautiful and it stays forever — is the more creative stuff.” 

Spark FOMO with exclusive filters and audio for print readers.

Haircare brand Prose launched a quarterly print magazine in 2019, featuring illustrations of whimsical hairstyles inspired by… slugs? 

It’s weird, but cool. Cooler: What if scanning the drawing with an AR app launched an exclusive Snapchat filter, transforming the scanner’s own hair into a slug-tastic updo?  

AR makes it possible to link to gated digital content on any print marketing, Abitbul noted, creating a low-lift sense of community — and FOMO — while making it easier to measure print engagement.

Our takeaway?

The divide between digital and print is breaking down. 

Historically, Abitbul said, marketers thought, “we want to put out print marketing, but then what you lose is customer insight.” AR technology could change all of that.

TWEET TREAT

Why isn’t Peloton’s cult brand enough?

Can “Peloton Wife” ever rest? 

The meme from the 2019 holiday ad returned to Twitter this week when Peloton stock plunged.

Three key forces may be working against Peloton’s “boutique fitness” brand and employee-influencer marketing.

Gym workouts are back. 

Planet Fitness memberships are soaring, and some say Peloton’s 2020 product-market fit was a pandemic fad.

“It’ll never be the same as it was at the height of the pandemic and isolation,” Peloton devotee and Culture Study writer Anne Helen Petersen told MarketerHire.

Marketing spend is unusually high.

When Peloton reported a net loss of $376M earlier this month, some blamed its $284M marketing spend. 

Most companies spend ~9% of revenue on marketing, according to the 2021 CMO survey  — and Peloton’s at 35%. 

Supply chain issues have created backlogs.

In June 2020, Peloton had $230M in backlogged orders. 

So it allocated ~1B+ this year towards improving production and distribution — and warned that it could ding profits. Seems it did!

And Peloton’s delivery FAQ still says wait times are longer than normal. 

Our takeaway?

Peloton’s cult-favorite status and heavy marketing spend can only grow its user base so fast for so long.

 “The goal now has to be maintaining their memberships and expanding in different markets and slowly recruiting more members, too,” Petersen said.

SMALL BITES

A Meta competitor, a $10K Xbox and more... 

🤍 or 💖? Everyone in your audience has their own heart emoji lexicon.

Here’s how to use the TikTok Creator Marketplace, according to an agency CEO.

Facebook is doing its best to avoid paying the App Store tax.

Say goodbye to 👎 counts on YouTube videos. 

Cousin Greg would be the most chaotic / unlikely celeb to do a McDonalds meal. 

Watch out Meta: Disney is creating its own metaverse. 

Can an uptick in pregnancy test demand predict a baby boom? 

Gen Z loves black logos, and Millennials like blue ones. 

Niche brands working with TikTok influencers see up to 25% engagement. 

The latest in brand collabs: Gucci’s $10K Xbox. ​

SPONSORED

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FROM OUR BLOG

3 ops decisions that helped Eventbrite 60X marketing headcount

In 2009, Eventbrite made its first marketing hire: Tamara Mendelsohn. Today, she’s the company’s CMO, leading a team of 60 alongside CPO Casey Winters. 

Getting here involved some growing pains — and reorgs. These three key decisions kept the team on track. 

Early hires focused on growth and content.

Mendelsohn’s first four hires were a growth marketer, an SEO marketer, a designer and a product marketer — setting Eventbrite’s sprawling platform up for SEO success. 

Marketing and product split into two teams with one goal. 

The shared goal? Bringing in new event hosts. The two sub-orgs helped clarify responsibilities. 

Marketing focused on developing and testing creative, while growth focused on conversion rate optimization, performance marketing and SEO.

Growth marketers become product managers.

This made it frictionless for growth marketers to test sign-up page tweaks and onboarding flows  — they were in charge of the product, after all. 

Find out more about Eventbrite’s approach to org growth and hiring on our blog.

DATA SNACK

Why is Klarna growing so fast?

The entire buy-now-pay later sector is growing, but one platform — Klarna — is growing far faster than the rest.

Monthly spend on Klarna 14.6Xed from January 2020 to July 2021, according to a Cardify report.

5 tailwinds helping Klarna 

1. It’s already stood the test of time. Founded in Sweden in 2005, Klarna is the most established BNPL provider.

2. Snoop Dogg endorsed it. He starred in an epic 2019 campaign highlighting Klarna’s “smoooth” checkout— and briefly changed his name to Smoooth Dogg.

3. It had room to grow Stateside. In the U.S., Klarna started 2020 with 5% market share, Protocol reports. In April 2021, its share had grown to 24%.

4. Its huge retail partners boost awareness. Shein, Wayfair and Sephora all offer interest-free BNPL options through Klarna. Its logo is everywhere. 

5. It’s investing in growth. In other words, it was operating at a $200M loss in August — though its $46B valuation dwarfs that. 

Our takeaway?

Klarna is seeing hockey-stick growth in an industry that could disrupt credit cards. But growth isn’t revenue.

Among BNPLs, Klarna sits in second to last place on average spend per user, according to Cardify.

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