#11 [USER] is people too
with a past and a future, dreams and aspirations.
Hi, [USER]!
Just kidding. You’re special to me! All of you.
Even – especially? – if you’re one of the people who bullied me for not having sent my newsletter first thing this morning. I’m only human! Which we’ll get into below.
xoxo Esther
PS: The podcast I recorded the other day came out yesterday. Catch it on your fav platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. It’s in French so you can either sign up for Duolingo or watch the video with subtitles.
💰 What I’m investing in
🤠 Persona, personal, personalised. I was perusing LinkedIn the other day, as one does, and saw that my friend Lucinda was the brains behind a Christmas ad specifically aimed at Gen X women.
Side note: if you’ve never lived in the UK you may be underestimating the importance of Xmas ads across the Channel. A little bird working in music sync tells me budgets are insane. The John Lewis ad is seen as the industry standard, and this year’s dropped today. Viewers often report sobbing upon watching! Now that that’s cleared up:
As she outlines in her post:
Because despite making up about 25% of global spending power, people over 60 received only 3% of digital media budgets in 2022, with just 4% of ad casts representing this demographic.
Now, is it smart of her to have outlined a clear demographic – one with spending power at that? Yes! Is it also not insane that it’s not always the case?
The most maddening clients from my time in the industry were the ones who wanted us to create ads that would speak to EVERYONE.
Sorry, this one isn’t a trend piece but more of a strongly worded piece of advice. Don’t worry, we’re leaving advertising in a sec. Stay with me.
No product, no brand, no idea can speak to everyone. Do you think that the first pair of Nike sneakers were advertised to every segment of the population? More recently, when Glossier launched, did it appeal to your grandmother? Was your grandmother even online to be on the receiving end of the targeting? No.
With many industries dwindling these days, budgets are shrinking. With risk-averse management comes absurd decision-making.
Let’s have a look at what DOES work. As promised, we’re circling back about the Julie Schott industrial complex. An ex-beauty editor1 turned serial entrepreneur, she, along with Brian Bordainick, launched some of the most exciting2 brands in recent memory: Starface, an acne patch company, Julie, morning-after pills, Futurewise, “slugging” moisturizers, Blip, smoking-cessation products. And most recently, Overdrive: test strips that can be used to check cocaine, heroin and other drugs for contamination with fentanyl. If none of these brands sounds familiar and more so if none of them appeal to you – that’s the point. You’re not their target customer!
Each brand answers a specific pain point but they’re all geared towards Gen Zers. But not ALL Gen Zers. Those both online and outspoken about having issues on- and offline. Think: Euphoria, Addison Rae, Emma Chamberlain, Depop. Starface literally turned acne from a shameful skin situation into a trendy badge of honour! To be clear, they haven’t invented any new product but they’ve turned each product category over its head by taking it out of the bottom shelf and making customers want to proudly count themselves as users of the newly yassified brands.
A few days ago, Starface came across my desk once again as they prepare to launch a marketplace of customised Starface goodies. The pimple patches come in recognisable yellow boxes, which have turned into Big Yellow, an anthropomorphic character across their social media.
Now beyond branding, are they successful? Let’s look at the deal sheet. Kimmy Scotti, a founder of the venture capital fund Neon, invested $5 M in Julie and $2 M in Overdrive. Starface is on track to pull in $90 M in revenue this year.
Now that we’ve zoomed in, let’s look at the big picture. We’ve honed in on CPGs but the advice stands across industries.
Now let’s do a close-up again and create hyperspecific personas to sell to a smaller but perfectly targeted segment of the population.
📈 Bullish news
Newsletter platform Substack raises $10M new funding [Axios]. Meanwhile, newsletter platform beehiiv launches multi-million dollar journalism fund [Axios]. Let the best platform win!
Swedish company Klarna Files for US IPO [Business Of Fashion]
Amazon Launches Temu Competitor Called ‘HAUL’ [theinformation]
These Are The Top Apps Gen Z Young Adults Downloaded This Year [TechCrunch]: Temu,TikTok, Meta’s Twitter competitor Threads.
Speaking of apps, Twitter competitor Bluesky added one million new users after the election [NYT].
‘Hawk Tuah’ girl launches Pookie Tools, an AI-powered dating advice app [TechCrunch]. If I had a $ for every person who sent me this tidbit of info… I could buy Pringles or something. My thoughts on dating apps and AI if you’re new here (hi!).
Wall Street bonuses are on the rise for the first time in three years [WSJ]
Live Nation Posts Biggest Summer Concert Season ‘Ever’ in Third-Quarter 2024 Earnings [Variety]. Just spitballing here but could it be because ticket prices keep rising?
Spotify’s New Pivot: We’re A Big Video Creator Platform Now, Too [Hollywood Reporter]
Anna Weyant painted Kaia Gerber for the cover of Vogue. Although I have mixed feelings about the artist, I want to salute the use of real (read: not AI) art.
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs Names Sofia Coppola Artistic Director of Its Bal d’Été [Business Of Fashion]. My fav museum + one of my fav directors? I think she should be the artistic director of everything tbh.
Vuori raised $825M at a $5.5B valuation [Fitt Insider] which seems A LOT for an athletic brand no one talks about?!
LVMH is buying a minority stake in German eyewear brand Mykita [Seeking Alpha]
Could Chanel’s next creative director be Matthieu Blazy? [WWD]
Glenn Martens, of Y/Project and Diesel fame, is collaborating H&M [nss]
Soho Farmhouse is opening in Ibiza (!) [Soho House]
📉 Bearish news
Saudi Arabia parts ways with the CEO of Neom, its new desert megacity [Business Insider]
Online sales of Plan B and birth control are surging after Trump’s election [Business Insider]. Counting this as a womp womp news for obvious reasons.
Over 2,000 Banksy, Warhol, and Picasso forgeries seized from massive European fraud network. [Artsy]
Too much exposure to hot people is warping our dating standards [Dazed]. On topic: Our 2025 Dating Trends Are In and This is What the Data Says [Bumble]
The Onion, itself never far from bankruptcy, won the bid to acquire fake news website InfoWars out of bankruptcy—as a joke, kind of. [NYT]
Hachette employees protest and quit over launch of conservative imprint [The Guardian]
Is D&G uncancelled? Is cancellation cancelled?
she started out as Cat Marnell’s assistant if that means anything to you!
according to me:
