Are you even a celebrity if you don't have an alcohol brand?
Insights on marketing, business, branding, products, design, founders, and culture.
GM everyone happy Friday.
Have you heard the new Charli XCX songs? They f*cking hit. I just got done with leg day at Equinox blasting B2b so loud my airpods started smoking. This album about to be something special.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the plateau of latent potential this week. The concept here being that we often think our hard work should directly correlate with results in a linear way. But often times the reality is that we consistently spend hours working hard towards goals without seeing any results. This can lead to discouragement and many people throw in the eucalyptus towel and give up. But the difference between those who find astronomical success and those who don’t is simply staying the course. Our efforts will eventually compound, and the results will scale exponentially when we think we’ve exhausted our energy.
I wrote this newsletter for months without seeing subscriber growth, but this week everything changed.
So whatever you’re working towards, keep grinding. Anyway… news.
News
Are you even a celebrity if you don’t have an alcohol brand? Axios wrote an article detailing how, by one count, there are 300+ celebrity-backed alcohol brands on the market currently. Kylie Jenner just launched her new canned cocktail line Spritzer (which I critiqued on TikTok) and D-list celebs like two bros from the Vampire Diaries have their own bourbon. It seems like having some sort of product in this space is a condition for keeping celebrity status. But overall, the alcohol market is trending downward as more people kick booze. Target just announced a dedicated space in stores for non-alcoholic beverages. Brands like Ghia (cc: Melanie Masarin ) seem poised to reap the rewards of a dryer consumer landscape. The question is if celebrity endorsements really have any pull in a saturated market? Can these celebs find distribution in the spaces people are actually going out to get drunk? And what happens when your main endorses is under investigation for sex crimes. I would hate to be Ciroc right now.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserVaan welcomes Oren John as its first ‘creative in residence’ The ad and brand agency responsible for building beautiful, high conversion e-commerce sites for Hailey Bieber’s Rhode and other major brands, is welcoming ‘the internet’s creative director’ on board. John, who runs several online brands, courses, and makes some of the best brand TikTok content. John will be advising the agency on how to better communicate client stories across digital channels. I think this is a very smart move, and I am curious how this trend may inspire other high-profile agencies to publicly bring in top creators as advisors and consultants. We also recently saw Air, a software company, bring Kareem Rahma, host of Subway Takes, onboard as the brand’s Chief Imagination Officer. I can’t even lie as dumb as these titles sound… this is my end career goal.
Is this the best startup rollout of 2024? Antimetal is a new SAAS helping companies manage their AWS spend. Okay yes that sounds really boring but their rollout was a perfect example of how to launch a startup creatively. They created an incredible hype video with clips from popular movies and TV shows, scored by MGMT’s Little Dark Age, with just enough product shots to give perspective on what they actually do. It got me fired up and I have no use for this product at all. Additionally, they created thousands of custom pizza boxes and shipped them to startups and VCs. I saw so much buzz about them on X yesterday. The lesson here is that B2B marketing doesn’t have to be boring. The customers you are trying to reach are also on social media, do what you can to stand out and reach them by creating content that competes with organic stuff.
Larry David is the fashion critic we deserve not the one we need. The NYT wrote an entire article about how the Curb Your Enthusiasm creator has snuck in sartorial opinions throughout the acclaimed show. They also deconstructed David’s slouchy but smart outfits. Curb has its series finale this weekend and I am so sad. Its one of my favorite shows of all time, but after 24 years I can see why its time to throw in the towel. I just rewatched ‘Palestinian Chicken’ last night.
Vogue interviewed Juliana Salazar about her jewelry and accessories. The stylist, creative director, and newest ‘Who Do You Know?’ subscriber spoke with the magazine about her collection, breaking down pickups like a Wales Bonner brooch. If people this cool are subscribed to this newsletter, maybe you should be too?
These new Lemaire looks are so f*cking good. The brand is rolling out its most recent collection on e-commerce sites and just dropped their new croissant bag. I feel like Lemaire is about to have a major year. I have been eyeing the loafers for some time.
REMINDER: Monte’s Sauce and Greenberg Bagels are hosting a popup tomorrow at 8am! I wrote about the excellent announcement video earlier this week. Maybe I’ll see you there, maybe not.
Okay that’s all for this week! Have a great weekend. I might start using the groupchat feature on Substack so we can all chat.
Who Do You Know? is a daily newsletter covering marketing, business, branding, products, design, founders, and culture.
Its written by Jake Bell, a content marketing and brand strategist in NYC.
To get in touch visit www.jb.studio or email jake@jb.studio
hahah hi! <3