Good morning everyone. Another free newsletter today because its short.
In Today’s Newsletter
How Will Fashion & Beauty Brands Adapt if TikTok Gets Banned?
More Zyn Competitors Hit the Market
How Apollo Bagels Turned Bagels Into Brand
Tomorrow I’ll post an interview with a HOT direct to consumer beverage company that shines a ton of light on founding a company, branding, marketing, etc.
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In the meantime, the Who Do You Know? hats are ending their initial sales run tomorrow. This is your last chance to get a hat before they’re locked in the vault.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, argued in federal court that banning the app from the U.S. would be unconstitutional, as it impedes the 1st Amendment.
Now one of the world’s most valuable companies (potentially $1T+), ByteDance’s ultra popular platform has changed the domestic social media landscape.
The integration of the TikTok Shop, has been a game changer for e-commerce brands, who can now sell their items directly in the app, often with massive subsidized discounts, and partner with affiliates to push anything from beauty blenders to matcha frothers.
For me personally, I get these ads for the ‘perfect 600 GSM hoodie’ all the f*cking time.
But if a TikTok ban actually happens— how will these brands adapt?
Business of Fashion explored this topic, finding brands in the Indian market simply shifted their content to Instagram Reels.
While there are key differences— India banned TikTok early on, before it became a massive platform— I would imagine many creators and brands would shift their strategy and just upload their TikTok content on Reels.
Vapes are out, Zyn is in— the number of Zyn cans shipped in the U.S. increasing from 6 million in 2018 to 334 million in 2023.
And in addition to Tucker’s new brand, other Zyn competitors like Lucy are getting smarter about how they lean into the zeitgeist to carve away at Zyn’s dominance.
Timed perfectly with the Fed Rate Cut (50bps!), Lucy announced a rebranded can aptly titled Excel Pouches.
Leaning into retro 80s aesthetics, the new can is designed specifically to target finance bros (and women).
The new branding was done by Day Job, one of the most innovative and fun branding studios in LA.
said, “this is giving “80s yuppie cocaine induced opulence” and I’m here for it!!! “
They say its, “the first nicotine pouch designed specifically to create shareholder value.”
Its literally just Lucy’s with new branding— but I actually think this is a pretty genius move.
All of these pouches are essentially the same— so the one key differentiator is brand, and Lucy is doing a great job at understanding their target audience and giving them exactly what they want.
Jake Bell: Can you give like a brief intro for people who don't know who you are and your background as like a restauranteur?
Joey Scalabrino: My name is Joey Scalabrino and I'm a born and raised New Yorker.
I opened a pizza restaurant called Leo like five years ago and Apollo Bagels maybe two years ago, but our first location opened March 1st of 2024.
JB: You guys started selling bagels out of Leo in 2020, then hosted pop-ups.
Tell me what kind of was that decision-making process to say we're gonna open a physical location in the East Village and now a second one here in West Village?
JS: I met some friends who have other hospitality businesses and we decided to become business partners and we thought there was room in the market for a new bagel place for the next generation, whether next generation New Yorkers or transplants and just wanted to try it out and, we didn't think the first one would be as successful as it was right off the bat.
We think there's this room in other neighborhoods in New York with so many people and it's a fairly affordable product that we try to make as best as possible and the West Village just came up with an iconic space, but a lot of visibility and we're like, “this makes sense for the second one.”
I think East Village is really good to test the concept for a lot of young people, a lot of median income.
JB: You guys don't necessarily want to be like a bagel place for like old heads.
To put it bluntly, you guys want to be like the bagel that when the current young generation gets older, they look back on with like fond memories.
So I'm curious, like from a strategic perspective, it's kind of like the MO with opening new locations to be in places where the age is lower.
JS: They're the ones that are spreading new places and, just as a business, not even just a food business, we just try to market something naturally without PR needs, obviously, it's organic because the people who are coming are the ones who are organically actually posting stuff and talking about it.
So that's just like a good market that I knew was missing. As much as I admire all the really old OG spots from Zabar's, all these spots and Russ & Daughters.
People aren't necessarily talking about it anymore.
JB: We were talking about a little bit outside, but like bagels, I feel like have become like almost like a status symbol a little bit.
One, because it's like, to your point, it's a pretty low entry.
There's not a lot of price friction there to actually acquire it.
But almost this thing of like people make conscious decisions about where they're gonna get their bagel depending on what they wanna post.
And I'm curious as to if that's played a role in the success so far of Apollo, but also like your personal thoughts on what that is at the current moment, why people are doing that?
JS: I think compared to other cities in the world, we don't like have a full-on cafe culture, like some place in Europe or even LA.
This is kind of like our thing that is kind of unique to New York in the morning time.
That's part of the brand.
That's why it's called Apollo and has light and like the clouds and all these things.
I want this to be like a morning brand and like a place that we have good coffee and you can enjoy breakfast.
And I think that's why it's a little bit almost easier to break into the market just because evening is so much.
It's so overwhelming in New York City to dabble in the evening business.
JB: That like Saturday, Sunday morning bagel is like almost ritualistic. What makes an Apollo bagel unique in terms of like the actual eating experience and maybe some of like the topic inclusions that you guys do as compared to like a typical New York City bagel?
JS: I think the way it's like fermented and baked allows it to be a little more interesting texturally.
And then we don't overload it with too many things.
It's seasoned well and, you know, the open-faced thing obviously blew up in California, but that's when we kind of started also doing it was when all these places in LA started doing it.
I was obviously inspired by what was going on over there.
And I was like, ‘why is no one doing this?’
It's obviously how I eat, how so many people ate a bagel anyway.
And it was just such a timing with social media and just ease of eating just makes sense.
JB: Talk to me a little bit about the design inspiration maybe of like the actual physical location, because I find the East Village one is, to your point, is minimalistic in a sense, it's utilitarian.
There's not a lot of like frill going on necessarily, but I can think of like some motifs that you guys have carried across to this location too, like the signage, like what kind of inspo did you use to create the interior?
JS: Yeah, I did it with my good friend, James Anderson, who's an amazing graphic designer and a super typography nerd.
So I kind of designed the space based on simple materials that are not so hard to get.
It's pretty affordable to build the store, just trying to make it like brighter and less cluttered.
So it's stainless steel and concrete and some wood that's painted.
We could actually get it dirty and then clean it easily and make it so it's not so precious.
We didn't also want to be a fancy bagel shop, but also we don't want to be a crappy one that's like falling apart, which it looks like most bagel shops are falling apart in some way.
JB: You guys kind of have everything you need and nothing you don't, which I think is like an under appreciated motif in new spaces.
It's like people try to maybe implement too much of like their branding into like doing wall motifs and stuff like that, whereas you guys have done it more in like those essential things.
So you're part of like stainless steel counter and even like some of the stuff you can like see through the kitchen and look at is kind of the same way.
JS: Yeah, just trying to keep it clean looking and inspired by some bakeries I love in Europe, where the bakeries kind of look like this and very like startup-y.
Bread bakers don't really have like a lot of money to begin with.
Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, designer, and writer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content strategy, creative direction, business development, and making things cool.
Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio
Who Do You Know? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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