I Told the New York Times What I'm Buying
They interviewed me about Ven. Space
Good morning everyone, quick newsletter today (so its free) —
In Today’s Newsletter
I Spoke to the New York Times About My New Favorite Store
Print Media’s New Niche
PDF to Brainrot
Aime Leon Dore’s Paid Ad Campaign
This Brand Nails Partnerships
Want to be a Fitness Influencer?
First of all, I am working with Harlo to create some fitness content, and I’m looking for New York City based athletes and fitness enthusiasts to help out as talent.
For context, Harlo is really cool because it has electrolytes, creatine, and collagen all-in-one and it supports both physical and mental function.
You’ll get free samples of our 3-1 hydration supplement, become a brand athlete, receive a dope looking video of yourself, get a spotlight on our social media, and more.
If you’re based in NYC and interested please fill out this form.
I Spoke to the New York Times About Ven. Space
Last week, I told Chris Green, owner of Ven. Space, that he may have the most publicized new clothing store in years.
Since opening last month, the Carroll Gardens based menswear retailer has received write-ups in Highsnobiety, WWD, this newsletter, and now… the New York Times!
“It’s kind of like every single thing you could ever want in one location,” said Jake Bell, 26, a brand consultant living in Williamsburg who recently spent more than an hour and a half at Ven. Space, playing dress up under the direction of Mr. Green and his staff. “They have an ability to say, ‘Oh, you like X, Y, Z brand, here are three other brands that we think complement that,’” said Mr. Bell, who walked away with a shirt and trousers from the shop’s in-house label and a chocolate brown half-zip sweatshirt from Lady White Co. in Los Angeles.
I love to support something that feels so unique and fresh. Shopping for clothes has become tainted with the sterile feeling of e-commerce.
Whether it be sold out items, or the lack of a tactile experience— Ven. Space’s decision to focus on being the best physical retailer is so refreshing.
Jacob points out in his article that Ven. Space hides labels, so customers move past their preconceived notions and get a true sense of an item just by seeing and feeling in-person.
The true competitive moat for Ven. Space is Chris and his staff’s excellent taste and direction. Its the perfect menswear edit, every single time.
and with more brands coming soon and an expansion of their in-house line… big things are on the way.
A big thank you to Jacob for interviewing me for this story!
Print Media’s New Niche
I’ve been discussing the future of print media for quite sometime on this newsletter.
Two interesting things are happening—
Celebrity investors are scooping up failing publications and reinventing them (mostly as vanity projects) Example being Thrive Capital’s purchase of W and i-D magazine.
and brands are investing budget into creating branded physical publications. Example being the relaunch of the J. Crew catalog or Hinge’s new love story zine.
Bloomberg’s Amanda Mull, published an incredibly insightful breakdown on how print magazines can remain relevant.
Collapsing Revenue: US magazine ad revenue has collapsed, especially with print publications.
Affluent Readership: As the print media dust has settled, it appears that they may be left with a new target niche: the affluent.
The legacy publications that still pump out print covers are the ones that target affluent readers interested in restaurants, clothing, politics, culture, etc. (sounds like the readers of this newsletter)
When you think about the new role of print magazines, it’s useful to consider which publications never abandoned them in the first place: Architectural Digest, the Atlantic, Bon Appétit, GQ, New York, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue, among others. The readership of these magazines isn’t exactly a cross section of America; they’re disproportionately affluent and well-educated people who are generally willing to pay up for things they think are fancy or high quality or sophisticated. That’s why they still subscribe to magazines, and to these magazines in particular. They’re high-end products, most with glossy pages full of lengthy, deeply reported stories, high style or original photography that take a long time and a lot of expense to produce. — Amanda Mull
Removing Distraction: As Amanda notes, magazines have a slight competitive advantage over the phones and computer screens that largely dominate our attention— they’re the complete opposite.
No spammy ads, no pre-roll videos, no algorithmic ranking. Just the pure comfort of glossy pages filled with beautiful images and layouts. Print truly has a luxury quality as compared to the SEO-filled garbage pages spilling out of some publishers CMS.
And this in turn is why luxury brands should be taking advantage of this opportunity to create branded print publications available in-store and free in e-commerce orders.
Imagine if Louis Vuitton linked up with an amazing editor-in-chief, who drafted an all-star team that crafted a quarterly publication writing about relevant topics, showing photos of the clothes in the wild, and wrapping it all up in a few hundred pages of gloss, available for SoHo kids to take Instagram photos with and their rich parents to read whilst they wait in the Supreme line.
If any luxury brands want to do this… HMU.
Side Note: I Yearn for the Days of Ogilvy Style Print Ads
Quick News
Cadence is a hydration brand from Ross MacKay and George Heaton and they’re being really smart about brand activations. They recently did an electrolyte infused coffee at Rhythm Zero and now a sea salt bagel at Leon. Really great stuff leading up to the NYC marathon.
My new favorite AI tool is called ‘PDF to Brainrot’ which takes complex documents and recreates it to be more Gen Z/A friendly. Good sh*t.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Aime Leon Dore is getting trashed for running paid ads. The brand once known for sold out drops is seeing its star fade, and hoping to use paid ads to grow the brand. At least that’s what it seems… Since going viral and getting a massive LVMH investment, the brand has lowered quality and raised prices. Now that consumer’s are a bit fed up, its diminished the brand’s equity amongst passionate consumers. I don’t think its inherently bad to be running paid ads, we all need to remember this is a massive brand… but it does feel a bit thirsty. Idk… what would you think if Supreme ran paid ads?
Jake Bell is a brand consultant, 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
Interesting post. I think an LV magazine would probably be seen for what it is—mere marketing. What LV does have that’s interesting to me as a traveler is their city guide app. I think there’s also a print version but I only know the app. There’s no heavy handed marketing of their brand, just lists of interesting museums, galleries, shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, etc. in a multitude of world cities. They’ve been doing it for years and it’s still going strong. I consulted it during a recent month in Paris, it wasn’t all high end—in fact, it seemed to be aimed at people who might have a sense of elevated life style, but one that’s not predicated on how much one spends on clothing. Definitely style over substance.