Is Launching an Erewhon Smoothie a Smart Brand Marketing Play?

Best restaurants to take your parents in NYC, Hypebeast eggs, Erewhon smoothie brand marketing, F1 Menu Prices, and 90s Met Gala Looks.

GM everyone happy Monday.

My dad was in town this weekend so I spent this weekend galavanting around the city visiting some tourist adjacent places as well as some of my favorite spots.

I think I figured out the perfect restaurants to take your parents to in NYC. The key with a parent visit restaurant is to strike a fine balance. Depending on who your parent is, you want it to feel mature (I’m almost 26 LOL) but not too stuffy. You want it to be cool, but not too trendy. And most importantly of all, you want it to taste delicious and have excellent service.

So I took them to Altro Paradiso for lunch (one of the best cacio y pepes in the city) and then took them to Jojo by Jean Georges when we were in my neighborhood. Both were a big hit.

This weekend I also made a somewhat big purchase but I’ll talk more about that in tomorrow’s newsletter.

TODAY we are going be talking about mocktails for kids, insane food prices, hypebeast eggs, what it costs to get an Erewhon smoothie, and more. Let’s ride.

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News

• Did you watch F1 over the weekend? The Miami Grand Prix took place over the weekend and I heard a lot of buzz around viewership both in person and watch parties. The sport is rising in popularity quickly in the states, witnessing a 28% increase in viewership YoY. Issac Hindin-Miller (I Like You!) held an F1 party. Generally, I am seeing more people post about watching F1. Personally, I find it really boring. What shocked me is how expensive food was there. Look at these f*cking menu prices. $180 for nachos… and the option to add 1oz of caviar for $400. Spend it if you got it.

• How much does it cost to launch an Erewhon smoothie? Pretty much nothing if you’re Truly Beauty, which launched its Truly Cooka Colada in stores May 1st for a relatively inexpensive $9 (the average Erewhon smoothie is closer to $20) The smoothie features ‘skin-loving ingredients’ which makes sense for the beauty brand. Launching an Erewhon smoothie has been a tried and true marketing play to build brand awareness around a new product. Take for example and infamous Hailey Bieber Rhode Beauty smoothie, which has been in stores for over a year, and is often the first beverage for LA visitors looking to immerse themselves in the Cali lifestyle. While the move is great for brand awareness, what is the ROI on this marketing tactic? The KPIs are tricky to track, but the play is relatively inexpensive. BoF reports the brand did not pay to bring their smoothie on the menu, but did shell out a modest $30,000 to pay for free smoothies for Erewhon’s membership clientele. How long can the Erewhon smoothie hype train last?

• Happier Grocery now sells Hypebeast eggs. As first reported by

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  , NYC’s Erewhon dupe (I wrote about their $500 merch last week) is now selling eggs in trendy, overly designed packaging. It looks like Virgil Abloh designed these “eggs” I didn’t have a chance to make my weekly pilgrimage this week to Canal St. so I am not sure on price. I think for Happier, it makes sense to have an aesthetic egg carton, but on the other hand, does everything need to be designed to look so aesthetic all the time? I thought I was neurotic but I can’t imagine who is opening their fridge and getting a dopamine boost from how their eggs look in the fridge. If you designed this though… nice job.

• Children love mocktails just as much as your sober friend. In an interesting non-alcohol development, mocktails are now becoming increasingly popular with a surprising consumer cohort: little kids. The often overpriced cocktail dupes feature a number of ingredients kids can’t get enough of, but these raises a number of questions as to if this is normal? While the drinks contain no alcohol, some parents are worried it could be promoting drinking at a young age, akin to the classically fun candy cigarette. But despite their moral reservations, restauranteurs can’t complain, this is a money making boon. Mocktails in NYC often cost $18, so if a kid wants to get one, why not? The profit on these drinks is insane.

• The Met Gala is tonight. I went to the Met over the weekend and walked past the giant tent covering the stairs out front. I also got a sneak peek at what the tables inside look like where the actual gala occurs. On the way there, I had to pass through a crowd of teens hovering around The Mark to get photos of celebs pulling up in Escalades. This is always a fun night on Twitter, where people with no clue judge what people who could care less about their existence are wearing to a Gala. I will be one of those people on this newsletter tomorrow so stay tuned. In the meantime, Vogue published a list of the best looks over the years so go read that. Here are some standouts. Everyone and everything looked way hotter in the 90s, the best cultural decade of all time.

Okay gotta go! BYE!!! See you tomorrow!

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Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.

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