The Weekly Roundup (week of 3.18)
SSENSE and GAP show their marketing prowess
1. SSENSE KIDSWEAR SPELLING BEE CAMPAIGN
SSENSE continues to put out hit after hit, their most recent kidswear campaign tapped some legendary brands in their catalog in a brilliant spelling-bee campaign. There’s nothing to explain, it was a great idea they executed flawlessly in the classic SSENSE tone of voice. One thing to note is how SSENSE can use humor as a marketing lever but still retain the coolness necessary for a high-fashion retailer. They’re not try-hard, it’s an effortless brand of fashion-insider humor that appeals to the type of consumer they’re targeting.
2. Palace Cofounder Talks Gap Collaboration: “It’s Cool, Innit, Man?”
Picture ’90s-era Gap and you’ll probably conjure visions of LL Cool J rapping or khaki-clad dancers. Palace cofounder Lev Tanju, however, remembers a completely different side of the global mall megabrand. Gap’s logo hoodies and multicolored anoraks were fixtures of the San Francisco skate scene, which produced videos that Tanju obsessed over and modeled his style after. “Gap's just iconic, and it's such a big part of me growing up and a lot of the Palace family,” Tanju said.
This is a great interview that speaks to the power of both brands. GAP is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. They’re hitting from all angles–big viral campaigns, a renewed elevated energy to their art direction, and hype-y brand collabs. It’s not that hard to do in a theoretical or even a practical sense. What’s impressive is the massive strategic changes and cultural resetting they’ve done internally to make any of their recent wins actually happen. The hard part, and what the leadership team at GAP deserves the most props for, is forcing a big sclerotic company to change and structurally retrofit existing teams to align towards a winning strategy. Read here.
3. THE VICUÑAS AND THE $9,000 SWEATER
Thirty years of providing the world’s finest wool to the fashion house Loro Piana has done almost nothing for the Indigenous people of the Peruvian Andes.
A fascinating story of the people behind Loro Piana Vicuña wool–the softest material known to man and what Loro Piano calls “the fiber of the gods.” Read here.
4. Clout world
I always imagined that the internet would mature and become more legitimate somehow over time. But, for the most part, the opposite has actually happened. Instead of finding new ways to power the internet besides “clout,” we’ve decided to power everything on internet attention. At the start of the social web we assumed content would get better. Platforms would get better. We, ourselves, would get better. And I simply do not think digital media literacy can reverse where we’ve found ourselves now.
Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day gives us something to think about as we collectively come to terms with the fact that internet clout chasing is the natural end point of social media. Until we figure out how to stop relying on advertising revenue that is. Read here.