👋 Rise and shine. If waking up felt particularly hard this morning, perhaps it was America’s $1.21T in credit-card debt weighing you down. The average consumer now holds a ~$6.6k credit-card balance, up 3.5% from last year, according to a TransUnion report. Sorry to start your day with a bit of a bummer. Go get yourself a little treat — what’s one more charge on the card?
🩸 The healthtech industry brings new blood: Hims & Hers Health acquired Trybe Labs, an at-home blood testing company, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will allow Hims & Hers to offer tests for cholesterol and expand access to treatments for conditions like menopause and low testosterone. Users will receive a blood lancet made by testing company Tasso that attaches to the upper arm and collects a small amount of blood into a microtube with the push of a button. The new service puts the company in direct competition with blood-drawing giants like Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics, and will undoubtedly make you think briefly of Elizabeth Holmes.
🕵️ Shaken and stirred: Amazon MGM Studios now has full creative control over fiction’s most famous secret agent, James Bond, due to a partnership with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Cubby Broccoli, Broccoli’s father and Wilson’s stepfather, and fellow producer Harry Saltzman secured a deal to produce a film based on Ian Fleming’s spy novels in 1961, and the Broccoli family has maintained creative control through all 25 movies. There hasn’t been a new Bond film since 2021’s No Time to Die, and Amazon acquired distribution rights with its $8.5B acquisition of MGM in 2022. What Amazon plans to do with Bond next is anyone’s guess.
✈️ A scary way to get $30k: Delta Air Lines is offering $30k — “no strings attached” — to the 76 passengers aboard its plane that flipped upside down while landing in Toronto this week. Aviation accident attorneys told Business Insider that it’s an act of goodwill not uncommon in major aviation incidents, but doesn’t mean that Delta won’t be ordered to pay more if passengers sue. All passengers and the flight’s four crew members survived, but 18, including one child, were injured.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
This matters: Microsoftjust unveiled the Majorana 1 quantum chip, which is powered by a new state of matter. Yes, as in the tech giant might’ve just disrupted the three primary states of matter — solid, liquid, and gas — in its pursuit of quantum computing.
OpenAI hit 400m weekly active users in February, up 33% from the 300m users it saw in December. The company has also amassed 2m paying enterprise users, roughly doubling since September, yet your aunt still calls it “ChatGTP.”
Birkenstocks are not art. The German shoemaker tried to get its sandals classified as such to secure stronger copyright protections and stymie competitors, but a German court ruled that “pure craftsmanship using formal design elements” was not enough.
But these days, brands have to try harder than just sponsoring overt tie-ins like “M.C. Kids” and “Chex Quest.”
The return of “Grand Theft Auto”
Rockstar Games’ upcoming “Grand Theft Auto VI” could be a seismic event in the world of sponsored content, Digidaysuspects.
The game’s predecessor, “GTA V,” sold more than 200m copies.
But it’s also over a decade old.
Streamers and fans love its custom role-play servers, where online players are given strict, “realistic” guidelines about how to play.
In stark contrast to the regular game, you obey traffic laws, go to work, and avoid killing other players.
They are essentially their own bespoke worlds, much like the digital sponsorship activations that are common in games like “Fortnite” and “Roblox.”
Of course, advertisers would see the hypothetical potential of a photorealistic Nike-themed city where 200m players learn about Nike.
But does this actually make sense?
Sorry, brands — it kind of doesn’t.
The “GTA” series has never gone for sponsored tie-ins, preferring to fill its world with parody versions of famous brands.
It seems unlikely that it would spoil the joke with real ads.
In-game ads can work, though. Prada reported a 1.8k% increase in web traffic after a “Candy Crush Saga” tie-in.
But there’s a reason Prada worked with “Candy Crush”: It’s free and it’s on your phone.
North America has an estimated 285m gamers, and 150m+ of them play on their phones.
It’s also worth noting that “GTA VI” will be a game about violent criminals doing violent crimes, while “Candy Crush” is about having good-natured fun with candy.
One of those seems more obviously palatable to image-conscious brands — at least ones that don’t sell tools for stealing cars.
Do you know your leadership style? You should — it’s one secret sauce that can drive your team’s success.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Share of 18- to 34-year-olds who prefer a message over a phone call, per a survey of 2k UK adults.
Many younger communicators suffer from “telephobia.” For Gen Z, a generation raised with a multitude of communication options available to them, an unscheduled call can trigger a fear of the unknown — or, more specifically, bad news or scams.
The UK’s Nottingham College has been offering telephobia seminars to help students ace phone interviews and become more comfortable making calls. Nottingham career advisor Liz Baxter told CNBC that despite their phone anxiety, many younger students are comfortable with video chat, as they can gauge the other person’s reaction.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1885, the Washington Monument was dedicated in Washington, DC, in honor of George Washington, who died in 1799.
🎨 That’s cool: In the mood for a throwback? A version of Kid Pix is free online.
🍕 That’s interesting: Why different US regions have different pizzas.
⌨️ Haha: A global caps lock key, if, for some reason, you feel like allowing your caps lock to be controlled by strangers online.
That’s a pretty hot take from someone who’s built a billion-dollar empire on being a nice guy. Jimmy Donaldson, AKA MrBeast — the 26-year-old YouTube megastar known for his philanthropy — offered this cynical insight in a recent interview on The Diary of a CEO podcast, citing thousands of hateful messages he’s gotten from internet trolls.
Another takeaway from his fame and fortune: that life is “so much easier when you’re broke.” Guess we have it pretty good, guys.
SHOWER THOUGHT
I wonder what percentage of people have sat in the back seat of their own car.SOURCE
