👋 Happy Friday. Don’t forget to grab your bag before leaving the office… and your unicycle? Uber released its Lost & Found Index of the 50 strangest items left in its rideshares last year, and it turns out people are weirder than we thought. Among the top contenders: a mannequin head with human hair, a viking drinking horn, a Ghostbusters ghost trap, and a chainsaw. If you live in New York, the odds are higher you left behind your 10 live lobsters — it ranked No. 1 on the list of most forgetful cities.
After receiving hundreds of stellar submissions, The Hustle’s Big Break pitch competition has a winner:
Monique Diaz-Evancic of IheartPockets.com — a clothing modification service that sews pockets onto your favorite garments.
Monique’s 60-second pitch won our judges over with a clever solution to a genuine problem: There’s a tragic lack of functional pockets in women’s clothing.
She’ll receive $5k to bring her business model to life, and keep an eye out here for more on her origin story. Congrats, Monique!
NEWS FLASH
👕 Even faster fashion: Walmart unveiled a new AI-powered Trend-to-Product tool it’s been developing for the last 18 months. The company claims the proprietary “trend-sensing design tool” can shorten fashion production timelines by as much as 18 weeks, analyzing trends from the web and social media to create mood boards for designers and merchants. It’s not the company’s first foray into AI — it previously added AI-powered search for customers and AI product replenishment to its arsenal, and plans to bring its trendspotting tool beyond fashion.
🎮 “Black Mirror” is back for a seventh season. Episode “Plaything” follows a video game journalist who becomes hooked on “Thronglets,” a Tamagotchi-esque game in which players care for yellow creatures called Thronglets by cleaning, feeding, and amusing them. Netflix also released a mobile version of the game that fans can play. Another fun fact: “Plaything” ties to “Bandersnatch,” the series’ interactive episode, with video game dev Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) making an appearance.
📉 Ouch: WeightWatchers’ shares plummeted 62%+ yesterday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is readying for bankruptcy, citing anonymous insiders. That’s a big number, but accounted for only a ~28-cent loss considering that shares dipped below $1 earlier this year, perFast Company. WeightWatchers has reportedly struggled to attract younger subscribers, and has faced competition from weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. Its attempts to create a telehealth company to offer such drugs have yet to manifest.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Prada is acquiring rival high-fashion brand Versace in a $1.38B deal. The Prada Group is one of few luxury fashion groups thriving amid weakened demand, reporting a 17% increase in 2024 revenue, thanks in part to Miu Miu’s 93% sales growth.
Fun: Flipper Zero’s creators are back with the Busy Bar, an LED smart display that lets co-workers know when you’re busy or on a call and for how long. It costs $249, which seems like a lot — but perhaps telling people to go away is priceless.
Important and serious news: Cadbury unveiled the world’s largest Creme Egg. The massive egg is 3 feet tall, weighs in at just shy of 100 pounds, and is made of actual chocolate and fondant filling. Finally, a marketing stunt we can get behind.
TODAY’S TOP TRENDS
How to hit that sweet spot with your social posts
Our social feeds are nonstop smorgasbords of thought-leader quips, formulaic memes, and surely stolen stuff. How is a humble little company expected to build a brand that slaps like the best?
Liberty Mutual’s LiMu Emu recently topped a study’s list of the best brand mascots in the insurance industry.
But its competition, Progressive’s Flo and Allstate’s Mayhem, put up a good fight, proving that insurance companies are ahead of the marketing curve.
The time of Toomgis
There’s a surprising trend in advertising, per a recent Digiday report: Everyone’s using mascots again.
Popular characters like Chester Cheetah never went away (though he is British these days), but more and more companies are selling themselves with a mascot:
The Duolingo owl is the modern gold standard, as evidenced by the success of his recent death.
McDonald’s introduced Grimace’s birthday shake in 2023, spawning a weird Gen Z meme.
The Pop-Tarts Bowl’s deranged mascot gimmick featured a giant Pop-Tart being lowered into a toaster and devoured.
Meanwhile, Cava has been pushing a pita chip named Peter Chip, Hi-Chew has the “ambiguous” Chewbie, and Domino’s has the “fully sentient” Mac Scott.
Those may sound terrible, but that’s likely on purpose. Remember Toomgis? Ampm’s mascot was a pile of junk food and he was great.
But there’s a serious reason…
… why brands might want to embrace a big, stupid character instead of a traditional spokesperson.
Digiday points out that mascots can avoid politics in a way real people can’t (Gritty aside).
Which, unfortunately, is particularly wise in this prickly political climate.
We just hope these new mascots remember the story of fake PlayStation executive Kevin Butler, who was sued after playing a Nintendo Wii in a Bridgestone Tires ad.
Is the ocean the new outer space? A deep dive into the many business opportunities lurking in the next great unknown.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
How many Ring Pops Bazooka Brands’ new Moosic, Pennsylvania, factory can produce per day. The 120k-square-foot facility replaces a smaller 47-year-old factory in nearby Scranton that closed due to structural issues.
It may have been a while since you yourself had a Ring Pop, but nostalgic candies are still a hit, per Food Dive. Charms recently announced a $97m+ investment to expand its Blow Pop factory in Tennessee.
AROUND THE WEB
🖊️ On this day: In 1931, writer Dorothy Parker resigned from her role as The New Yorker’s drama critic. Parker had moved to the magazine after she was fired from Vanity Fair over her harsh reviews.
Doniella Davy, a celebrity makeup artist best known for her work on hit productions like HBO’s “Euphoria” and A24’s Moonlight, has spent most of her career behind the scenes. But recently, as the founder and CEO of Half Magic Beauty — a $16m makeup brand with award-winning products on shelves across three continents — she’s found herself in a new position: in front of the camera. The millennial entrepreneur toldFortune that being in the limelight was once something that “petrified” her; now, it’s just another day at work.
SHOWER THOUGHT
You have a limited number of heartbeats in your life. You can literally hear the countdown to your death.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Sam Barsanti, Singdhi Sokpo, and Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben “Can’t talk, minding my Thronglet” Berkley.
