In a previous issue of Cuppa I shared the first edition of Creative Sparks, a monthly journal from Adam Ross (Creative Strategy Director for Coca-Cola) that shares interesting things from the advertising world that have caught his attention, and that can inspire creativity for others. With a focus on brand positioning and distinctiveness, his second edition has a lot of creative and strategic insight worth stealing…
A content house just for founders
Having the resources, money and space needed to create impactful, high-quality content can feel like an impossible task for founders and their creative teams. Content studios exist for TikTok stars, and YouTube celebs, so why shouldn't there be one for early-stage businesses? Well, fellow brand builder Graham Hussey wondered the same thing, so to bridge the gap he created Dream Factory: a content creation house in London for people building new brands.
Welcome to the week following the Super Bowl aka the week where marketers chat and analyse every single commercial. Here is a listicle of all the ads if you haven't caught up yet. Two of personal favourites were Pringles and Uber Eats, but if we're judging by numbers, the brand that stood out most in a sea of high production and celebrity-fuelled ads was Coinbase with their simplistic and nostalgic bouncing QR code that drove more than 20 million visits to the company's website in a single minute. Marketers will love it or hate it. I for one am on the “love” side of the debate, and this twitter thread from Daniel Eckler sums up my reasons why pretty well.
Unbundle the tech stacks behind the best e-comm brands
Selecting the best back-end technology and tools to power your business can be a pretty challenging task. So to help simplify the process and bring transparency to the industry, Interlace Ventures just launched Unbundled to help upcoming e-comm brands uncover the best tech solutions to power their shops. Pass this onto your growth teams, and have a snoop at what tools are powering the best digital brands today.
UK founded Papier raises $50M to lead the analogue revolution
Doubling in size every year since launch, the direct-to-consumer stationary startup has just received a fresh cash injection of £50M to push them into the US market. Interestingly in a world addicted to screens, you might assume their typical customer would be an older consumer, but it turns out that millennials is Papier’s biggest demographic today, at 53% of all sales, and Gen Z users are its fastest-growing segment.
Tips on how to create memorable "customer moments"
Eli Weiss is the king of customer experience and retention, and his latest twitter thread on how to build brand evangelists and superfans is a useful one to share with your CX teams. The main lesson? Do things that don't scale.
Fast homeware is the new fast fashion
If you're a young renter or a first-home buyer I'm sure you'll have noticed first-hand the sudden boom of trendy homeware products on the market that cater to our evolving tastes and constant home tweaking needs. Turns out, just like we did with fashion, our behaviours are propelling the homeware industry into a pretty ugly, unethical future.
Potato milk is the next big thing?!
I think this video sums up my feelings on this.
Brand-Tok
Make your next TikTok binge productive and enter the realm of what I like to call Brand-Tok. The platform is brimming with PR specialists, marketers and brand strategists who are creating entertaining content on all things brand building. Here are some of my favourites: IAmDulma for startup news and brand breakdowns, GirlBossTown for PR ideas and inspiration and ThingTesting for new brand discovery and unboxings.
