Welcome to The Yellow Summarin - collecting the most interesting ideas, topics, and tweets from the past week at the intersection of tech, media, and commerce.
In today's edition, I cover:
Consumer habits and the Metaverse
Luxury brands embrace LinkedIn
Reinventing the James Bond brand
Read and listen:
Metaverse
Emerging consumer trends and brand opportunities in the metaverse (Wunderman Thompson)
As our habits evolve, we’re outgrowing the bounds of the internet as it was first created—precipitating a new era of digital platforms. And yet, only 38% of global consumers have heard of the metaverse. It’s time to truly define what the metaverse is and establish a roadmap for entry. The report covers emerging consumer trends and implications for brands and businesses, alongside original research conducted by Wunderman Thompson Data, exclusive interviews with 15 experts, the defining elements of the metaverse, case studies and brand takeaways. Read report
Facebook's First Big Investment into the Metaverse, and What it Means for the Future of the Company (Social Media Today)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went all-in on the Metaverse just recently, in an interview in which he explained that he sees Facebook eventually becoming ‘a Metaverse company’. This new investment is another step in that direction, while the recently announced promotion of Facebook’s AR/VR chief Andrew Bosworth to the company’s CTO role also points to its continued shift in this path. Read story
Dimension Studio: How fashion is being brought to the metaverse (Vogue Business)
The company is perhaps best known for producing Balenciaga’s Afterworld game for Autumn/Winter 2021, created by volumetrically capturing real-life models and garments and dropping them into a gaming experience, designed in consultation with Balenciaga artistic director Demna Gvasalia. Dimension has also worked with London Fashion Week on a virtual catwalk, and H&M on an AR pop-up book for the H&M x Simone Rocha collaboration. Projects currently in progress include Jean Paul Gaultier and Charlotte Tilbury (with details still under wraps). Read story
Consumer Brands
Luxury consumer brand advertising on LinkedIn growing: ‘much larger than expected’ (The Drum)
Audi, Cartier, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton and Mercedes-Benz are just a handful of high-consideration consumer brands now engaging with LinkedIn’s 774-million users. The allure? “LinkedIn members are high-income earners, with the highest median household income of any platform’s user base,” says Ann Lundberg, senior director, strategic accounts, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Lundeberg was brought on two years ago to build a team aimed attracting aspirational consumer brands. Read story
TikTok Wants More Ad Dollars, and It Has a New Plan to Get Them (NYTimes)
TikTok is growing up and this is most obvious in its advertising business which executives have been working hard to make it an attractive proposition for the big spenders such as the big FMCG and auto manufacturing companies. While the platform has given us countless examples of viral successes over the last couple of years, when it comes to ad buying and being an attractive media channel for big brands there are still lots of barriers. The app's ownership by a Chinese-controlled entity, inability to control placement of ads around sensitive content are two of the major concerns that big companies have and have prevented them from establishing a presence on the platform. Brand safety is a thing when you are a multi-billion dollar business and TikTok knows this. Recently, the company has been investing in solutions to these problems and it is hoping to attract new advertising dollars. Read story
The modernization of James Bond’s brand partnerships (Glossy)
With the latest Bond film, the long-delayed “No Time to Die” coming out on Oct. 8, the franchise has once again inked a slew of product placement deals ranging from cars and alcohol to watches and fashion. But while James Bond was once associated with a certain kind of old school luxury appeal — yachts and expensive Swiss watches — in recent years he has been moving into the modern era. That’s included replacing British brands with American ones, replacing heritage brands with newly established competitors and even entering the wild futuristic world of NFTs. Read story
Tweets
That’s all for this week! See you next time.
Marin