ICYMI: "Unhinged" Is 2024's First Marketing Directive
Brands: "What's our Pop-Tarts moment?"
Happy New Year! The platforms paused their updates for the holiday season — something I was grateful for while visiting family and friends in Canada over the break. Anyway, it’s a bit of a slow news week so I hope this lowkey issue of ICYMI helps you ease back into the swing of things and catch up on anything you missed over the last two weeks!
Thanks to Jenny McCoy, Julie Harrison-Harney and Cristina Lopez for contributing ideas and/or links included in this update!
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
🍓 Prep yourself for the question: “What’s our Pop-Tarts moment?”
🛍️ TikTok is raising seller fees and cutting out subsidies
🏆 Branded Reels are outperforming Stories on Instagram
💄 Gen Alpha’s beauty obsession has a dark side
🗓️ Two marketing calendars to make 2024 a little bit easier
🤝 Three fitness brand collabs that point to a bigger trend
💻 ROADMAP
📲 Threads Update
Threads rolled out a “press and hold to share” feature last July. But the hack, which allows users to easily share their threads to other apps, went viral over the holiday season. To the point that people started to threaten an automatic block for anyone mentioning “press and hold.” Things got so out of hand, Adam Mosseri had to beg users not to mention it when he asked for design feedback.
📲 TikTok Updates
Spotted in the wild: TikTok is testing AI generated images that you can produce and post using words or topics.
The app is also testing improved search results with expanded “Search Highlights” that can include text along with videos.
TikTok told sellers the company is increasing its commission from 2% to 8% while simultaneously reducing subsidies. The move represents a major test for TikTok’s ambitions to transform the app into a shopping destination.
TikTok put out a 2024 Marketing Calendar for small to mid-sized businesses with tips on what audiences might be looking for each month.
📲 Instagram Update
Instagram is working on an option to add public Collections (saved posts) to your profile, which could be a way to share more of your interests.
📲 Twitter (X) Update
Elon Musk announced he’d reintroduce preview headlines in article links. And the headlines did come back. Sort of. In tiny text. And they have since disappeared. Again. So if you were adding headline text to your images for Twitter, don’t stop now.
👆🏻 SOCIAL TRENDS
🍓🏈 How Strawberry, the Pop-Tarts Bowl mascot, took over the internet
The biggest news you might have missed if you blissfully disengaged over the holidays was Pop-Tarts college bowl victory.
ICYMI: an oversized Pop-Tarts mascot named Strawberry took the field before lowering itself into a toaster oven as a sacrificial snack for the winning team. The (overshadowed) Kansas State Wildcats then peeled and devoured the edible mascot, leaving just one eyeball behind.
It was bizarre, truly unhinged and extremely popular. Memes and online conversation spiked, leading to at least $12M in free media exposure.
Which means someone, somewhere is soon going to be asked: “What’s our Pop-Tarts moment?”
Sure, humor and unhinged storytelling are key to capturing Gen Z’s attention in 2024, according to predictions from Instagram and TikTok, respectively. But that energy needs to fit into your brand values and long-term strategy.
So as you scramble to come up with a response, remember that edgy doesn’t work for every brand. To me, this seemed like a pretty big departure for Kellanova (formerly the Kellogg company) versus what we’ve seen from mascots like Gritty or Duo the owl. Unhinged personalities have been part of their ongoing strategy since they burst onto the scene.
Plus, not only do you have to determine if “unhinged” makes sense for your organization, but executive leadership also needs to commit to stay the course when people start making jokes about ritual sacrifice, zombies and religious overtones.
Pop-Tarts just posted a Strawberry obituary to Instagram, memorializing the toaster pastry, which seems to indicate they’re sticking with it. But it’ll be interesting to watch how Pop-Tarts follows through on its now unhinged persona.
👧🏽👧🏻 Gen Alpha Is Scaring Everyone
There have been several articles pointing out Gen Alpha’s love for adult skincare brands, like Drunk Elephant, and the “baby beauty” influencer trend that’s taken over social media.
Now, the Sephora salespeople want to have a word. My TikTok feed has been overrun with legit clips and parody skits of people getting terrorized by 10 year olds on shopping sprees.
With brands getting backlash for irresponsible marketing, concern that child influencers are being exploited and salespeople being harassed… the video views from documenting this trend might be the only upside here.
Approach Gen Alpha with extreme caution.
Related: Watch Casey Lewis’ top Gen Z gifts based on TikTok’s #ChristmasHaul2023
🤝 Fitness Brand Collabs Point to a Bigger Trend
January is the peak season for fitness brands and everyone who wants to recommit to their workout and wellness routines. So it makes sense that we’re seeing a bunch of social promotion.
What makes the following examples so interesting is the collaboration element. We’ve already seen a bunch of interesting collabs in 2023 and the trend shows no sign of stopping. Whether it’s a creator partnership or a corporate collaboration, two feeds are better than one:
Strava teamed up with Chipotle to reward fans who hit their wellness goals with free Lifestyle Bowls and extra guac (social post)
Planet Fitness launched their collab with Megan Thee Stallion, aka Mother Fitness to spread Big Fitness Energy™ (social post)
Peloton partnered with TikTok on a new fitness hub called #TikTokFitness Powered by Peloton that will feature custom social content (social post)
*I think I’m going to do an upcoming deep dive on how critical collabs have become if you have questions, suggestions or partnerships you’ve loved?!
💕 The Collaboration Fans Lined Up For
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The Stanley obsession continues. This time as part of a collab with Starbucks. Creator Bella Boye vlogged her experience, from lining up at 4 a.m. to snag a cup to getting featured on Inside Edition and interviewed by the Washington Post.
🎥 Branded Instagram Reels Outperformed All Other Video Content Across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
Reels outperformed all other branded video content across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, according to this year-end recap from Emplifi, a customer engagement platform. Other takeaways from analysis of 2023 video performance for thousands of brand-owned social media accounts:
Reels are the top-performing content type on Instagram for brands, delivering six times the reach of Instagram Stories but brands consistently post more Stories than Reels
Longer Reels (over 90 seconds) generated more views compared to short- and medium-length videos on Instagram, while TikTok video views remained in the same range regardless of video length
📖 WORTH READING
Gen Z trusts YouTube (59%) more than any other platform -Business Insider
The whole business model of influencers relies on the one thing AI struggles to create: authenticity -Business Insider
Are Meta’s smart glasses the next big influencer trend? -Jing Daily
Legislation to protect child influencers is expected to increase in 2024 but it might be too late -NBCNews
If you didn’t share a recap video over the holidays, did 2023 even happen? -The Washington Post
‘In/Out’ notes lists are very … ‘In’ right now -Passionfruit
I used to love TikTok, but in 2024 it just feels cringe -Glamour
Instagram’s creators say features like Meta Verified and bonus programs miss the mark -Bloomberg
Listen to the Chief Influencer podcast as Anthony Shop and I talk about “Building a Potent Personal Brand” -Chief Influencer Podcast
Grab your FREE copy of Sean Choi’s epic Cultural Moments Encyclopedia 2024 -Sean Choi
Thanks for reading! Are you back at work? Let me know how you’re feeling about the 2024 outlook in the Comments below!
Omg yes I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. It's been on my mind too!
"I think I’m going to do an upcoming deep dive on how critical collabs have become if you have questions, suggestions or partnerships you’ve loved?!"