No. 011: Pinterest was made for our delulu era

plus, Taco Bell wants you to retire early, S'mores ramen, and is Goop over?

🧲 OBSESSION OF THE WEEK

“Love a leisurely lifestyle and an early bed time?” asks none other than Taco Bell.

The brand just launched a genius activation in the form of an “early-retirement community.” Called The Cantinas, it’s a weekend long experience for rewards members only, where guests will check into a resort in San Diego on August 17 & 18th.

Once there, participants will enjoy “cross-generational leisure and senior-inspired recreation,” and, of course, eat copious amounts of Taco Bell. Activities include “early morning tee times to afternoon aerobics and pickleball matches.”

I love this on so many levels: it rewards their biggest fans and turns them into advocates (part of a growing trend of brands rewarding customers, not influencers), will allow for some incredibly shareable content, and generally feels like a solid embodiment of the brand ethos: playful, fun, irreverent, bold.

Also feels like it’s kind of in line with the sporty summer I talked about last week, just sayin’…

🍿 BRAND NEWS

• Instant ramen company Cup Noodles announced their newest flavor, S’Mores, which sounds so gross I just may have to try it. It’s clearly targeted at millennial nostalgia, but it may be going a little too far. Also, what is the ‘sauce’???

• Zooey Deschanel is Vera Bradley’s new brand ambassador — two names I honestly haven’t heard in a while. It seems like the brand is on the verge of a resurgence, so I’m curious to see where they take it.

• Everlane’s founder is back with a new product — this time, in the CPG supplement space. Called Magna, it’s a Magnesium-focused hydration line, with a focus on everyday athletes. He believes he’s building his company during the “Erewhon-ification of everything” era. He’s right.

• Hallmark is launching its own streaming service, which likely means you’ll need to start watching Hallmark movies in October this year to keep up. But actually a smart move for them as the memes and tropes show us that there’s clearly a market for this kind of content (I’m not above it).

• Snapple x Sour Patch are collabing on a summer inspired mix that include Sour Patch Kids in the Snapple flavors of our youth: Kiwi Strawberry, Mango Madness, and Fruit Punch. Again with the millennial nostalgia, and again with my itch to try it.

• Pac Sun is launching an activewear line targeted at Gen Zs, and they’re using up-and-coming (college-level) athletes as spokespeople. I kind of love this approach — feels like it gives the brand a bit of a POV on supporting these athlete’s journeys as opposed to the huge celeb endorsements we’re used to seeing.

• Levi’s is one of the few recent DTC success stories right now, having grown 12% on DTC in the US this quarter — they’re definitely doing something right here, and I plan to watch them a little more closely…  

• David Beckham announced that he’ll be cofounder of a mysterious consumer wellness brand called IM8. Their IG looks pretty bare, but if I were to venture a guess, it’s going to be in the longevity space.

• Apparel brand Jenni Kayne launched ‘The Farmhouse’ in Tivoli, upstate NY, which offers beauty treatments using their “Oak Essentials” line of products and is furnished with the brand’s furniture and bedding. This is the fourth property the brand owns — the OG is The Ranch in Santa Ynez, California, the Lake House in Lake Arrowhead, and the Hillside Haven in Brentwood, LA — all insanely beautiful. I personally love the trend of giving a brand a sense of place and creating a universe that goes beyond ecommerce or even a retail store, which is highly functional. A brand I would love to see doing this is Reformation — I feel that space would be insane.

The Farmhouse in Upstate NY

The Farmhouse in Upstate NY

The Ranch in Santa Ynez

🎯 DEEP DIVE: HOW PINTEREST BECAME THE DARLING OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Context

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media platforms right now, which is no small feat given the fierce competition on TikTok and our generally short attention spans as humans in the year 2024. They are up 23% year over year, with revenue at $740 million, and have 500 million active monthly users, with ~70% of them female.

I’ve been watching the company super closely for a while and they’ve been doing some really interesting things to achieve that growth but never at the expense of their users. This is a key differentiator and definitely something we can all learn from.

So let’s dive in to see why.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Why Now?

• influencer overload: Pinterest is not a place one goes to be Influenced; rather, it’s a sacred space by which to gather, and curate, inspiration. In a recent interview, VP of Retail said that the mindset of a Pinterest user is “fertile open mind,” which means to say that it’s ready to be molded and shaped — whereas a Google search is often direct and specific (“under $200 black dress”), a Pinterest search might be more inspired and open-ended (“Y2K aesthetic outfit”).

• the rise of “aesthetics”: I’ve talked about this before, but literally everything is an aesthetic these days: quiet luxury, coastal grandma, office siren, desert aunt, cottagecore, and tenniscore are just a few recent examples. What better place to go for aesthetic inspiration than Pinterest, which won’t just serve you clothes for these trends, but also the associated people, places, foods, and colors that accompany them?

• ‘delulu’ era: this is more speculative and anecdotal than anything, but I feel like we’ve seen a rise of content around ‘being delulu’ — short for delusional — believing you are all-deserving of all good things, and acting accordingly, aka having “main character energy.” I believe it’s a direct reaction to the actual state of the world — where things are actually pretty tough for Gen Zs & millennials. Pinterest is the perfect canvas for gathering inspiration and building a mood board for creating your ‘delulu’ life, virtually.

• the Gen Z effect: simply put, Gen Zs love Pinterest — for the reasons mentioned above, and they make up 40% of the platform’s user base, which is huge. Again, it feels like a platform that doesn’t have the same noise as “louder” social apps like TikTok, IG, YouTube, Snap, and others.

The Details

Pinterest’s impressive growth isn’t an accident, or simply being in the right place at the right time (though that doesn’t hurt).

Rather, it’s the direct result of strategic product features, campaigns, and activations that have kept the platform top-of-mind for users:

• Pinterest recently rolled out a feature that turns users’ Pinterest boards into videos that can be shared across social, including TikTok and Instagram.

• At Cannes Lions, Pinterest put on an activation called Manifestival for the second year in a row. Clearly leaning into being the ‘delulu destination’ of the internet, this experience lets visitors “step into a real life Pinterest",” featuring a tattoo station inspired by Pinterest trends, a charm bar, upcycled accessories, personal color consultations, and style overhauls.

• In late 2022, Pinterest introduced a standalone app called Shuffles, created from the user insight that users don’t just want to make boards of inspirational images (mood boards), but they actually want to collage, creating vision boards that are very 90’s coded. Shuffles is very similar to an app I love called Landing. While I haven’t seen much about Shuffles on social or in the news, I believe there’s great potential as it comes from a key user insight.

• In the last year, Pinterest has struck partnerships with Amazon and Google, serving ads from both on their platform; I think this is a great play because it’s the type of contextual advertising that feels welcome to a user, where they’re in a state of exploration and discovery, rather than being bombarded. It’s working for their biggest retail clients, too. After Pacsun turned on Pinterest’s advertising API in Q4 2023, conversions were up 7x, attributed to Pinterest.

• Not surprisingly, Pinterest does a ton of research on their users, seeking to understand them but also wanting to be a thought leader in the space, which is key to getting those advertising dollars. I personally love their annual trend forecasts and their evergreen trend dashboard to see what people are searching for. ‘Aquatic dress to impress’ is up 300% this month.

• Urban Outfitters recently announced a partnership with Pinterest for their ‘Shift Happens’ campaign; this 2-day experience in NYC showcases 10 different dorm rooms designed by creators in themes like “Bouquet Getaway” and “Freak Fort”; each room will be entirely shoppable with Urban Outfitters furniture and accessories, which is so smart!! They also did a partnership with sister brand Anthropologie earlier this year, targeted at various bridal aesthetics.

Hot Take 🌶️

Pinterest is doing a lot of things right now, I truly believe they are the social media platform to watch. While they’re a consumer app, not a consumer brand, I truly believe there’s a ton any brand can learn and apply.

1. seek to understand: as mentioned above, Pinterest takes an interest not only in who their core user is, but also their why (more on that below). I love that they are a consumer-insight driven organization and clearly have some pretty great tools and feedback loops in place by which to get those insights. Even if you’re a smaller brand, you can start simple: post-purchase and launch surveys, reviews, customer service emails, and social media comments are all amazing sources of feedback.

2. innovate from insight: it’s clear that Pinterest is listening to its users when it comes to rolling out new features; the new video sharing feature is a great example of this. As a brand, making sure you have strong feedback loops with your customers and then actually listening to that feedback is the secret to supercharging your growth. Whether you are building innovation roadmaps, redesigning packaging, or dropping new product collabs — deliver on what your audience is actually asking for.

3. embrace your (current) why: I love that Pinterest is leaning into their current ‘why’: manifestation and vision boarding, which was likely not where they expected to be 5, 10 years ago. But the reality is, large groups of users are coming to them for this exact reason, and activations like Manifestival showcase that they’re embracing, rather than rejecting, that core truth. Another great brand example of this is Stanley; they’ve been around since 1913 but it’s only in the last couple of years that their popularity has exploded amongst millennials and Gen Zs with popularity of their 40oz Flow State Tumbler. Collabs like the one with Olivia Rodrigo show that they’re going all in. And it’s paying off — they 10xed revenue between 2019 and 2023, raking in $750 million last year. If you’re a brand, the ‘why’ and the ‘who’ that you had in mind may look different at launch, or a few years into the business. The smartest brands not only embrace it, but use it as jet fuel to meet the moment.

Last week, 83% of you were yay about brands getting in on sports, while 17% of you were ‘just ok’.

✨ MUSINGS

• I love this tweet, which I first saw on Shaan Puri’s newsletter and then was shared by a friend. Personally, I have ridiculously high standards for quality of a few things: my relationships (honest & uncomplicated), the content I consume (fun or thought-provoking), and the food I eat (healthy & whole as much as I can). I think this trifecta makes up the bulk of my life!!! What about you?

• I’ve been reading more and more about Goop trying to do everything they can to beef up performance ahead of a potential acquisition, like opening a new store in Larkspur that offers beauty treatments, getting deeper into beauty with new mascara, and hiring industry vets into the C-Suite; it’s kind of crazy to see how what was once an incredibly valuable company is strugging, and I think this article provides a pretty great perspective if you’re curious. May need a future deep dive, what do we think?

🎲 ONE LAST THING

deuxmoi

A post shared by @deuxmoi

I teased it last week, but now that it’s live — wanted to share some deeper thoughts on DEUX x Deuxmoi’s collab. DEUX (disclosure: I’m an investor) launched what I think is one of the coolest partnerships I’ve seen this year with celeb gossip site Deuxmoi (for the uninitiated: it’s like a real life Gossip Girl for celebrities).

The flavor, called ANON PLS. (a nod to the way tips are sent into Deuxmoi’s IG account with 2M followers), is a better-for-you vegan cookie dough in cookies & cream, which feels perfect for Deuxmoi’s black-and-white aesthetic. It’s a flavor that people already love, which makes sense because this is largely a net new customer acquisition play, and each jar has a never-before-seen “blind item” (piece of hot gossip) which is giving Willy Wonka in the best way.

I think this collab is genius because it’s the definition of turning a CPG brand into a lifestyle brand. What better way to cement your place in pop culture by partnering with the source of pop culture? Plus the fact that the brand names as perfectly aligned doesn’t hurt.

Curious if this makes you want to buy the product, changes your perception of the brand, both, or neither?

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have a great week.

- Sabena