Out of Scope Issue 49: Valentine’s Day emails are out 💔, EV ads are in 🚙
Surprisingly, both involve beating hearts if you ask Brie Larson
This week, we take a look at the SAT’s latest attempt at staying relevant, the Citizen app’s reputation bumps, the next great American pastime, Pickleball, a hilarious ski conditions update, and more.
💡ON OUR MINDS
Hey Hey, Bye Bye
Calls for the cancellation of podcaster, comedian, and natural supplement enthusiast Joe Rogan continued this week. Rogan is no stranger to controversy, but lately, the outcry has been especially loud because of his vocal skepticism towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, musician Neil Young asked Spotify in a public statement to remove his music from the platform if they continued to host Rogan’s podcast. Young accused Rogan of spreading “fake information about vaccines” and said Spotify “can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Spotify sided with Rogan but honored Young’s wishes—they took his music off the platform.
The whole affair is an interesting case study in comms. Neil Young’s career is full of principled stands like this, from political anthems like “Southern Man” to his vocal hatred of the MP3 format. It’s newsworthy that he called out Rogan, but not surprising. If you’re a Neil Young fan, it’s a bummer that you can’t stream him on Spotify, but moments like this are probably precisely why you love him in the first place.
Spotify, on the other hand, is in a much tougher spot. Listeners are increasingly frustrated with the streaming giant’s refusal to hold their biggest star to their community guidelines. When you look at the bottom line, the decision to side with Rogan over Young isn’t a difficult one. But the choice will only further upset the vocal horde of artists that claim that Spotify doesn’t respect musicians.
Through it all, Rogan proves one of the oldest, most powerful rules in reputation management: sometimes it’s best to say nothing at all.
Conservative Talking Heads’ Sway and One Miss Taylor Lorenz
If you’re a regular Out of Scope reader, you probably know the Hirsch Leatherwood team is a big fan of Taylor Lorenz, the New York Times online culture reporter and resident meme queen.
This week she’s been making the news rather than reporting it. First, she had a star turn on NBC explaining West Elm Caleb and the importance of TikTok.
Then, the Brookings Institute, NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, and the International Women’s Media Foundation conducted a literal study on the hate she gets online.
After Tucker Carlson targeted Lorenz in a segment on his show, she received 115% more messages that constitute harmful speech. When Glenn Greenwald did the same, incidents of harmful speech targeting Lorenz increased by 144%.
Two things to note here. First, aggressive speech has real implications. When pundits use their bully pulpit as a platform for cruelty, their viewers carry that cruelty with them out into the world. Second, Taylor Lorenz is a gifted reporter and an essential part of a stable media diet. Whether you’re an avid reader of the NYT business section or just someone over 40 trying to understand your kid’s Instagram presence, Taylor has your back.
🏆 BRAND MIXUP OF THE WEEK: Citizen
Citizen, an app that purports to offer personal safety to users with real-time alerts and contributions from their user base about potential crimes or events in progress, has had a busy reputation week. Vice’s Motherboard revealed LAPD email exchanges about the police force’s cooperation with Citizen, specifically zeroing in on a botched manhunt during the May 2021 Palisades wildfire. The company’s CEO put a $30,000 bounty on the head of a suspected arsonist - but LAPD later arrested a different individual for the crime. LAPD’s Media Relations Division noted they would no longer be working with the app after the mishap and hearing about public concerns over “user actions they promote and condone,” noting that Citizen could be “both hurtful and helpful.”
This week, Citizen also announced its acquisition of the disaster preparedness app “Harbor,” contributing towards its self-idealized image of a safety app, rather than what many consider to be its current purpose of public surveillance. In TechCrunch’s words, “This acquisition could help Citizen give users ways to stay safe that don’t involve anxiety-inducing alerts about nearby incidents.”
📡 ON OUR RADAR
Car advertising budgets are rapidly changing as companies face shortages and new consumer and cultural demands. Electric vehicle advertising is way up; take this one Nissan commercial featuring Brie Larson, for example.
Is Pickleball the next great American pastime? Since the sport’s inception in 1965, the sport hasn’t gained mainstream popularity with young demographics until recently. With 4.2 million people reportedly playing pickleball in 2020, up 21% from the year before, pickleball – best described as a cross between table tennis and tennis — seems to be popping up at parks and clubs all across the country.
In reputation goofs no one could have predicted, Weber Grills sent out a recipe to its email subscribers for a delicious meatloaf - the day singer and actor Meat Loaf passed away.
Amid a growing national movement to eliminate standardized testing requirements for admissions decisions, the College Board has unveiled new changes, including improved digital formats and unique tests to increase security. Time will tell if these changes help the SAT increase its relevancy and longevity.
This week, Peter Dinklage called out Disney on their upcoming Snow White remake, noting their enthusiasm over the “progressive” casting of a Latina actress for Snow White while upholding stereotypes about dwarves. Disney’s response: “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.”
In a hot mic moment this week, Biden called Fox News’ Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch,” causing some delight and horror on both sides of the aisle. Some on the left took the moment as a sign of humanity and were excited to see the President say what he was thinking, but others were reminded of the last administration, and Trump’s “real talk.”
Seven Springs, a ski resort in Pennsylvania, made waves on the internet after one of their weekly videos went viral. The video features a woman reporting on the snow conditions and resort operations. In the background, a skier struggles down the stairs while the narrator remains oblivious. It turns out that this moment of seemingly serendipitous comedy was manufactured for clicks. Instagram isn’t the only place where “plandids” (planned candids) serve engagements.
Substack and the newsletter boom have been hailed by some as the future of media. We’re enjoying the irony in Substack’s announcement that they’re getting into the video game. Remember how every media company wanted to “pivot to video” in 2015? For the future of media, this announcement feels awfully familiar.
This past week, Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz was the lone inductee into the MLB Hall of Fame, sparking conversation about the many familiar faces like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens left off the ballot. Even Ortiz himself took notice. It’s a study in reputation, leaving some to ask whether players’ baseball resumés are enough to score their entry into the hall of fame.
In another effort in the "thoughtful marketing movement" started by British florist Bloom & Wild, brands like Etsy and Parachute are allowing customers to opt-out of emails for Valentine's Day, leaning into sincerity over sales. This small move can have a big impact since advertisements and promotions around holidays — particularly ones that celebrate relationships — can cause anxiety and depression. Emotional intelligence for the win.
Will men’s beauty products finally take off in the mainstream? While men’s grooming companies and analysts report that the growing popularity of men’s makeup is unmasking a trend that already existed, the category seems to be dropping the tough-guy act. From nail polish lines launched by male celebrities like Harry Styles and Machine Gun Kelly to viral tinted moisturizers designed for men, the men’s beauty market will surely keep expanding as the premise becomes less taboo.
Serena Williams has added another record to her resume by shattering the record for highest-selling women's sports card at $117,000. The previous record at $44,280 was set by – you guessed it – Williams. The sale reaffirms her GOAT status, as well as the rapid growth in women's sports cards over the past year.
Will AI targeting in advertising become more of a thing in 2022? IBM says there’s still work to do to eliminate biases. The company just released a five-month study on Ad Council’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, where AI targeting showed biases toward women, people ages 45-65, and households with incomes less than $100K. The challenge is that these biases mean the tool wasn’t showing ad creative aimed at converting populations the Ad Council most wanted to persuade.
🥊QUICK HITS:
In case you missed these stories this week.
Why are the Gen Z kids so obsessed with the 90s? Nihilism and nostalgia, maybe?
How far would your company go to ban a troll? Roblox took one particularly deviant YouTuber to court for harassment and terrorist threats that have cost the company time and money.
“Truth Social” — Trump’s elusive new social media network — is now courting influencers, some of which have been known to post anti-Trump content publicly. Regardless, Truth Social’s PR and marketing efforts seem like a last-minute attempt for relevancy ahead of its February launch date.
Spoiler alert: This newspaper sent a push notification announcing the end of Amy Schneider’s historic Jeopardy! run before the episode aired on the West Coast.
Instagram and TikTok pulled ads from startup Cerebral that alleged a misleading link between ADHD and obesity that some say played off body image concerns to sell medication intended for an entirely different treatment.
We’ll see you here next week! 👋
HL
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The fine print:
This newsletter was brought to you by the US Army stanning Lana Del Ray
