Out of Scope Issue 60: The ever-changing influencer landscape
Bitcoin has a new… spiritual leader?
This week, we first dive into the NYPD’s evolving reputation in the wake of this week’s subway attack in New York. Then, we shed some light on the always entertaining tweets of Elon Musk, the ongoing Etsy strike, some fresh re-brands, Coachella partnerships, and more.
💡ON OUR MINDS
Social Media vs. NYPD
This week’s horrific shooting in Brooklyn, New York saw more than 20 people injured after a gunman unleashed smoke bombs and bullets across a subway car. According to the NYPD, this violence comes amid a 68% rise in public transit crime in the last year.
Following the shooting, mayor Eric Adams’ statement focused on reassuring audiences (e.g., “We will not surrender our city to the violent few”) and reframed the issue as a national problem, not just in New York City. The mayor’s office then announced the Subway Safety Plan, which details how they’ll solve public safety concerns and support people experiencing homelessness or mental illness. The straightforward, compassionate response might be precisely how you’d want to address such traumatizing circumstances – except that many people had a different take.
On Instagram, many accounts criticized how the growing number of NYPD officers didn’t contribute to a faster, more coordinated response to the crisis as promised. And with the shooter still at large earlier this week, outraged community members took to Twitter to document what they believed to be NYPD’s Strategic Response Group’s misaligned priorities:
…which was only made worse when 21-year-old Zack Tahhan located the shooter a few blocks away.
However, the police weren’t the only ones with an optics issue. Immediately following the shooting, commuters trying to leave the area were hit with surge pricing from rideshare apps Uber and Lyft. After social media users swiftly condemned the companies, both assured they would refund affected users on the surge price additions.
📡 ON OUR RADAR
Talk about communications whiplash. In a drastic turn of events this week, just five days after it was announced Elon Musk was set to join Twitter’s board, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted a statement late Sunday night that Musk decided not to join after all. Cue a flurry of speculation about why this fell through and what this means for the platform’s future. All of this led up to today’s news that Musk has offered to buy Twitter for a cool $43B outright, announced via his tweet with a link to the SEC filing saying, “I made an offer.” We’re sure the Twitter comms team is having a field day.
About 15,000 sellers closed their Etsy shops this week, protesting higher fees and controversial company standards after record profits. Etsy CEO Josh Silverman says he is adjusting several business strategies to compete and win “against the biggest names in e-commerce and all of retail.”
Kickstarting an airline with free flights out of the marketing budget? Why not! Willa, a payment and invoice company specializing in getting creators and influencers paid faster, is flying a select group of influencers out to Coachella for free this year and plans to keep the stunt going with other high-profile events like Fashion Week.
Yelp announced that they would cover expenses for employees and their spouses who need to travel to get abortion access. This applies to about 200 of their employees in Texas, which just banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. But the intention is to extend the benefit to employees who may be affected by future state decisions too –another example of how companies are expected to take a stand on social issues that differentiate their brand (and, by extension, talent) in the market.
As NPR tries to attract younger and more diverse audiences, the organization is starting by making changes to its leadership team. But the effects have yet to trickle down to the rest of the organization, which remains predominantly white. Part of the issue, according to Axios, are pay gaps. People are leaving for better pay to other podcasts, media publications, or academia. Respected nonprofit status does not protect a company from the Great Resignation.
Less is more for Gen Z. Their new favorite app, BeReal, only allows users to post once daily. The app is supposedly intended to be more authentic than your Instagrams or TikToks of the world, which have been flooded with influencer-driven content. The massive success of games like Wordle, where users can only play once per day, reflects this trend across the internet. But is it only a matter of time before influencers and brands figure out how to monetize the once-per-day trend? Are all forms of social media doomed to evolve from a place to connect with friends to a place to show off?
Does charisma help with ROI? According to this longitudinal study, no. Despite the long-held belief that social leaders are more likely to encourage followers, companies led by extroverted CEOs tend to have more volatile stocks and lower returns. In contrast, “conscientious” CEOs (those who tend to be dependable and thorough) had the best outcomes. However, researchers warn that it comes down to how well the CEO’s personality fits the company’s values.
For the show’s 10th anniversary, Vanity Fair’s Chris Murphy explores whether the women in HBO’s hit show Girls were perhaps too convincing in their roles. Murphy points out that the show’s men have since gone on to win acclaim and awards, while the women have seen some success, they continue to be plagued by the criticism surrounding the show and its characters. Is there such a thing as too authentic? Are we reluctant to praise a well-executed though flawed reflection of a flawed society? And do the women who portrayed unlikeable characters pay the ultimate price for a job done well? Worth a ponder.
Mark Zuckerburg is chasing his “iPhone moment,” and it appears he’s focused on augmented reality glasses as his next great act. It’s just one further example of Zuck and Meta attempting to take the metaverse mainstream, but it remains to be seen whether the glasses will “redefine our relationship with technology” in the way the tech lord envisions.
These days, some people are taking “pics or it didn’t happen” a bit too literally – and some influencers have even made whole careers out of it. Travel influencer Cassie De Pecol is being sued by consumer protection group Travelers United for making “fraudulent claims” about her travels. One such claim? That she was the first woman to travel to every country alone. While many women immediately took offense to the claim, arguing they had done the same before the advent of social media, Pecol remains resolute in her claims, having built a lucrative brand off of it already.
Chinese-owned TikTok has allowed a whole other version of TikTok to exist just for Russia - allowing state propaganda while cutting off users from new outside content.
🥊QUICK HITS
In case you missed these stories this week.
Is Jack Dorsey bitcoin’s “unofficial spiritual leader and public defender”?
We love a good re-brand. Baskin-Robbins is getting a new look for its logo, employee uniforms, and packaging – the first update since 2006.
In notable collaborations, sustainable footwear company Allbirds has partnered with Adidas to introduce the lowest carbon emissions performance running shoe ever created.
Big branding moment for Spirit Halloween this week, as the iconic costume store cashes in on the branded film trend, announcing a new family-friendly action movie out in October.
Recent reports of CNN+ metrics have us wondering, is this an indication of lackluster viability for big networks’ streaming platforms?
It’s not always easy to stay true to your brand ethos, but despite the rising 8% inflation rate, AriZona iced tea in its classic 23-ounce can is still available for purchase at 99 cents.
A brief case study on the impact of word choice: Biden escalated his language about the Russia - Ukraine war, calling it a “genocide.” Zelensky responded via Twitter: “Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil.”
We’ll see you here next week! 👋
HL
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The fine print: This week’s newsletter is brought to you by this hot character take for Succession fans.