WEEKLY TREND
Fyre Festival
FYRED UP
Blame the Fyre Festival Fiasco on the Plague of Celebrity Influencers
There’s not much more to be said of the ill-fated Fyre Festival. Poor planning, promised extravagance, and disregard for attendee safety led to one of the more entertaining PR disasters of 2017. But while most of the blame has been heaped on Ja Rule, the public face of Fyre Media, and his partner Billy MacFarland, Wired argues that FYRE influencers are the perpetrators of irresponsible marketing: “As people continue to brand themselves on social media, celebrities have further turned themselves into marketing machines. With increased FTC crackdowns, and a newfound public distrust towards influencers following the Fyre Festival blowback, the influencer model is now in jeopardy. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
FACEBOOK SHUTTERS OCULUS STUDIOS
Facebook Is Shutting Down Its Award-Winning Oculus Story Studio
Virtual reality may be in desperate need of killer content, but Facebook’s Oculus will now be focusing its efforts on investing in virtual reality rather than creating it. Oculus announced yesterday that it is shuttering its award-winning cinematic VR division, Oculus Story Studio. The sudden shutdown could be bad news for animators looking to explore new forms of storytelling in VR, but Facebook has pledged to invest another $250 million in VR content produced by outside partners. It remains to be seen how this will impact the fledgling industry.
SNAPCHAT ANGLES FOR THE FUTURE OF TV
Snapchat Inks Major Media Deals for Original Content
In the latest sign of an aggressive original content push, Snap Inc. has reportedly inked big media deals to produce original shows for Snapchat. The brand is working with media companies to produce mini, TV-like episodes for the popular social platform in a dedicated content section called Snap TV. Snap TV will exist in the Stories section of Snapchat, which already displays collections of photos and videos shot recently by friends and media companies. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Snap has signed deals with NBC Universal, Turner, Discovery, ESPN, Vice Media, and the NFL.
ECOMM’S TIPPING POINT
Amid Brick-and-Mortar Travails, a Tipping Point for Amazon in Apparel
Now that Amazon accounts for 43 cents of every dollar spent online, it might be a good time to consider the possibility that Amazon could take over retail altogether. The outlook for physical retailers is grim, and the eCommerce giant shows no signs of letting up, instead pursuing lagging eComm categories like apparel. Even as consumers are getting more comfortable with buying clothes online, Amazon has taken steps to reduce friction by improving clothing selection and product photography, offering free returns on most apparel, and even exploring custom-fit clothing (along with a camera scanner that can automatically determine customers’ measurements).
Can Wal-Mart’s Expensive New E-Commerce Operation Compete With Amazon?
After acquiring Jet.com for a cool $3.3 billion last summer, Wal-Mart is correcting course to repurpose its historically underachieving internet operation. Competing in the age of Amazon means acting fast and with ambition, which means Walmart.com CEO Marc Lore has a lot of work to go. A site redesign is due this summer, and Lore has taken a series of smaller actions to shore up Wal-Mart’s defense (like free delivery on orders of more than $35). But the second-biggest e-commerce destination in the U.S. will need to do more to stave off obsolescence. Wal-Mart needs to win on product areas that are only now becoming popular online, including apparel, fresh food, and “everyday essentials” like drugstore items: “This is Wal-Mart’s last shot here”.
