DIP 014: Bigger than a sundae
PLUS: Instagram-exclusive drops, Outdoor Voices wants to do maternity clothing, and a Girlboss retreat
đ Hi. Have you heard about the phenomenon of Amazon fulfillment center employees tweeting to ensure the general public that they are by no means dissatisfied or working under dangerous conditions? Itâs not the first time that social media has been used as a propaganda tool â I wrote about the @SyrianPresidency and @TSA Instagram accounts back in 2013. As always, reply with questions, comments, or thoughts about anything you read here.
The Chips đ
The Arrivals issued an Instagram-exclusive drop of tie-dye tees and sweatshirts.
Thinx got a makeover and changed the name of its incontinence brand, Icon, to Speax.
Niyya is a new label specializing in seriously beautiful prayer mats.
Buried in this Fortune piece on female founders having babies is the fact that Outdoor Voices is looking to expand into maternity and childrenâs clothing.
Blueland launched hand soap.
J.Crew has teamed up with popular maternity label HatchâŠ
⊠and Madewell launched a collab with Lively, which just sold to Wacoal for $85M.
The Sill introduced virtual plant care consultations.
Flat-pack furniture company Burrow introduced a foam couch topper made for sleeping on. Related: DIP 006 dug into the ways that brands (like Burrow) expand their product lines.
Third Edit is a new multi-brand retail platform centered around Southeast Asian heritage and craftsmanship.
Ritual is working on a multivitamin for the 50+ crowd.
Keep an eye on Tricot, a new sweater label launching this fall.
Glossier partnered with California-inspired Soho restaurant Westbourne to support the launch of its new lip balm with some Berry Balm Dotcompote.
Flamingo is playing with routine-inspired storytelling, featuring writer Siraad Dirshe and Third Ritualâs Jenn Tardif.
Girlboss, Sophia Amorusoâs networking platform, is partnering with Cadillac for a 40-woman retreat.
The Dip đ
When news of Museum of Ice Creamâs $40M Series A and $200M valuation hit the internet, there was a lot of criticism and confusion â how could a company that creates hollow, made-for-Instagram experiences be worth so much? Unlike some other sky-high valuations, this was one that I could understand. Museum of Ice Cream â or, more appropriately, its parent company, Figure8 â has a secret sauce that can be iterated upon and applied to new concepts.
Memory Lane
When Museum of Ice Cream launched in 2016, Instagram had staked its claim as the go-to social platform. Stories, copied directly from Snapchat, had just been introduced. Facebook was falling out of favor. A year earlier, Refinery29 opened the doors to its first-ever 29Rooms concept.
The way we experienced things and the way we shared those experiences was changing. The rise of short-form, short-term storytelling lent urgency to these social platforms and amplified the already pervasive FOMO that surrounded them. Lines for things like cronuts and milkshakes were becoming the norm. Waiting was part of the experience, and the experience was meant to be shared.
Museum of Ice Cream launched at a pivotal moment. It tapped into the zeitgeist of shareable, immersive experiences â that everything is an anticipated memory â and pushed the phenomenon forward.
Big Scoop
A week or so after the news of Museum of Ice Creamâs valuation broke, Fast Company published a story about the brandâs aspirations and plans for growth. The company already has a permanent space in San Francisco and is opening a three-story flagship in the heart of Soho, taking over space formerly occupied by H&M. Itâs eyeing international expansion and allegedly pitched investors on a theme park concept. Iâve long believed that the company would do well to open up in shopping malls, too (wink wink, nudge nudge).
Under the Figure8 umbrella, the company is creating an agency meant to support brands in creating experiences â âexperiums,â in Museum of Ice Cream-speak â of their own, the first of which will be announced mid-2020. Itâs also planning to iterate on the Museum of Ice Cream concept and create additional experience-driven brands, as confirmed by a job listing for a VP/SVP of People role: âthe VP of People will oversee the buildout of our people function ... as we scale from 130 employees to multiple global locations and concepts.â
âOur ambition has always been to create spaces that can connect humans to humans, and humans to architecture,â Museum of Ice Cream founder Maryellis Bunn told FastCo. âOur journey to get there has been to create, understand, and then recreate. We create spaces, we understand whatâs going on, and we get tons and tons of visitor feedback.â
We All Scream
For brands, every waking moment presents an opportunity for engagement. Even our non-waking hours are sought after. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings cited sleep as his companyâs biggest competitor, and Pokemon is introducing a gamified sleep monitor.
In our digital-first, attention-driven economy, getting people to leave their homes and seek out a physical space is a massive achievement. Time and attention translate to money, and Museum of Ice Cream has proven that it knows how to capture both.
Bunn knows this, telling FastCo, âWhen I think about competitive landscape, I think about Netflix and Instagram, because itâs about who the players are that are captivating your timeâŠ. How can we create something that is both so enticing and so fulfilling in the real world that it [makes people want to be] out and exploring and interacting with the space.â
Depending on your outlook, experiential retail concepts are either exciting or gimmicky. In either case, itâs impossible to deny the impact that these concepts have when done well. (Reminder: we live in a world where people would rather purchase basic supplies like coffee filters and paper towels online than spend time in a store to get the same products faster.)
Museum of Ice Cream is at the far end of the experiential spectrum â itâs over the top, but itâs effective. As competition for time and attention continues to ramp up, weâre going to see a middle-ground emerge.
Concepts like the Canada Goose cold room and Casperâs Dreamery draw people to physical spaces and complement the purchasing experience, but donât force it. The Outdoor Voices mission to âactivate locally, amplify digitallyâ is about building community through events and activations, and prompting purchases only after someone has been drawn into the fold (See: DIP 003).
The most successful, worthwhile, and additive brand experiences donât seek to sell product; they engage and enrich. And if that engagement and enrichment lead participants to make a purchase, great. But ultimately, experiential concepts are brand-building exercises, and if itâs strong enough to get people to leave their home and make time to visit it, thatâs arguably a bigger win than a successful checkout.
Still Hungry?
Has experiential marketing reached its peak, or is it just our new normal?
Museum of Ice Cream has previously explored ways to expand its reach through a product-driven Pint Shop and concurrent partnership with Target, a makeup capsule exclusive to Sephora, and a collection of merch.
Museum of Ice Cream has filed a trademark for âExperium,â its name for the experiences and spaces it creates, and the more vague âHiatus.â
For more on the battle to dominate our brainspace and time, I highly recommend reading Tim Wuâs The Attention Merchants.
Real Dip đŹ
Preserved lemon relish-ish.
Chop about 1/2 cup preserved lemon (store-bought is fine, and very much worth buying), 1/4 cup mint, and two shallots. Add it all to a bowl with a couple of glugs of olive oil and a crack of black pepper. Stir and taste. You might need to add salt.
Spoon it on grilled fish, toast and tomatoes, and roasted potatoes.
Thanks for snacking,
â Emily đĄ