Here at SRW, we not only create amazing creative content, but we also keep a close eye on what's happening all around us. Each week, our team scours the digital landscape, identifying emerging topics and themes that resonate with audiences. Here's a snapshot of what's been on our radar this week:
- 🌵Coachella’s first weekend kicked-off the 2024 festival season with a bang. Pop superstars Lana Del Ray and Billie Eilish performed together, Justin Bieber made a surprise appearance and social media’s favorite couple — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce — were spotted together. Despite this, Coachella saw a dip in ticket sales for its first weekend, down 14-17% compared to last year, a trend seen across other festivals so far in 2024..
- 🔊 Speaking of Taylor, her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, releases on April 19, and it’s had its fair share of unique advertising. This past week, a simple QR code mural went up in downtown Chicago, directing users who scanned the code to a YouTube short that reads “Error 321”. Speculation has run rampant on social media about what the cryptic message could mean, building even more excitement for the world’s most popular artist.
- 👶 Uber-popular TikTok influencer Nara Smith welcomed her third child this past week. Smith, who’s garnered over five million followers on TikTok, became well-known for sharing content about creating all of her food from scratch. This demonstrates the growing interest for healthier, natural food & nutrition content on social media that better-for-you CPG brands can tap into by partnering with Nara Smith and other creators in this space.
🤝 Influencer x Brand Collaborations:
- Mattel Barbie x Heinz Barbiecue → After (jokingly) posting a mockup of the Barbiecue and Kenchup last August at the peak of the Barbie craze, Heinz UK decided to make this concept a reality following high engagement from their audience with a significant number of comments hoping that the product will be available, demonstrating that sharing concepts with your audience is a highly-effective way to gather feedback during the development of a new product.
- Supergoop x Sabrina Carpenter → Skincare brand Supergoop took an innovative approach for their partnership with Sabrina Carpenter as their products were featured in the singer’s recently-released music video. The summer vacation-inspired visuals create a perfect environment to showcase the brand’s sunscreen line as the trending skincare for this summer and the 2024 festival season.
🎤 Brand Pop-Ups & Experiential Activations We Like – Coachella Edition:
- 818 Outpost at Coachella → 818 set up a pop-up open to all Coachella attendees to receive free products brands that compliment 818’s tequila. This activation generated a significant amount of positive reactions as both attendees and social media users praised the brand for creating a quality pop-up that isn’t exclusive to influencers.
- Alix Earle x Poppi → Poppi went all in to promote the release of their new Lemon Lime flavor at Coachella by setting up a branded festival house for influencer Alix Earle and her friends with branded furniture, food & snacks and merch.
- Supergoop x Revolve Pop-up → To further align the brand with the 2024 festival season, Supergoop partnered with Revolve to have a pop-up at this year’s Revolve Festival where they sampled their sunscreen product line out of a summer-y retro Volkswagen camping van.
