ShortTake is your weekly FYP from The Shorty Awards for quick, new and thought-challenging takes on culture, creativity and TLDR. Things that need a closer look and things that need a completely different perspective.
Generation Next?
My references keep getting older. This time the Spice Girls driven slogan of the late 1990’s. There are $1.5B reasons to make the deal if you’re poppi. Remember the vending machines? Of course you barely don’t. A Super Bowl ad, bigger swings, were all leading to this impending big deal. And Pepsi is always looking for ways to be more current.
I don’t know enough about shelf space, distribution or the backend financials of poppi to give advice. But I have a hunch. I wouldn’t take the deal. poppi, Prime and other new entrants are already doing a great job of reaching an audience. It feels like in the next five to ten years, the beverage space is going to be driven by creators just like previously celebrities drove their own alcohol brands. It’s a better way to monetize and it has always been an industry that thrives on cultural relevance and knowing exactly how to connect the generation of the moment.
I would lean harder into where the industry may be heading rather than where it traditionally has been.
The unexpected return of HQ Trivia
It was only a matter of time before a live, in-app game show returned. And it returned this month with its most recognizable face, Scott Rogowsky. A lot has changed since HQ Trivia signed off and even since we chatted last year with the team behind Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia for the podcast.
There will always be an opening for something that holds our collective attention and creates a competitive community. Robinhood is correct to tap into a recognizable prior moment in pop culture – and in the attention economy why can’t where you invest also be where you find entertainment and community.
Investment services, IMO, don’t take enough brand risk. If the whole point is to attract people who tolerate risk – then it’s correct to take those same risks with your brand.
Piper Phillips Is On To Something
There are these emotions, shared realities that people feel but can’t quite put a name to or define. With one insanely viral clip to launch her new podcast, Phillips gets exactly why so many people are destined to be SELF-EMPLOYED.
Malcolm Gladwell, Brene Brown, Scott Galloway and everyone gifted in this space know how to take one idea and change how we see the world with it. Piper Phillips isn’t them nor does she have to be.
The next resonant idea can come from anywhere and anyone.
Testing the very fundamentals of connection
From $6B currently to a projected $154.6B in 2032, the virtual influencer market has plenty of people thinking it will be big business.
Meta tried it at the beginning of the year and it missed. But there will be dozens more trial balloons this year sent out to see just how much people will notice. You want to easily dismiss the idea as a consumer, as a creator, as a creative. Human-to-human connection should be the very foundation of the social or even parasocial relationship.
Much like people that own Bitcoin we are all invested in the collective success of real-life creators, so of course we are going to be biased. There’s a strong comms impulse to think that fake connections, once discovered, will backfire and create negative brand affinity. But truthfully, none of us know exactly what the general consumer public can or will accept. And as long as that potential 25X upside is there, companies will keep trying and less subtly.
