Goodbye Kardashians. Humans are no longer needed.

Goodbye Kardashians. Humans are no longer needed and there’s a lot of money at stake. The influencer industry is set to reach close to $14B in 2021 and the industry is going virtual.

“Virtual influencers are cheaper to work with than humans in the long term, are 100% controllable, can appear in many places at once, and, most importantly, they never age or die," said Christopher Travers, the founder of Virtual Humans.

And the biggie? They don’t screw up. They will never go on safari in the Aokigahara forest and video and share disturbing scenes like Logan Paul. They won’t make anti-Semitic jokes like Pewdiepie or post a tone-deaf snap of themselves surrounded by balloons and mouthwash like Scarlett London. It’s a brand-safe solution for many who have hesitated to attach their brands to influencers.

Take @LilMiquela for example – she’s got 3M followers, her own clothing line, and was featured on the cover of streetwear pub Highsnobiety. She’s appeared in brand campaigns alongside Bella Hadid, Millie Bobby Brown, and Steve Aoki. She is leading the mainstreaming of virtual influencers attaining significant attention, both by brands and followers. And she just launched a promo with Mattress Firm.

VIs can be anywhere at any time, photographed in any way. Their personalities can be tailored to match the values of the brand they’re representing while reflecting the perfect audience persona back at their followers. There are some risks as human biases will always be found in code. But the market and use cases are growing.

A word of caution from Jenny Quigley-Jones, the founder of YouTube influencer agency Digital Voices “While brands could have more control over every detail of a virtual influencer campaign, only some concerns about brand safety and future behavior will be alleviated, as the team behind virtual influencers are still human – often a small team of designers looking to make headlines. You cannot be sure that a VI will continue to be brand safe.”

So, caution is advised…

Pretty sweet deal, if you can get it. To the winner go the spoils.

Pretty sweet deal, if you can get it. Beyond the Olympic experience itself, winning gold can be a life-changing event for many athletes around the world.

While less prevalent in western countries, cash bonuses can be significant in nations like Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It’s a significant incentive for many athletes in any Olympics. But bonuses do vary.

As reported by Statista: British athletes do not receive a bonus for winning a gold medal whereas American competitors get $37,500 for every gold they take home, according to CNBC and Nikkei. Britain, like several other European nations, offers its athletes year-long funding and training but no bumper payout. But some countries that do lump sums also offer monthly payments, sometimes even life-long pensions like Malaysia does.

And it’s not just cash, but prominent business leaders and politicians contribute lavish gifts exceeding official medal bonuses, often significantly. To the winner go the spoils.

Are carbon offsets/removal the latest form of greenwashing?

Are carbon offsets the latest form of greenwashing? Don’t be deceived by a brand’s attempt to mask not making tangible and meaningful changes to their carbon footprint by focusing on carbon offsets through carbon removal efforts like planting trees or sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the United States is burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Carbon removal can’t come close to the impact of moving to clean energy. But offsets can look good for a brand.

Many corporations are leveraging carbon removal/offsets to position their businesses as contributing to being carbon neutral. A bit of a farce? Many studies confirm that carbon capture will only provide incremental help, and the bulk of the effort will be in reducing emissions. “It is now set in stone that the overwhelming majority of the EU’s mitigation efforts will need to be done by reducing emissions, with carbon removal helping to go the extra mile,” wrote Frances Wang and Mark Preston Aragonès, both of the ClimateWorks Foundation.

As a result, Climate Tech is the next big investment frontier aiming at decarbonizing the planet. It impacts sectors including transportation, real estate, and agriculture, and the industry encompasses startups focused on renewable power generation, electric vehicles, cellular agriculture, and forestry management, among other areas.

The space is attracting serious investment dollars. So far in 2021, global investors have already closed as many climate-focused funds as were raised during the previous five years combined. (PitchBook data 2021) In many ways, finding viable and scalable (forget imminent) investment opportunities feels like a “throw it at a wall, and see what sticks” situation. No single solution will solve the climate crisis. But we gotta start somewhere.

Welcome to the Great Resignation. Better treat your people right.

"I quit." At the end of Q1 2021, there were 7.64M job vaccines in the US. While the employment rate has improved, unemployment continues to hover around 5.9%, with 9.5 million people unemployed.

Compounding the problem is what psychologist Anthony Klotz has termed the Great Resignation, and it's a significant problem. While millions were laid off during the pandemic, millions more simply quit, leaving their jobs for various reasons, from burnout to retirement to career changes.

It is decidedly a job-seekers market today with only one available worker for every job opening. And sadly, the recovery is shining a light on occupational segregation.

On the positive side, there is a newfound sense of no longer feeling captive to a job because of new and better-paying employment opportunities.

Frustrated with restrictive or overly demanding employment where many employees are fed up with treatment at their workplace has contributed to "rage quitting," where potential new opportunities mitigate the risk of saying "see ya."

Employers - do right by your people.

Vanity projects and brand promos or a plan-B for humanity?

Two near-space trips nine days apart. Incredible developments since NASA retired the Space Shuttle. It’s weird, though, this mix of capitalism and billionaire competitions wrapped in the guise of space exploration. And it feels different from what Musk is doing.

While the idea of space tourism has its appeal, there is some debate on whether these astronomically expensive initiatives are benefiting humanity. And there’s some chatter that there is little scientific value, that the billions could be better spent and prioritized. Seriously, it’s a lot of money to pay for an Instagram moment.

When NASA was the fabric of our nation in the 60s, space exploration and getting to the moon was a glue that ignited and galvanized the population. This feels decidedly different.
As physicist Steven Weinberg observed way back in 2004, “NASA administrators, astronauts, aerospace contractors, and politicians typically find manned space flight just wonderful.” And now you can add billionaires too.
Some have called them vanity projects and brand promotions, others a plan-B for humanity, but anyway you look at it, it’s driving change and innovation. There’re valid arguments to be made on both sides.

Change is not a choice. Change or humanity will suffer.

Humans are in trouble. Not down the road, we’re in trouble now. But there is hope.

The Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, an international group of asset managers launched last year, now has 128 signatories and $43 trillion in assets under management that are aligned with a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

As reported in Fast Company, since 2015, the amount of money flowing to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds has grown tenfold. Venture capital and private equity deal flow related to sustainability have doubled.

Investment in renewable energy is on pace to surpass upstream oil and gas investment this year. The percentage of the market cap coming from the green economy has tripled.

There are 7 million electric vehicles on roads and in Europe, renewables produced more energy than fossil fuels.

If we see the world as one place for all humanity, and we all participate, my kids’ kids will be able to dive on a coral reef or go to a rainforest. Let's keep real change happening.

As brand awareness strategies go, it doesn’t get much better.

An enduring brand strategy and a Fourth of July holiday staple, Nathan’s hot dog eating contest again dominated Coney Island this year here in NYC.

The contest is now managed by Major League Eating; yes, there is actually a professional league…

Joey Chestnut, stunned the global hot dog-loving world eclipsing his world record of 75 to eat 76 of the famous dogs in 10 minutes. A dominating performance and his 14th title.

Too bad ESPN lost the video feed interrupting the broadcast at the critical moment leaving many viewers pretty pissed off.

As brand awareness strategies go, it doesn’t get much better. Broadcast globally, the contest generates billions of brand impressions and is covered in hundreds of publications worldwide.

Office or WFH? Maybe we need some need both?

This is a big statement. There is no shortage of debate around the WFH issue. Many feel culture, creativity, and collaboration suffer. Other disagree. There is little data to prove that productivity increases in an office environment, or suffers from remote work. While collaboration tools have become better during the pandemic and remote work is more facilitated than ever before, there certainly remains a range of conflicting opinions.

But maybe it’s no so much about trying to assess productivity, rather more about what happens around human energy and face-to-face interaction, about the water cooler, and discussing the score of the game last night. What do humans need? What really contributes to employee satisfaction?

Do human interpersonal interactions stimulate ideation? Do we need in-person relationships to innovate? Maybe the answer is “sometimes”. Which might suggest a conclusion that we need both. That in-office and remote work can nicely co-exist?

A Condom Marketing Strategy

So don’t actually use them.

The International Olympic Committee in Japan wants you to take them home. Spread the word, build the brand, generate awareness.

And then there’s this, which we just love. Reported back in 2018 by Reuters in anticipation of the 2020 games: "Only two companies, Sagami and Okamoto, are producing the 0.02 and 0.01-millimeter condoms and so we think the Olympics are a good opportunity to show this Japanese quality all over the world," said Hiroshi Yamashita, Senior Sales Manager, Sagami.

Marketing genius, right there.

FWIW, condoms first appeared at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea in a humanitarian effort to raise awareness of the HIV epidemic. It’s been a tradition ever since. The record remains with the 2016 Rio names where 450K were given out.

So why do so few leaders commit to viewing their brand as an asset that requires investment and maintenance?

So why then, with all the proof, do so few leaders commit to viewing their brand as IP? As an asset that requires investment and maintenance?

Why are there so few brand strategists on boards?

Companies that dominate understand the undeniable competitive advantage of a strong brand. These companies are lead by believers, people who get it.

They are believers in brand as a holistic concept that builds love, preference, and performance; they're building long-term relationships.

They understand relationships are emotional and necessarily reciprocal; you have to give to get. The return on this commitment is the reward of loyalty and advocacy and a host of benefits across the enterprise and in the market.

So give me the believers in brand, of the intangibles and the unmeasurable.

These believers know the power of brand to drive financial outcomes and ROI. These are the winners.

This dopamine-fueled obsession with our phones can't go on.

Something’s gotta give.

Social media anxiety disorder is a real thing. And with the isolation created by the pandemic, it can only have gotten worse since these numbers came out in 2019.

The changes reported in this post were not found in adults 26 years and over. We have to find a way to teach balance and time away from digital media. As of 2020, the average social media usage is 145 minutes per day.

Interviews with almost 10,000 teens ages 13 to 16 published in the medical journal the Lancet suggest it’s the exposure to cyberbullying that’s the real issue, as well as the way social networking wreaks havoc on sleep and exercise habits.

This can’t go on, this dopamine-fueled obsession with our phones. It is wrecking lives. Who should take responsibility? How does it change?

Right behind those colonizers will be the brands. Where man goes, capitalism is never far behind.

Does Mars have rights? Can it be owned? Who should own it? Does whoever gets there first own it?

Will brands have rights? If SpaceX arrives first, what rights does the brand have? How will it be positioned? What's bigger than a global brand, an interstellar brand?

As Adam Mann wrote in his recent New Yorker article, “Critics suggest that, in space, we risk repeating the mistakes of the colonial past, in which exploration was often a cover for the exploitation of native beings and environments.”

Right behind those colonizers will be the brands. Where man goes, capitalism is never far behind.

Cable TV continues its slow and painful death. And it’s not pretty.

Cable TV continues its slow and painful death. And it’s not pretty.

The number of pay-TV households peaked back in 2010 at 105 million and it’s been shrinking ever since, eMarketer forecast that number to dip to 72.7 million by 2023. Cable is struggling for survival.

Hastening its death? COVID-19 is contributing to a dramatically shortened life span.

And different from “cord cutters,” many Millennials and GenZ are “cord nevers,” digital natives that never saw a need for a cable service to begin with. Another ominous sign.

Still to figure out? Replacement broadband delivery, the only place cable has value.

Stay tuned.

The pandemic took my "third place". My local coffee shop. My change of scenery. My escape.

The pandemic took my "third place". My local coffee shop. My change of scenery.

These socially needed third places are locations that are not the home, (the first place) nor work (the second place). And they are fading away.

These places give you room to breathe and enhance your quality of life. They strengthen our bonds to our community, we meet new people. Many researchers fear the long-term disappearance of third places could have a dramatic effect on where and how we gather when all the dust settles.

Apart from the economic impact, living without third places can have social consequences. We lose important social contact, something we all need that is not our home or work. From gyms to coffee shops to the local pub, these third places are an integral part of the fabric of society.

I miss them.

If you are curious about third spaces, there's a link in the comments to a fascinating read on third places by the well-known urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg done back in ’08.

There’s even talk of esports being included in the Olympics.

There’s even talk of esports being included in the Olympics.

Accelerated by the pandemic, viewership is huge and growing.

Take Twitch for example. In 2020, Twitch saw an average of 15 million daily active users. Over 2.2 million Twitch creators broadcast their games live on Twitch monthly. Twitch viewers consumed 18.6 billion hours of streamed video content in 2020.

Twitch reported each visitor averages a 90-minute viewing session. YouTube averages 40 minutes.

Jupiter Research estimates the global esports and games streaming business will be worth $3.5B by 2025 with prize money bigger than most professional sports today.

Crazy numbers. But an Olympic sport? Idk about that…

Crypto is in full swing.

Crypto is rockin’. As of today, Bitcoin is over $63K with a market cap of $1.184 Trillion.

The entire DeFi space is hot. Right along with NFTs.

With a particular focus on the financially underserved, the rush of cryptos in full swing around the globe, and no one is sure of the long-term nature or impact of the disruption.

But you gotta believe it’s coming.

And there is a lot of concern with China’s announcement of the digital Yuan, and all that implies.

And what could happen to the Dollar and its role as the world’s reserve currency?

Predictions and prognostications?

The pendulum needs to swing back to balance, back to people engaging with people.

Welcome to the new world of digital afterlife management.

The potential of gambling was the NFL’s leverage to cut this massive deal.

A recent Top Shot NFT moment of a LeBron James dunk went for $200K.