Welcome to cleantech 2.0 and the exhilarating rush of new capital.

Welcome to cleantech 2.0 and the exhilarating rush of new capital. Crunchbase identified 27 climate-focused software firms that collectively raised $1.3B in the last year, half of that in 2022 alone. Valuations for software companies focused on decarbonization are climbing exponentially. Kiran Bhatraju, founder and CEO of Arcadia, a developer of cleantech software, states, “The cash flow profile at scale can look like your best-in-class enterprise software companies in an asset class that hasn’t seen that.”

Cleantech is here, and everyone wants in. But getting to this point hasn’t been easy. Developing scalable, mass-market solutions with the potential to reduce global emissions is notoriously challenging and can take years. With a lack of VC focus on the space resulting in few financing options, many failed to scale. Many went bankrupt. Many VCs lost about half of the $25bn they invested in the cleantech sector between 2006 and 2011, according to PwC.“It was really boom and bust driven by the overallocation of venture capital,” says Rob Day, a partner at Boston-based Spring Lane Capital. 

Many believe the tipping point has come. The urgency is there, finally. AI and smart software, along with our pandemic-learned need to adapt are all contributing. Government policy is also a factor. Today, 132 countries have pledged to  reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The Biden administration is looking to invest $2T in clean energy to reach its decarbonization goals. All of this will dramatically accelerate the space and allow new tech and software to reach profitable scale more quickly. The global cleantech space is projected to be over $2.5T by the end of 2022, all helping to accelerate mainstream adoption. 

Better late than never.

Crypto hacks are not going away.

The numbers are rising exponentially, given the total for the last ten years is approximately $27.47B in losses, 2021 was a big year. And this year is starting out as a doozie. On March 29, the Ronin Network announced the theft of 173,000 ether tokens and 25.5M USD Coin tokens totaling losses of $600M at the time of the announcement. 

The August 2021 heist of the Poly Network to the tune of $610m still holds the dubious top spot. The list of heists worldwide is growing, increasing in frequency, and now averaging $150M, and increasing. What’s clear is that absolute security is simply unattainable.

While some people do get their funds back, many do not. In the 2021 Poly Networks breach totaling $600M, most of the funds were returned, except for a measly $33M. Hackers stated they just wanted to expose security flaws in the network. $200M of the funds were trapped behind a password that “Mr. White Hat” refused to share. Poly Network pleaded with the hacker and promised to grant the unidentified person a $500,000 bounty for helping it identify a flaw in its systems and even offered them a job as “chief security advisor.”

Before the Ronin heist, the Poly heist was the biggest ever, surpassing the $534M stolen from Japanese digital currency exchange Coincheck in 2018 and the estimated $450M worth of bitcoin that went missing from Tokyo-based Mt. Gox in 2014.

You would think the perpetrators are a bunch of tech nerds, but It's not known who is behind many hacks. It’s not necessarily cyber-criminals. State-sponsored hackers were identified as responsible for some crypto heists. According to cryptocurrency researchers at Chainalysis, North Korean hackers stole almost $400m worth of digital assets in at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last in 2021.

So, better check your wallet.

The metaverse is still all the rage.

Take Fluf World, for example. A collection of 10,000 3D, programmatically-generated rabbit avatars, each with unique features and life stories. These avatars are not like the skinned characters that you rent in Fortnight. Instead, they are yours in perpetuity, sellable, they can own property called Burrows, and are managed on a blockchain where the community shares control.  

A lot of doubts swirl around brands and the metaverse. The technology is notoriously inaccessible, and creating a brand presence in a metaverse community can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And is the audience actually there? Not so sure. Getting involved in these initiatives, as Ellie Bamford noted in Ad Age, “It’s not as free as you think.”

These Web3 destinations built on decentralized blockchain solutions are touted as the next big place to build long-term brand engagement. How they actually evolve is still feels like an experiment. Doubts aside, these NFT communities and startups are raising massive amounts of venture capital, and eventually, when access is democratized, things might take off. 

For now, it feels a long way off from being a viable channel for building brand. However, if brands want to be prepared for when the space matures, the experimentation must begin now. Solutions and fads will come and go until the metaverse and web3 finds their level. Mass adoption allowing brands to have the mass reach they want is, well, for now, a lot of fluff.

Sure, Brady’s football legacy is secured.

He is the undeniable GOAT. But his economic impact is significantly more significant than that. Less spoken about is his power to deliver positive economic impact. He is the spokesperson for Aston Martin, UGG, Under Armor, Tag Heuer, Sam Adams, Glaceau Smartwater, and many more. And of course, his brands, TB12, and his performance clothing line, BRADY, all of which contribute.

Brady coming to Tampa Bay and winning a Super Bowl has significant economic impact lifting the Bay area to new heights. Pinellas County Economic Development )PCED) recently reported that, while it is hard to precisely pinpoint the economic impact the Bucs provide to the Tampa Bay area, “it is likely above a hundred million” a year.

According to the PCED report, the Bucs have a team value of $2.94 billion, and Raymond James Stadium boasts net revenues of $364 million. After winning the Super Bowl in February 2021, the Buccaneers team value increased by 29% – even after losing $119 million in stadium revenues for the 2020-21 season due to Covid.

For the ad community, it’s been a boon. The Tampa Bay Times reported Brady’s Tostitos spot had an estimated economic impact of around $200,000, according to the film commission, due to 35 local hires and 60 hotel room nights. And EA Sports spent around $100,000 on a Brady commercial here through 45 local hires and 30 hotel room nights. 

The $19.3M figure does not even include every time he films in his house or the stadium. Nor his documentary Man in the Arena: Tom Brady. 

The guy is a moneymaker, for sure.

For McDonald’s, the pressure is on.

It’s on in a market that accounts for 9% of revenue. Like McDonald’s, brands of all sizes are wondering what to do given the tragic world events. What to say? How should they take a position? Should they even take a position? While many brands have left, McDonald’s has been conspicuously silent, and the pressure is mounting. Saying the right thing, the wrong thing, or nothing at all, brand risk is such a huge issue these days. First, there was Me Too, then BLM, and then a global pandemic. Knowing what to say during these times has been a PR, and often an ethical, nightmare.

And now, with the war in Ukraine, the question looms: Can/should brands speak? If so, what should they say, and how should they say it? Again, opinions are all over the place.

These questions are not just for multinationals but local businesses as well. One misstep can be dangerous; consumers are paying close attention. And how consumers feel can have tangible impact. Will brands taking a wait-and-see approach will regret it? Will they eventually be asked, “Why were you silent?”

It appears there is no one answer for everyone. But most experts agree: Don’t do nothing. Don’t stay silent. Coalesce with your community and support your employees. Be agile, responsive to the constantly changing dynamic and don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. 

Alberto Alemanno, a Professor, University of Tokyo School of Public Policy, Fellow at The Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation, Rutgers University, says, “Investors, customers, and citizens deserve to know on which side of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict their companies and brands stand for.” 

 Yes, it’s true. Pleasing all constituents in an increasingly divided world seems impossible. It has become a time to choose a stance, put a stake in the ground and take a position.

What is the best approach?

But here’s the problem – past access to cheap capital.

After more than a decade of keeping interest rates near zero, the Federal Reserve is pretty much guaranteed to raise rates this year to try to hold back inflation and crush liquidity. Add to that continued supply chain issues, a decimated workforce, and the move to do everything online. And now add the crisis in Ukraine and we have a recipe for, let’s just say, a significant challenge. 

For a decade now, companies have used cheap money, ignoring the fundamentals of cash flow and profitability on the promise of future profits. Given the economic climate today, it’s not hard to imagine that companies using cheap capital to grow rapidly without making a profit will be not be looked upon favorably. These assets no longer look so sexy.

All this could usher in the start of a roaring bear market where investors will feel the pain of cheap-capital economics and deciding not to throw good money after bad. Many businesses may well go out of business. Years of cheap capital fueled dubious ideas with grandiose visions of future performance, think WeWork. Even Robinhood is feeling the pain of avoiding the fundamentals whose value skyrocketed on temporary motivation fueled by get-rich-quick thinking during the pandemic. 

As rates go up, debt gets more expensive, and suddenly, the question of “Can we actually make money?” becomes painfully urgent. You could say it will be a return to the fundamentals. So the days of meme stocks, SPACS with lax oversight, and accepting years of losses, well, those days may well be over. And all these unicorns? Well, they got to get their act together or face extinction.

Clearly, the tech has come a long way since Max Headroom.

Augmented by machine learning, today’s AI-generated faces are imbued with physical characteristics that engender trust. These synthetic faces are so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from real humans.  

Generated Photos has a bank of many millions of photos of AI-created people leveraging AI and machine learning to train a GAN – or generative adversarial network – on data sets of people allowing it to make unlimited fake people. Need a new unidentifiable, untraceable profile pic? All set.  

Nightingale’s and Hany’s research found that the average rating for synthetic faces was 7.7% more trustworthy than the average rating for real faces, a statically significant finding.

Which raises more questions. Of course, synthetic influencers like Lil Miquela have been around for a while, generating millions of followers and millions of dollars for the companies who created them. 

But recent technical advancements suggest dark implications and present a significant (and not new) ethical dilemma. Think of the consequences of even more sophisticated deep fakes populating people’s feeds. We’re creating a world where the authenticity of any image or video can be called into question, further blurring the line between truth and fake content—a world where any image or video can be faked.

The global political implications are beyond scary, especially in parts of the world where checking content’s veracity is simply not possible.  

This should scare you.

Boom! This is now about survival.

And that’s not looking promising. We recently posted on the existential threat facing Meta (Facebook), its shift and loss in users, and its push to dominate the metaverse. FB is losing DAUs at quite a significant clip. Users plateaued and began declining in the last three months of 2021, a first in the platform's 18-year history. And the metaverse? FB lost $10B investing in its metaverse endeavors last year alone. Compensating for losses at that rate requires sustained income from advertising on its platforms.

Consider Apple’s privacy settings that are killing FB’s ability to target and the rise of TicTok sucking up users. Together they are strangling Facebook. And Meta is predicting continued decreasing revenue and user numbers. Facebook has said measures taken by Apple on iOS that make it harder for platforms and apps to track users across other apps and websites will cost its business $10 billion in 2022.

This crash puts in question the entire metaverse narrative Meta is pushing. There is no clear path to a sustainable and profitable business model. And while visionaries are replete with a range of income potential, it is still a dream in the foreseeable future. So, where does that leave Facebook/Meta? It’s hard to say. The hard truth is that the metaverse is far from being profitable or replacing the increasingly lost revenue because of competitive platforms or Apple’s policy change.

Interestingly, after announcing Meta’s results, Zuckerberg was quoted, “Although our direction is clear, it seems that our path ahead is not quite perfectly defined.” 

Clearly, they have some work to do.

The truth for GenZ? Facebook is irrelevant.

Meta- the perfect definition of an existential strategy to stave off irrelevance. While there is a myriad of theories around the genesis of Meta (politics, legal distancing, and plausible deniability among them), the imminent death of Facebook seems to trump them all. The truth is, for the emerging demographics, Facebook is irrelevant. Teenage users in the US have declined by 13% since 2019 and are projected to drop 45% over the next two years, driving an overall decline in daily users in the company’s most lucrative ad market. And the younger a user is, the less they engage with the app. 

Facebook isn’t even in the top 3, which is ruled by TikTok, YouTube, and the metaverse Roblox. So if FB is on its way out, it might as well build a new place. ‘Cause their future relies on the young generation, and FB is not getting them. FB just seems unable to innovate.

Enter Meta, and the focus on the metaverse. Makes sense. They can leave Facebook to the Boomers and aging millennials and develop the next place for the new generations? Maybe so.

Gen Z marketing expert Quynh Mai described the appeal well, “The metaverse is a natural extension of the world they already live online. Most Gen Z consumers would first and foremost describe the metaverse as a place where they can be anyone or anything they want. This freedom to interact socially, unshackled by the limitations of gender, race, location, or physicality, empowers them to express themselves in ways simply not possible IRL”.

And for Gen Z, Facebook is frustratingly IRL.

Digital disruption is in full swing across just about every sector.

Pandemic-driven habits have formed, and they are not changing any time soon, if ever. As a share of total US retail, E-comm increased by $300B in the past two years. While the e-comm retail growth numbers have stabilized somewhat recently, it’s only going to go up. E-comm sales grew from $556B in September of 2019 to $850B by September 2021. And it’s not going back. 

Online grocery shopping has penetrated most consumer segments, with an average across groups of 50% planning to maintain online grocery ordering and delivery; a category projected to double online purchase to over 20% of total sales by 2026. 

Hybrid exercise, combining home and some on-site exercise, will be the norm leaving room for innovation for a brand that can offer both an in-home and on-site experience. Do Peloton and Equinox come together?

The pandemic has forever changed the world and accelerated digital adoption across almost every category. This aligns with the data: a larger percentage of Gen. Z and Millennials feel more like themselves online than offline.

Gonna be some interesting times ahead.

Better than a dog? Maybe…

We already have technology that can see and hear. Now the ability to smell is getting real traction. A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has invented an artificial olfactory system that can smell the freshness of meat. It’s been tested on commercially packaged chicken, fish, and beef meat samples left to age with surprising accuracy. Maybe a new smartphone app to take to the supermarket?  

Digital scent technology, or e-noses, is a precursor to technology refined to detect bombs, health conditions, including COVID, and even help brew better beer. It has use cases across military and defense, healthcare, food and beverage, machine failure, and waste management. Not surprisingly, military and healthcare applications seem to be the dominant growth drivers.

Air and odor pollution is an increasingly sensitive issue in many parts of the world and is a growing opportunity, for example, in Malaysia back in July 2019, authorities in Malaysia had to dispatch several teams to comb Batang Kali, which was considered to be the source of foul smell which spread through the region. A digital e-nose would have been a big help. 

VCs are throwing serious dollars at it. Aromyx Corp. in Mountain View, CA, recently raised a $10M Series A to develop a digital nose that reacts in the presence of a variety of diseases, including pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and malaria. Stratuscent based in Quebec, raised $500k in seed funding and an exclusive patent license from NASA to develop a technology to “smell” coronavirus in the air. There are countless other techs in development worldwide, so it’s coming.

Do we call it smelltech? Odortech? Scentech has a nice ring to it. Let’s go with scentech… yes?

This guy gets the power of brand.

Rawlson is the guy that engineered Tesla’s Model S and is now the visionary that leads Lucid Motors. Rawlson went on to say, “We’ll need to create a technological tour de force, and I think that’s what we’ve got in Lucid Air.” 

Their first product was not concerned with hitting a specific price point or targeting a specific niche, rather it was targeted at establishing the customer expectations, defining its brand values. Things like quality, attention to detail, and an impeccable customer experience. 

Rawlson understood that Lucid's first product was his best chance to teach the market what Lucid stood for, its core values. Yes, he gets the importance of brand. Rawlinson’s resume is impressive. He worked at Jaguar and was chief engineer of Lotus, His name is on dozens of patents for battery technology or other innovations. Rawlinson oversaw Lucid’s development of the battery used by all the teams in the Formula E electric-vehicle racing circuit. So he’s got some serious chops.

It’s true, figuring out how to get scale and mass-produce cars will be another challenge and, not surprisingly, they are yet to be profitable. But understanding that building his brand and establishing the brand’s position of superior quality will catalyze the market and define the knowledge base around the brand. As quoted in Road & Track, “Lucid’s posh quarters make a Tesla’s interior look like the mismatched Tupperware in the back of your cupboard.” That brand perception of quality will trickle down to lower-priced models and will, undoubtedly, serve Lucid well.

Smart dude.

Can you say, “wealth inequality?" And what about taxing billionaires?

The total wealth of the top 1% now tops 32%, a record, according to the Fed data. U.S. billionaire wealth surged by 70%, or $2.1 Trillion, during the pandemic. AS of October 18, 2021, they are now worth a combined $5 Trillion. 

America’s billionaires have grown $2.1 trillion richer during the pandemic, their collective fortune growing  by 70 percent — from just short of $3 trillion in March 2020, to over $5 trillion as of October 15 of this year, according to Forbes data analyzed by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS).

Not only did the wealth of U.S. billionaires grow, but so did their numbers: in March of 2020, there were 614 Americans with 10-figure bank accounts. Today there are 745.

And none of this addresses the real issue. As quoted in Inequality.org, “The great good fortune of these billionaires over the past 19 months is even starker when contrasted with the devastating impact of coronavirus on working people. Almost 89 million Americans have lost jobs, over 44.9 million have been sickened by the virus, and over 724,000 have died from it.”

Back to the taxing billionaires thing. Consider the fact that Nike head Phil Knight has nearly doubled his fortune from $29.5 billion to almost $58 billion. Nike didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes in 2020 on its $2.9 billion in profits, and between 2018 and 2020 the corporation paid just a 3.3 percent tax rate on $9 billion in profits. (inequality.org)

Yeah, maybe it’s a good idea. At least let's close a few loopholes.

Ah… no. Not so fast.

While there is something exciting about the concept of a metaverse, it is, at the same time, deeply disturbing. If you watched Zuckerberg’s video on Meta’s vision for humanity, then you might feel similarly. And in truth, it remains only a concept. (It is, however, a clever and timely diversion for Mr. Zuckerberg.)

Let’s acknowledge that, for the foreseeable future and given the digital divide, the metaverse will not even be understandable, let alone accessible, for a vast majority of the population. It’s hard to imagine that avatar interaction can supplant human interaction. Especially given the technical limitations… are we all going to wear an Oculus headset all the time? It’s just not viable. Fantasy, yes. Viable, no.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the New York Times that, “Meta's metaverse would be a massive factor in replacing human relationships. Not only would it threaten or endanger human interaction, but it could contribute to people choosing more of the AR world rather than the real world outside the lenses.”

Elizabeth A. Segal, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University is clear regarding Meta’s metaverse, “Metaverse cannot replace real human connections. People benefit from technology to stay connected with others, but there are limits to how well it can build human connections. Metaverse should not be confused with real human connections.”

Proceed with caution.

You can’t see it, but you better believe it.

Brand is an asset. While it is intangible, manage it as you would any asset. It must be maintained and invested in. Commit to building your brand as an asset from the beginning and over time. You will realize better and sustained market performance and higher enterprise value. When it’s time to exit, you will realize a significantly higher transaction multiple.  

The fact is, your brand is the most visible and valuable asset you own, experienced across all points of touch. However, despite being so important, most brands are off balance sheet vs. tangible assets such as plant and equipment, which are far less valuable.

Brands take time to grow value. However, in today’s digitally accelerating world, brand velocity has dramatically increased, allowing brands to grow intangible equity rapidly. And strong brands make money. For example, back in 2008, Brand Master Kevin Keller noted in his book, Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, that PepsiCo had a tangible book value of $6.5B but had a market cap of over $90B. Keller attributes about $83 billion of that market valuation to intangible assets, and more specifically, to PepsiCo’s brand equity.  

While this is easier to see in the capital markets where the delta between book and cap value is easily seen, it is often invisible for smaller businesses. But you must be a brand believer because the power of brand and its intangible equity provides all the benefits to businesses of all sizes.

Key piece of advice? Make building brand equity a standard operation philosophy, a non-discretionary cost of doing business. Be a brand believer. 

The Tipping Point Is Coming.

Succumbing to the inevitable shift to clean energy, Ford put a stake in the ground. Clearly, this is an investment in the future — the EV market still only represents 3% of the auto industry’s U.S. sales and only 5% of the global sales. But the tipping point is coming. GM, and now Ford are both betting the ranch on it. 

Ford has partnered with SK Innovations, a South Korean battery maker that is contributing $4.4B to the initiative. Ford is joining Volvo and Jeep in the last few decades. the real change is how Ford leverages its supply change. As Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said Ford noted in the WSJ, “That’s a significant strategic change over supply-chain management.” Tesla led the way by bringing in more development and manufacturing in-house to drive efficiencies and profitability. Not to mention the scarcity of raw materials for chips and batteries. Not being hostage to a middleman in the supply chain has its advantages.

Clearly, the industry sees electric vehicles, digitally connected cars, and related digital services as a growth opportunity. Tesla and other EV startups are realizing significant valuations and Ford, as well as GM, don’t want to be left behind.

Baseball’s got a problem. Its audience is dying.

With an older and predominantly white audience, is professional baseball’s sustainability in question? The 2020 World Series saw the lowest TV rating in the last 20 years. Yes, the pandemic had something to do with it, but nonetheless, ratings have been in steady decline since the 1970s. Baseball’s fan base is not regenerating, and they need kids. Deline goes on to say, “How do we get [kids] engaged again? Their consumer habits are completely different.”

Games are frustratingly slow, often more than 3.5 hours.  But the real rub is a lack of excitement. Baseball is boring. Especially to the audience that may well represent baseball’s future. Millennials and especially Gen Z just aren’t interested. Only 7% of MLB fans are under 18. The average age of an MLB fan has increased to 57, the oldest among the major sports. For context, the average age for the NBA is 42. 

The league is trying new rules to speed up the game and lower pitching effectiveness, like not using foreign substances to increase spin – no more spitballs. More hitting means more action.

There seems to be a cultural thing going on as well. NBA and NFL players can show emotions and celebrate bringing their personalities to the front where people can engage and connect with the players. MLB players still get reprimanded for a bat flip after a home run. C’mon, no celebrating allowed? What’s that about?

But don’t count out America’s pastime, it will find its legs.Baseball’s got a problem. Its audience is dying. With an older and predominantly white audience, is professional baseball’s sustainability in question? The 2020 World Series saw the lowest TV rating in the last 20 years. Yes, the pandemic had something to do with it, but nonetheless, ratings have been in steady decline since the 1970s. Baseball’s fan base is not regenerating, and they need kids. Deline goes on to say, “How do we get [kids] engaged again? Their consumer habits are completely different.”

Games are frustratingly slow, often more than 3.5 hours.  But the real rub is a lack of excitement. Baseball is boring. Especially to the audience that may well represent baseball’s future. Millennials and especially Gen Z just aren’t interested. Only 7% of MLB fans are under 18. The average age of an MLB fan has increased to 57, the oldest among the major sports. For context, the average age for the NBA is 42. 

The league is trying new rules to speed up the game and lower pitching effectiveness, like using foreign substances to increase spin. More hitting means more action.

There seems to be a cultural thing going on as well. NBA and NFL players can show emotions and celebrate bringing their personalities to the front where people can engage and connect with the players. MLB players still get reprimanded for a bat flip after a home run. C’mon, no celebrating allowed? What’s that about?

But don’t count out America’s pastime, it will find its legs.

Marketing And Mind Reading

Neuromarketing loosely refers to measuring physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions. These tools use tech like EEG, biometrics, and eye-tracking, and AI to measure neurological reactions.

As reported in Business insider, in a recent campaign for Extra Gum, Mars says it used a neuroscience tool called ACE to cut a two-minute-long video and that the resulting 15-second video was among the company’s top 10% performing ads of all time. In 2020, it used ACE to shortlist “Band Aid” as the TV ad for its cat food brand Sheba, which it says resulted in an 18% sales lift for the brand versus the 14% sales lift of the last campaign. So this tech can work.

While the whole idea can feel a little insidious, it’s not new. Brands have been manipulating consumers since, well, since there were consumers. And the field of neuroethics is growing in importance as technology evolves, and the techniques become more mainstream.

The biggest concern is ensuring transparency to understand how we’re being manipulated, such as when Facebook manipulated nearly 700,000 users’ mood states in 2012 by altering their newsfeeds without informing them. Cerf goes pan to say, “A portable, affordable fMRI would be a total game-changer”.

And scary as hell.

Digital and physical collectables coming together.

Earlier this year, with a fresh round of funding from Andreessen, a partnership between next-gen fashion brand RTFKT and Fewocious created and minted tokens for three one-of-a-kind pairs priced at $3,000, $5,000, and $10,000. When it was done seven minutes later, they’d sold for 608 digital pairs of digital kicks for a cool $3.1 Mil. Welcome to digital fashion.

Interestingly, actual physical sneakers come with the price, a potential blueprint for integrating real-world objects and NFTs. The NFT alone is not enough, having a physical shoe is adds value to the overall collectible, it’s the digital and physical coming together.

They should be because the physical thing matters. “We think that emotional bond to physical objects is still important and can increase the attachment,” said Benoit Pagotto, from RTFKT. Makes sense.

Wonder if NBATopShots is listening…

With its Akira Project, RTFKT will mint 20,000 unique and playable 3D avatars ready to jump into your favorite metaverse, 10,000 of which will be available for pre-sale to current collectors of RTFKT’s NFTs on Ethereum. The other 10,000 will be available in a public sale that many expect will sell out.

As influencers go, Estée Lauder hit the jackpot.

In this age of shallow influencers coming at us with a sea of undifferentiated drivel, Amanda Gorman comes along and shows us what an authentic influencer is really has, and what Estée Lauder wanted: 

• Substance, salience & integrity

• Talent, a gifted voice and presence

• And a globally appealing and focused personal brand.

In Ms. Gorman, Estée Lauder hit the jackpot. In what could be a potentially colossal partnership, Ms. Gorman will be Estée Lauder’s first “Global Changemaker” and far more than an influencer. She comes at a time, as Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times eloquently put it, when “substance is particularly prized, as for-profit companies feel an imperative to prove they stand for something more than simply — well, profit.” Given Ms. Gorman’s personal brand today, she could well emerge as the brand’s inner voice. She has that kind of character, that kind of presence.

Overwhelmed by the vast opportunities thrust upon her after her reading at Biden’s inauguration, Ms. Gorman took time to purposely create and choose a path that would allow her to channel her gifts, voice, and platform to drive meaningful change. Making this decision, taking this leap with Estée Lauder took courage and a willingness to embrace new challenges of overwhelming proportions. With opportunity comes challenge. In any case, one must try.

But as her quote shows, this is a woman of courage who saw her path and took it. And you know she is all in, with every part of herself. As she herself put it in Friedman’s piece, “I’m never just lending my body or my face,” Ms. Gorman said. “They are getting my spirit, my breath, my brain.” 

For Estée Lauder, she is a significant win that aligns well with their brand CSR objectives. Ms. Gorman adds considerable intellectual and spiritual muscle to the brand’s voice. As a brand asset (sorry, that sounds cold), she is money. Ms. Gorman is a “wish list” ambassador who can be exactly whom she wants to be while building Estée Lauder’s brand equity and value. Brilliant.