In this issue of Sunday Strategy, we look at twelve stories to think about next week, including:
– Friendship, Now Sold as a Package
– Is Time Running Out for Betting Advertising?
– Meta Takes the Camera Out of It
– What Counts as a Fair Price?
– Winning AI Shopping Before Shoppers Arrive
– AI Use vs. Trust in AI
– Money, Rejection and Gen Z Dating
– Grandmotherhood Arriving Later
– The Casual Service Market
– Marketing’s Strategic Thinking Shortage
– Gen Z and Small Talk
– Copilot’s Latest Rebuild
In addition, we have ads from KOKO, Beats, Chevrolet Canada, FamilyMart, FYS, JCPenney, Kahlúa, Nike, PepsiCo, Singapore, Sonos, Wendy’s, Columbia Sportswear, Deutsche Telekom and Dogs Trust.
// Stories of the Week:
1.) Friendship, Now Sold as a Package
Fantasy football drafts used to happen in a friend’s basement, or across a group chat that ran three days longer than planned. However, the draft is turning into a destination. Colibri Boutique Hotels ran a four-night draft weekend in Tulum hosted by former NFL coach Rex Ryan, with packages from $850 a person and about 70 guests at the first one. TrophySmack, which supplies trophies to the draft circuit, estimates a five-fold rise in hosted destination drafts, while Baha Mar held its third annual ESPN draft weekend in August.
Friendship increasingly looks like something groups book and budget for, rather than something that simply happens – and the bill seems to be testing friendships too. In a YouTrip survey of more than 1,000 travellers in Singapore, 88% went over their budget on group trips and one in three had argued over travel expenses.
If friendship is becoming a premium product, the lingering question is what happens when an increasing number of friends are priced out of it?
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Real-Life Antidote
2.) Is Time Running Out for Betting Advertising?
Over the last few years, betting brands have become as much a part of Brazilian football as the shirts they sit on. 13 of the 20 Série A clubs have a betting sponsor on the front of the shirt, and Flamengo’s deal with Betano is worth R$268.5m a season to 2028 (Meio & Mensagem).
However, on 25 September Brazil banned fixed-odds betting and its advertising by provisional order, giving clubs ten days to take sponsors off shirts, stadiums and feeds. Federal licences end in 30 days, fines reach up to 10% of a company’s Brazilian revenue, and Congress has 120 days to approve the order. Flamengo’s response was pointed: “The game won’t end with the stroke of a pen. What ends is the part Brazil can regulate, inspect, tax and hold to account.”
It happens as global trading on Kalshi and Polymarket doubled from $26bn in May to $53bn in July, mostly on sports, and as the UK’s ASA banned a Midnite TikTok ad because its AI-generated gambler seemed to be under 25. While one market is removing betting as a sponsorship category, others still seem to be building it out further.
3.) Meta Takes the Camera Out of It
Last week’s issue looked at how privacy has become a rare bipartisan issue, with Flock’s cameras and Meta’s Ray-Bans both drawing fire. This week The Economist chronicled Meta Ray-Ban’s ‘pervert glasses’ backlash, reporting that Meta now disables the camera if a wearer tampers with the recording light, has “no plans to backpedal on cameras”, and holds 81% of the market.
However, at Connect, Meta launched Ray-Ban Meta Audio: glasses with no camera at all, weighing 43g and priced at $349, launching from 13 October. Meta says audio is the top use case, so the camera-free pair stands as another option rather than a full retreat from the existing model’s functionality. In a way, the move aims to create a greater ‘inventory’ of similar devices out in the world, hoping ubiquitous design means consumers are less likely to assume every Meta device can record them. Whether a camera-free option eases the privacy question, or simply blurs which pair is watching, may decide how far the category can grow.
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: The Snooping Bargain
4.) What Counts as a Fair Price?
Personalised pricing has turned the price on the shelf into an open question, and this week several policies attempted to answer that at the same time. Seattle’s city council voted to ban personalised grocery pricing on 22 September, the first US city to pass such a ban, barring grocers from setting prices with browsing history, location or chatbot conversations while leaving loyalty discounts legal. Days later, Walmart’s CEO published a letter promising “We price the product, not the person”, ruling out prices set by income, shopping history, urgency or time of day.
The move away from dynamic pricing leaves brands wrestling with rising costs holding fewer options to maintain profitability – beyond price increases or product shrinkage. However, shoppers seem to be more comfortable with a price rise than a cut in quality, as new HBR research finds that cutting quality is judged less fair than raising the price.
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Price Transparency Mandates
5.) Winning AI Shopping Before the Shoppers Buy
The fight over AI shopping continues to be a fight between platforms for hypothetical conversion. This month Amazon locked Meta’s Muse shopping agent out of its store twelve days after launch, by which point Muse had reached 1.8M US and Canada downloads against ChatGPT’s 1.3M over the same span. In the same fortnight, ChatGPT’s share of AI-assistant prompts fell from 70% to 50% between January and June as Gemini rose from 17% to 30% and Claude from 2% to 11% (Comscore), and the UK’s CMA proposed putting AI assistants on Google’s choice screen with a yearly re-ask.
However, adoption is running far ahead of buying. VML’s survey of 28,000 people in 17 countries finds 82% now use AI, yet AI accounts for just 2.7% of the purchase stage, while consumers expect AI to make 15% of their purchases within five years.
The fight is over who sits between the shopper and the shelf, and brands are hoping to win it before most shoppers have actually shown up to buy.
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Algorithmic Authority Contested
6.) AI is Delivering News Without Trust
AI has become a way into the news for a growing share of people. In the UK, 21% of adults used an AI tool for news in the past month, per Ofcom, and in Germany weekly use of AI tools rose from 22% to 37% in a year, per the ARD/ZDF media study, reaching about two-thirds of 14 to 29-year-olds.
However, trust hasn’t followed. 56% of UK adults trust an AI-written story less than one written by a person, and 54% of Germans see information from AI as less trustworthy or not trustworthy at all. Workers show a similar split, with Gallup finding a record 27% of US workers fear technology will make their jobs obsolete, up from 13% in 2017, and 34% among those under 45 against 19% of those over 45.
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Machine Credibility Gap
7.) Is Money Making Rejection Harder for GenZ?
Dating apps have taken much of the blame for how hard dating feels for younger people. However, this may once again be a case of the economy deserving the blame. Playboy’s 2026 survey of 2,373 18 to 29-year-olds with the Kinsey Institute points elsewhere: 60% are afraid of rejection, and 66.5% say they don’t have enough chances to meet anyone.
Money is a big part of it. 43% say money has made dating harder, and 39% say the cost of dating limits their chances, a pressure we looked at in July. For this generation the barrier to dating looks more like cost than choice.
When costs are higher, rejection hits harder, either through the money lost on a date or through affording fewer chances to succeed in dating at all.
This story is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Priced-Out Generation
8.) Grandmotherhood Now Arrives at 57, Not 44
Delayed adulthood has usually been discussed one generation at a time: later first jobs, later homes, later children. However, a new NBER paper, ‘Compound Delay’, looks at what happens when those delays stack up across generations.
On today’s first-birth timings, the median woman becomes a grandmother at 57, up from 44 on 1960 timings, cutting her healthy years with grandchildren from 28 to 15. The delay is steepest among the college-educated.
Delayed adulthood compounds across generations, so the grandparent economy of free childcare, cash help and gifts looks to be shifting towards an older window.
9.) The Casual Service Market
Paying for help used to be what people did when family and friends weren’t around. However, a Cashew Research survey of 2,002 US and Canadian adults suggests the support is still there but the time isn’t: 70% say they have a good emotional support system, yet 41% of under-45s say paid services now handle things family and friends once did, against 18% of 62 to 80-year-olds.
It extends to care. Nearly two-thirds of caregivers will pay for faster delivery for the person they care for while cutting back on their own dining and travel, and a third have taken on debt for care services, rising to 41% of caregivers aged 18 to 29. Meanwhile, Americans spent 35 minutes a day socialising in 2025, down from 41 in 2015.
Convenience services are becoming part of the support system rather than a replacement for it, which puts brands that sell time in a role friends and family used to play.
10.) Marketing’s Strategic Thinking Shortage
As AI absorbs more of marketing’s execution, the skill brands say they are shortest of is the one a tool can’t supply. A WFA study of 166 brand, agency and platform professionals, including 65 brands spending $80bn a year on marketing, finds 72% name strategic thinking as their biggest talent shortage, well ahead of data strategy (46%) and insight development (36%).
59% say strategic judgment matters more in the age of AI, yet just 1% think better tools will be what sets strong marketing teams apart. That gap sits alongside a thinner presence at the top, with no FTSE 100 company now carrying a CMO on its main board, down from 14% in 2007.
If strategy is the most in-demand skill, it asks the question of where strategic judgment is going to come from?
11.) More Small Talk, Less New Friends for GenZ?
The ‘Gen Z stare’ became shorthand for a generation that supposedly can’t hold a casual conversation. However, Preply’s survey of 1,400 adults across the US, UK, Canada and Australia finds 58% of Gen Z make small talk in person every day, against 53% of Millennials, 37% of Gen X and 31% of Boomers.
However, more small talk doesn’t mean more friendship. 87% of Gen Z avoided at least one live conversation in the past year, 41% look at their phone to dodge one, and 82% say avoiding casual conversation causes problems at work. A CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll finds a similar split: 91% of Gen Z feel confident in their social skills, yet 54% say young people lack confidence meeting new people.
12.) Can Copilot’s Rebrand Help It Grow?
Microsoft has renamed and reorganised its AI assistant several times since Bing Chat became Copilot in 2023. Its latest rebuild folds chat and Cowork into a single Home with Word, Excel and PowerPoint built in, adds Code for non-developers, and renames its Scout agent ‘Autopilot’, a persistent agent that keeps working while you’re away, and a name Microsoft already uses for a Windows device-setup service.
The enterprise side is growing, with more than 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats by July. However, Copilot’s share of AI chatbot referral traffic has roughly halved in a year to 2.8%, per StatCounter, against ChatGPT’s 79.4% and Gemini’s 10.9%.
Growth depends on whether people start choosing Copilot, rather than simply finding it already installed.
// Ads You Might Have Missed:
KOKO – “KOKO Electronic: AW26”
To mark 125 years, Camden’s KOKO opened its new electronic season with a film set in a fictional kebab shop that has fed the venue’s crowds through every era. Menu-style flyposters carried a mystery phone number that gave out artist clues. Whereas anniversary films are normally self-indulgent, KOKO created a birthday film about the audience that came along with it, not the building that housed the brand.
Beats – “Beats 360 ft. Kendall Jenner”
Beats has filled a cafe with Kendall Jenners, each one the barista, the friend or the painting on the wall, wearing a different pair of its new headphones with swappable cushions. Following last week’s s.Oliver film, where AI staged Heidi Klum opposite her younger self, it’s another brand turning one celebrity into many.
Chevrolet Canada – “You Make It a Chevy”
Chevrolet Canada’s new platform puts real, lived-in cars ahead of showroom shine, following drivers of everything from vintage C-10s and Bel-Airs to this year’s models as the odometer climbs to Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’. It closes on “We make a Chevrolet, but you make it a Chevy”, shifting the brand to the people who put the miles in it.
FamilyMart – “Famima de Hataraku?”
FamilyMart cast Lady Gaga as a store clerk in a recruitment ad, ringing up, stacking shelves and mopping in couture versions of the chain’s new uniform. It’s part of a push to become a place people want to work, with the first uniform change in ten years and looser hair and dress rules.
FYS – “Descobrimos por que FYS ainda não era nº1”
Heineken’s soda brand FYS called in a TV psychic to find the spirit holding it back from number one, then had her ‘cleanse’ it by drinking the whole can. Cans carry a sticker like the plaster folk wisdom puts over the navel against bad energy – reinforcing the functional message that it sells 50% less sugar, without ever saying diet.
JCPenney – “The Other September Issue”
JCPenney answered Vogue’s September issue with its own, cast with five teachers from San Marcos, Texas. The brand puts the everyday shopper into a fashion placement, in contrast to a summer spent parodying off-price stores.
Kahlúa – “It’s Not a Nightcap”
Kahlúa’s new coffee cream turns a care-home lounge into a rave, with viral grandparents swapping their usual Irish cream for something with caffeine. It goes straight at the category’s bedtime image and follows through with a bring-your-own-gran club night on 8 October, à la the NYC club Joyface’s door policy of “Bring your parents, get right in”.
Nike – “Just a normal day for Caitlin Clark”
Nike plays Caitlin Clark’s life deadpan: she eats cereal at a kitchen table while a narrator lists selling out arenas and shooting “from distances previously considered unnecessary” as perfectly normal. It teases her first signature shoe, the Caitlin 1, out on 1 October.
PepsiCo – “The Pitch”
PepsiCo’s first corporate campaign has its own brands pitching to rename the company, from CheetosCo to QuakerCo, because fewer than one in five people link PepsiCo to anything beyond Pepsi. The textbook structure of a house of brands has folded in on itself to highlight the true breadth that sits under PepsiCo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0H3rLGE2LQ
Singapore – “When You’re Ready”
Singapore’s trade ministry has rebuilt the country’s international brand around the traits it previously considered boring: safety, functionality and stability – pitched to executives and talent rather than tourists.
This ad is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Place-Based Identity Assertion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVm_zZ_HCTo
Sonos – “Love the Sound. Feel the System”
Sonos has dropped spec-sheet language for hand-drawn ‘dance cards’ that map how its speakers play together around a home. It sells the system rather than the speaker, aimed at winning back customers who stopped trusting the app by growing the ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFUiN18bQJQ
Wendy’s – “Songs to Listen to in a Wendy’s Parking Lot”
Wendy’s released a six-track emo EP made for eating in its car parks, including ‘She Said She Didn’t Want Fries’ featuring Matty Mullins, and changed its logo to match. The brand is claiming the parking-lot meal as a ritual of its own while showing that emo music ‘wasn’t just a phase’ if brands can go back to it.
This ad is part of a trend Airgo tracks: Heritage Revival Cycles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijdNFN6B-xU
Columbia Sportswear – “F££T FUND”
Columbia Sportswear is paying hikers £135, the price of its new Peakfreak shoe, for photos of their bare feet taken on a trail, with the best added to a social ‘Hall of Feet’. The launch began with creators posting what looked like private DMs from the brand asking for feet pics, then an unboxing done entirely with toes. The brand combines camping with the ubiquity of ‘Internet feet pics’ in a way that puts an unexpected foot (fetish) forward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zqZ7EXvGX4
Deutsche Telekom – “Der Bär”
Deutsche Telekom has turned the ‘man or bear’ debate (in which women discussed whether a man or a bear would be more dangerous to meet when hiking) into a campaign against digital violence toward women: an AI-generated bear chases a young woman, stops, and tells the camera that a frightening number of women would rather be alone with him in the woods than with a man. It closes on a direct ask of everyone watching: don’t look away, step in when you see something you should act on. The bear runs on social alongside the campaign’s main film, above.
Dogs Trust – “Walkies Warning Signs”
Dogs Trust is trialling scented warning signs at dog’s-eye level near the South Downs, placed a safe distance from autumn hazards like toxic fungi, acorns and rotting fruit. The dog stops to sniff – buying the owner a few seconds to read the warning and scan a QR code for vet advice. It’s an ad written for the member of the household who decides where the walk really goes.
// Sunday Snippets
// Advertising & Marketing //
– A Tesco billboard appears to slip out of its frame and drop the weekly shop into an Uber Eats bag, running on large-format digital sites across the UK. [Advertising]
– Chase brought back Drew Barrymore for a Scream spoof ahead of the film’s 30th anniversary, with Kevin Hart as a Ghostface who calls to talk about cash back. [Advertising]
– E.ON Next has brought Bob the Builder back after 15 years, restoring the original puppet moulds and enrolling him in its Net Zero Training Academy, with Neil Morrissey voicing him for the first time since 2011. [Advertising]
– Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ended a ten-year fight by ruling Obi cannot own the colour orange as a trademark, siding with Hornbach and Globus. [Branding]
– I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’s mascot Tubz has published a 78-page self-help book, “Lifting the Lid”, on Amazon with a foreword by Fabio. [Branding]
– Staples has introduced a black “Hard Button” next to its red Easy Button, to sell B2B services it says reach about 75% of the Fortune 500. [Advertising]
– Taiheiyo Cement is running a two-day cement-themed cafe in Shibuya’s Miyashita Park, part of a campaign that sells an invisible industrial material to the public and to future recruits. [Branding]
– WinRAR told users who never paid for its software to buy its $150 messenger bag instead, as the bag shaped like its stacked-books logo came back into stock. [Fashion]
– Zeekr and Taika Waititi shot seven scenes lit only by the Zeekr 7X’s headlights, from an alien visit to a warehouse rave, and hung them in an Auckland exhibition. [Automotive]
– ABC Kids is making every Bluey episode available in Auslan from 3 October and will air 24 versions of the theme song with the lyrics swapped for signed words during a marathon on 3 and 4 October. [TV]
– Goodwipes used AI to turn OpenAI’s Astra ad, which has more than 135 million views on X, into a toilet-humour spoof called “Asstra”, made in four days. [Advertising]
– Interac is telling Canadian businesses to retire the cheque and switch to its e-Transfer for Business, saying $2.7 trillion a year is trapped in slow-moving cheques. [Finance]
– Kia’s European launch for the new Seltos shows four outdoor trips going wrong, from a hiker in thick mud to two sisters chasing a tent carried off by the wind. [Automotive]
– Mercado Pago has cast Eugenio Derbez and Alessandra Rosaldo, married in real life, as a couple in therapy whose troubled relationship turns out to be with their bank. [Finance]
– In Myntra’s Big Fashion Festival film, a sneeze from Ranbir Kapoor sends Alia Bhatt into a spiral that ends in a skincare upgrade, ahead of a sale of more than 8 million styles opening on 8 October. [Fashion]
– OpenAI has brought back the grandmothers from its ChatGPT Voice launch film, now using voice to create documents and run tasks in their connected apps. [AI]
– Peloton is launching the Tread Flex, its first foldable treadmill and its most affordable to date, with Miley Cyrus running and dancing to her new single. [Health]
– Samsung has cast Dr Orna Guralnik of “Couples Therapy” to counsel couples through switching from iPhone to the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Flip8. [Tech]
– Stuttgart’s municipal utility has cast actor Merlin Sandmeyer as Dr Kessel, a love coach counselling the city and its residents through the energy transition in the language of red flags and love languages. [Sustainability]
– Ben Stiller turns up at Katz’s Deli in a Cats costume to announce that Stiller’s Soda is now sold there, in a film made with New York Nico. [Food & Drink]
– Target’s “Inside Out” campaign shows shoppers’ purchases floating as if in invisible bags that then materialise, set to RAYE’s “Joy” and running through 31 October. [Retail]
// Tech & Media //
– An art therapist quoted more than 30 times by outlets including Forbes, Vice and Glamour appears to be AI-generated, with every profile linking back to paint-by-numbers seller Davincified. [Media]
– An officially licensed Minions Wi-Fi router sold out on Amazon after an X post praising its surprisingly serious specs passed 4 million views in under a day. [Tech]
– German discounter Penny has been rewarding funny TikTok comments with shopping vouchers since June, with an AI score setting each one at 10, 25 or 50 euros. More than 4,000 comments have earned 45,000 euros so far, whether or not they mentioned Penny. [Social Media]
– Instacart cast Shrek, Scooby-Doo and Charlie Brown to sell Clementine, its AI shopping assistant built on more than 1.6 billion orders. [AI]
– Lawson will sell three products dreamed up by generative AI with past sales data deliberately withheld, including a pickle-flavoured lemon tart, from 29 September. [AI]
– Marvel’s Wolverine sold about 1.9 million copies worth $130 million in its first days, per Aliena Analytics, ahead of MLB The Show’s 1.5 million. [Gaming]
– Pinterest sponsored a phone-free couture show at the British Museum, where 50 guests sealed their phones in beaded bags until the finale and got official photos by QR code. [Fashion]
– Spotify added a toggle that keeps kids’ music out of your taste profile, retroactively, so it no longer shapes Wrapped. [Media]
– The iPhone 18 Pro costs nearly double the US price in Turkey, per Rest of World, while the UAE is the second-cheapest market and India runs 30-40% above the US. [Tech]
– YouTube is now the most-cited platform across eight AI assistants, ahead of Reddit, according to Meltwater’s August data. Scrunch found those citations fade by around 43% within a month of first appearing. [AI]
– Unredacted filings in the New York Times’ case against OpenAI show Microsoft’s own data found Copilot cut click-through rates to nytimes.com by as much as 93% compared with traditional Bing search. [Media]
– In a new arXiv paper, synthetic consumers built on GPT models passed every manipulation check across six classic logo, packaging and ad experiments but reproduced at most two of the six human results. [Advertising]
– A 47-page class action filed on 16 September accuses OpenAI of letting outside contractors read users’ ChatGPT conversations, two days after 404 Media revealed the review work, codenamed “Project Lily”. [AI]
– Channel 4 will sell ads for Channel 5 and Paramount’s UK channels from 2027, taking the £300m-plus business from Sky. With it, Sky’s planned ITV takeover would have given the pair more than 70% of traditional UK TV ad sales, against about 26% for Channel 4. [TV]
// Wider Culture //
– A BVRLA study of UK MOT data finds petrol cars at 120,000 miles fail 23.5% of the time, against 16% for EVs. [Automotive]
– Adidas has revealed its farewell shirt for Germany, a black kit with the old Trefoil and “Seit 1954” on the hem, ending a partnership that began at the 1954 World Cup. [Sports]
– Aldi UK made a Swag For Life Jacket that turns into a shopping bag in 10 seconds, after finding 46% of Britons regularly forget their bags and 85% keep a “bag of bags” at home. [Retail]
– Bain’s survey of 7,500 consumers found that nearly half of those who say they don’t care about sustainability still keep three or more sustainable habits, up from 35% in 2023. [Sustainability]
– C4 has launched All Hopped Up, a beer-flavoured energy drink with no alcohol and 200mg of caffeine, at $14.99 a six-pack. [Food & Drink]
– Credit Karma’s biggest campaign to date debuts during the MTV VMAs on 27 September, with a busload of commuters breaking into dance after one rider covers his bills with a paycheck advance. [Finance]
– Delta and YouTube turned a grounded Boeing 767 into a concert venue for Grammy winner Leon Thomas, now showing on Delta’s in-flight entertainment. [Travel]
– From 27 September, EU rules count brand names and imagery as green claims if an average shopper would read them that way, and ban vague terms like “eco-friendly” along with offset-based climate claims. [Sustainability]
– Gen Z diners in New York are sharing lists of private-equity-backed restaurants to avoid, tagged “PE slop” on TikTok. [Food & Drink]
– Hidden Valley’s first seasonal product is Spooky Ranch, a black ranch dressing coloured with fruit juice and cocoa, sold only at Walmart in a glow-in-the-dark bottle. [Food & Drink]
– Jürgen Klopp’s first match as Germany coach, a 1-1 draw in the Netherlands, drew 10.76 million viewers on RTL in the second half, a 50.6% audience share. [Sports]
– Lidl answered a Manhattan bakery’s $60 loaf with a guerrilla stunt telling New Yorkers good bread does not have to cost $60. [Retail]
– McDonald’s took G-DRAGON and a gochujang butter sauce across 13 Asian markets, with merch from his label PEACEMINUSONE. [Food & Drink]
– McDonald’s UK and Ireland’s second World Menu Heist brings home nine international items picked by social listening, including Germany’s Big Rösti and China’s Szechuan Sauce. The 2025 edition was copied by more than 40 markets. [Food & Drink]
– PointsBet hid four real NFL tickets among 10,000 counterfeits in Melbourne, handed out by influencers dressed as scalpers. [Sports]
– Ramp booked the Broadhurst Theatre for a one-night Broadway musical about accounts payable, “Bill Pay”, starring Billy Porter and Billy Zane, on 25 September. [Finance]
– Stella Lefty’s “Boston” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 before listeners found her father is Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, and the “nepo baby” label followed. [Culture]
– The WNBA drew a record 3.79 million fans this season, up 20.5%, though growth was about 3% once the two expansion teams are taken out. [Sports]
– Toys R Us is opening 120 stand-alone stores before the holidays, some with Creator Studios for influencers to film in. [Retail]
– Two New York artists made a tote bag that turns into a life jacket in 15 seconds for Climate Week. It is not for sale. [Sustainability]
– UK consumer confidence rose for a third straight month to -13 in September, while the savings index jumped five points to +27 and intent to make big purchases slipped ahead of the Golden Quarter. [Consumer Behavior]
– Waymo will give riders $2.85 back when they pair a trip with public transit within two hours in San Francisco, and says over half its riders there also use transit. [Automotive]
– Pew finds 54% of Americans now say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39% in January, and half now say the same about their home energy costs. [Sustainability]
– More than 30 avocado-oil class actions have been filed in US courts since July, per CourtListener. One against Unilever’s Sir Kensington’s cites a UC Davis study that found 10 of 14 avocado-oil mayonnaises tested were inconsistent with authentic avocado oil. [Food & Drink]
– Brand Finance puts $73 billion of the 100 most valuable food brands’ value at risk from GLP-1 drugs, and 53% of it falls on confectionery and savoury snacks. [Food & Drink]
– Ofcom finds 8% of UK online adults now use an AI tool to deal with their telecoms provider, 6% to resolve a problem and 2% to make a complaint. [Consumer Behavior]
– Sephora’s website does not sell a $265, 12-piece POV Beauty holiday set. Its product page sends shoppers to Sephora’s new TikTok Shop instead. [Retail]
– One Harry Styles fan paid $1,400 on resale for a VIP ticket to his Madison Square Garden residency so she could get in early and stand at the barricade, as some venues start selling skip-the-line fees. [Culture]
– Bank of America Institute card data shows discretionary spending rose 5.9% year on year for higher-income households and 5.7% for lower-income ones in August, the smallest gap since January 2024, with the widest remaining split among Millennials. [Finance]
– At least 27 women’s sports bars now operate in the US, up from none in 2021, and only one has closed, after its site was taken for a light-rail project. [Sports]
// Until Next Sunday
As always, let me know what you think by email (dubose@newclassic.agency), website or on LinkedIn. You can also listen to an audio summary and discussion of each week’s newsletter on Spotify. We’re also on TikTok!
