October 27th
Here’s the latest order of Trippant Takeaways, highlighting trends, best practice and provocative ideas in communications across sport, entertainment, technology and culture.
Forbes explores corporate celebrity partnerships amid the Kanye controversy
The sad, steady and sometimes enraging decline of hip-hop pioneer Kanye West has plumbed new depths in recent weeks, as he detonated what remained of his good name in a series of antisemitic diatribes.
The resulting controversy has cost the 45-year-old – who now prefers to go by Ye – commercial partnerships with the likes of Gap, Balenciaga and Adidas, and probably any serious future in entertainment and fashion.
His billionaire status is gone; clients have deserted his Donda Sports agency; his waxwork is in storage at Madam Tussauds. Streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music have kept his library online, even if they abhor his comments, but with his fandom in turmoil some outlets are circulating DIY tips for users to remove it.
As spectacular as the backlash has grown to be, the corporate response to Ye’s outbursts was not immediately forthcoming. Forbes has looked at the complicated, expensive course brands must plot out of high-profile partnerships that go south.
Vox releases its list of the Future Perfect 50
In challenging times, there is still reason to believe that personal influence can be a force for public good.
Vox certainly thinks so, in any case – it has identified a class of scientists, activists, scholars and communicators with a vision for a better tomorrow. Here is the inaugural Future Perfect 50.
TechCrunch inspects MrBeast’s $1.5 billion valuation
Following in the entrepreneurial footsteps of fellow YouTube creators The Sidemen, MrBeast, otherwise known as Jimmy Donaldson, is seeking funding to expand his activities further into ‘restaurants, consumer goods and merchandise’.
More specifically, he wants a $150 million investment that would value his business at $1.5 billion. It’s enough to make TechCrunch wonder: can he possibly be worth that much?
The Athletic and Sports Industry Biz talk women’s football
After bringing women’s club teams to its long-running football videogame series for the first time in Fifa 23, EA Sports has agreed a multi-year deal to sponsor DAZN’s global coverage of the Uefa Women’s Champions League.
The publisher announced the deal alongside a series of other investment commitments at its first-ever EA Sports Women’s Football Summit last week. But as The Athletic explores here, efforts to get the women’s game in the game still have some way to go.
Speaking of Fifa…
FIFA Uncovered | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube
Wired dives into Deep-dive video game podcasts
New trends in media consumption can be inspired by technology but they also come from communities – and fresh combinations of old ideas.
Wired looks at how deep-dive podcasts, borrowing a little from book club culture, are bringing new life to retro video games.
Autosport covers F1’s dynamic sponsor logos
The names may be a little different since the heyday of alcohol and tobacco sponsorship but no matter how fast Formula 1 cars have gone, the branding on them has always been, well, static.
But McLaren may just have changed that through their latest partnership with Seamless Digital.
Fast Company tells the untold story of the 4-billion-crypto-startup
Deep in the crypto winter, with the value of coins and NFTs having plummeted from their 2021 peak, one company still seems pretty confident its exclusive community is worthy of membership.
Fast Company spends some time with Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
The Financial Times unwraps one curiously popular re-branding trend
It’s the most commonly used letter in the English alphabet. Some of us even grew up believing it was magic…
So why, asks the Financial Times, does ‘e’ still disappear in so many rebrands?
Marketing Week gives us 20 years of marketing in 20 cartoons
Tom Fishburne, aka The Marketoonist, has now been skewering big brand self-importance in Marketing Week for 20 years.
To commemorate that milestone, he has picked out a few of his favourite cartoons highlighting two decades of evolution in the industry.
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