Retailers are scrambling to keep up with the merging of beauty, health, and wellness spending. A new AlixPartners-CEW survey found nearly 100% of consumers now treat the three categories as a single spending decision, with one executive noting, “a consumer is just as likely to trade off a night cream for another night cream as a night cream for a personal trainer.” Now, brands are racing to catch up and cover all three categories in one place. Target launched a 600-store Beauty Studio, Ulta is piloting wellness boutiques, and P&G is acquiring supplement brand Thorne for $3.8B. However, there is a bit of a disconnect: 40% of consumers want beauty companies to expand into adjacent categories, while 42% of execs would rather stay in their lane. (CNBC)
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Slow burn, ghosting, and AI: the Gen Z dating scene. Young daters are not giving up on finding a relationship that develops slowly over time, like the perfect friends-to-lovers trope. Research conducted by the Kinsey Institute and Match says young daters are staying open to love even if they didn’t feel immediate chemistry—counter to dating app culture which puts looks at the forefront of dating. In fact, the research found 41% of singles were willing to go on a second date with someone even if the first wasn’t super exciting, +6pts more than five years ago. Having said that, ghosting has also increased over time to (unfortunately) become a norm: only 35% of singles said they were willing to let someone know they weren’t interested face-to-face, and only 37% reported being willing to over text. To improve their dating game, 67% of Gen Z singles said they use AI, whether it’s to “improve communication, find better matches, or generate message ideas.” Though the dating scene seems rough, on the upside, more young people say they’re interested in a relationship now than in 2021. (Cosmopolitan)
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Reformation brought Olivia Jade back to campus. In the brand’s new “Good Sport” fall campaign, she models their latest preppy styles from recycled cashmere sweaters and accessories to a limited-edition College Crew sweatshirt (whose proceeds will benefit a nonprofit that provides educational support to students in low-income communities). If the campaign’s “back to campus” concept feels a little too on the nose, that’s because it is! The campaign is a play on Jade’s 2019 college admissions scandal, which involved her parents (Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, if you forgot) paying $500K to help get their daughters falsely designated as recruits for USC’s crew team. It’s even referenced not so subtly in the campaign’s description: “We brought her back to campus for a lesson in dressing for sport.” (Wink, wink.) It’s certainly a bold way to revisit an old headline, but Reformation is clearly betting that someone will appreciate them turning an infamous moment into campaign fodder. (The Hollywood Reporter, InStyle)
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Meet TikTok’s latest music nepo baby: Stella Lefty. It’s no secret that TikTok is one of the biggest deciders of top artists now, with their own commissioned research showing “84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 in 2024 had gone viral on TikTok first.” But while most think TikTok democratized the star-making process in music because anyone could be blessed by the algorithm, many experts in music and marketing say it’s really the opposite. Artists like Lefty—whose father is a billionaire—can afford teams of the best managers and marketers to follow the data of what performs well, rather than having to guess. Highly informed choices of which songs to release based on audience response are likely what drove her song “Boston” into becoming a No. 2 hit, not just luck. Though maybe it shouldn’t be surprising this is the track that worked, as the chorus so closely resembles an existing Noah Kahan hit that they had to add him as a co-writer retroactively. (Ad Age)
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