Groceryfluencers, Target x Lego, Spirited Away Event Recap
This past Wednesday we hosted our first in a series of events where we bring our community together for an unbiased sampling of the finest that DTC has to offer. This first event, in collaboration with Spirited Away, NYC’s first non-alcoholic bottle shop, saw a lineup of delicious and surprising non-alcoholic cocktails from the brand Curious Elixirs.
A live DJ was provided by Repeat (shoutout to FC friend, Mark Johnson!). NYC’s best NA bev founders and retail changemakers were all in one room. And, of course, Future Commerce was there to provide insight and context. Wednesday night had all the right ingredients for a perfect happy hour!
We published a no-holds-barred review of our favorites we tasted just prior to the event over on the site. We give you our honest reactions, no hype, something the DTC world desperately needs more perspective on. One of my favorite lines from the rundown:
While it definitely tastes like wine, I can’t say it tastes like good wine. I once dated a girl who would open up a bottle of red wine for a glass, set it on top of her refrigerator, not revisit the open bottle for two to three weeks, and then drink it without thinking twice. I’m sure she would enjoy this wine.
Read the full review here.
Thanks to everyone who joined us and to Spirited Away for hosting such a great event. You can watch the video recap on our Youtube channel. Subscribe to Insiders, our email community, so that you don’t miss our future events in the New Year. You can do that over here.
Brick Chic. Target Home and Lego have collabed for their own Mondrian-esque home stylings. You know, for the mature lego crowd.
D-I-Fly. Amazon is working around the supply chain by leasing its own planes, chartering its own private cargo ships, building shipping containers, and more—a strategy the company has been working on for years. And it’s really paying off now.
More Sights and Sounds. Instagram is giving brands the ability to make their own “wrapped.” Ubisoft is walking back its “energy-efficient” NFT project after YouTube dislikes it 95%. For the first time, Disney has elected a woman as chairman of the board. Spoiler Alert: Peloton does not fair well in the new Sex and the City reprise. And speaking of workouts, a new study showed people will go to the gym for money. Surprising, huh? What’s not surprising is that China is low-key threatening countries that have announced a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. But don’t worry, “Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to attend, despite his country being banned from competing due to a doping scandal in 2014.”
Ikea Island. Around 30 people—both employees and customers—were marooned in an Ikea for a “fun” sleepover after a huge snowstorm blew into Aalborg, Denmark. The group slept in showroom beds and survived on hot chocolate, beer, warm cinnamon buns, and other resources they could gather from the cafe area. Tbh, an evening of being surrounded by meatballs and impeccable decor kind of sounds like a dream.
Beauty Acquisitions. Loreal is set to acquire vegan skincare brand, Youth to the People. Procter & Gamble is acquiring Ouai hair care and Farmacy Beauty.
Grocery shopping as a lifestyle. The hottest new luxury experience is… grocery shopping.Erewhon, the once failing grocery store has transformed itself over the past decade, expanded into more locations, and becoming a destination hotspot for celebrities, tourists, selfie-snapping influencers (groceryfluencers?), and according to an earlier New York Times article, is “the unofficial hangout for the young, beautiful and bored.” If you’re looking for a daily $21 smoothie, this is your place.
CARLY + Absurdism / Birds might be real. Twenty-three-year-old Birds Aren’t Real founder, Peter McIndoe reveals that birds actually are not drones, and a big piece of this ironic conspiracy initiative has been to provide a community where he and other Gen Z’ers can process the post-truth society they live in, where conspiracy theories and misinformation abound. One member of the group described it as “fighting lunacy with lunacy.”
The end of the world, as we know it. The year is 3021. Civilization, as we know on earth, has come to end. How will the future beings determine what happened to cause such a great fall? Enter: Earth’s Black Box. Much like the black box on a plane that records what happened in the final moments of flights gone wrong, this earth vault meant to hold humans accountable will be constructed in Tasmania, Australia, and keep a record of Earth’s warming climate.
That was pretty heavy. To lighten the mood for the weekend, here are some robots caught in a snowy traffic jam.
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