Canned Tuna and Gassed Up

not "rocket science"

Coachella will livestream free on YouTube through 2026; Givenchy named Big Bang’s Taeyang as brand ambassador (a huge week for K-Pop men!); and students can carry guns at the University of Texas — but they can no longer use TikTok.

DISCORD ACQUIRES GAS, THE POPULAR APP FOR TEENS TO COMPLIMENT EACH OTHER, theverge
Since debuting last summer, Gas has tallied more than 7 million installs. It will continue as a standalone app and the team — headed up by founder Nikita Bier, who reportedly took on no outside investments — will join Discord. (Bier, as a refresher, sold his last company, a Gas-like app called TBH, to Facebook less than three months after launch.)

DIGITAL FASHION STARTUP SYKY RAISES $9.5 MILLION AND LAUNCHES FIRST NFT, voguebusiness
With its new round of funding — a Series A round led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six — they’re ready to reveal the first phase of Syky’s business: an NFT drop whose membership includes access to digital and physical events, curated fashion-tech reports, networking opportunities, access to future drops, and more.

NEW VICE EDITOR ZING TSJENG ON REACHING GEN Z AND WEATHERING DOWNTURN, pressgazette
“I don’t view it as rocket science and I think a lot of publications try and reverse engineer and knock their heads against the wall trying to be like ‘these Gen Z Zoomers. What do they want? What do they actually want?’ But I think it’s really simple – just, you know, hire them, commission them, give them the resources they need to report the stories they want to report on.”

THE LATEST TIKTOK STAR IS CANNED TUNA, wsj
They are so very late to this trend, but this insight stood out to me: Adam Bent, the chief executive of Scout Canning — which saw its revenues rise 82% to $4 million last year — said consumers were using artisan canned fish as a sort of “cultural cachet” to impress friends and family. “It’s the same kind of experience that you have with natural wine,” Mr. Bent said. “It’s kind of that next cool food item.”

TOP EXECUTIVES AT CONSULTING GIANT MCKINSEY BROKE DOWN 3 WAYS GEN Z IS TRANSFORMING THE WORKPLACE, insider
I’ve been thinking about this for more than 24 hours, so I figured I’d include it here in case you have some insights. At Davos, a McKinsey executive told the audience:

"Perhaps the defining characteristic of Gen Z is that, instead of wanting to revolutionize, Gen Z is comfortable with the idea of change through structure," Francis, who is a senior partner at McKinsey's office in São Paulo, Brazil, told Insider. "The millennial generation was like 'Let's blow up all the institutions and start from scratch'," she said, noting that Gen Z takes a more "pragmatic" approach.

Francis pointed out that Gen Z witnessed how "their parents suffered various crises around the world" – the eldest would have been 12-years-old during the 2009 recession.

"So it's like, okay, yes, I want change. But I am prepared to work that through existing structures," she adds.

…which is completely at odds with how I view Gen Z versus millennials. Don’t get me wrong; Gen Z is pragmatic — but they’ve blown up institutions far more than millennials, who fell in line and “paid the dues,” working unpaid internships and thankless assistant jobs. Right? Am I wrong? This is obviously a nuanced topic and I am not a McKinsey executive. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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P.S. A few of my favorite marketers just published The Brand Yearbook, a look back (and ahead) at the best Gen Z brands. It’s designed like an early-aughts yearbook, which will send you into a nostalgia spiral, but it will be worth it.

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One last thought:

solé @layxsnv

If I walk fast enough they won’t know