- Opening doors of opportunity for young people
- Co-creating with fans
- Building community during COVID
- Instagram makes content curation and discovery easier
What
As graduation season comes to an end, Gen Zers brace to enter a historically dismal job market for young people. From March to April of this year, employment dropped by a quarter for workers aged 20 to 24, and 16% for those aged 20 to 29. Even once the economy rebounds, they will likely be subject to compete for jobs against people who hold more professional experience. To help quell this negative impact, Natty Ice is stepping in again to expand its efforts in supporting young grads. As we shared in our previous letter, they hosted a virtual graduation ceremony last month on Facebook Live with celebrity guest speakers. Now they’re rolling out their Natty Ice Flavor Innovation Internship program. Their job post was live on Indeed through May 17th and candidates were required to post a “photo, sketch, doodle or tweet of their idea for a new Natty Light flavor innovation” on social with the hashtags #NattyIntern and #contest, as well as the application.
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Takeaway
The past couple of months have demonstrated the opportunity and the importance of brands to taking a more active role in helping people mend the gaps the world is presenting them. While our brand has executed multiple campaigns aimed at giving students the opportunity to cultivate some career skills outside of the classroom, we think this will be ripe territory to continue exploring.
What
Alt-Pop stand-out Charli XCX’s latest album, how i’m feeling now, was praised as an honest, emotional window into her quarantined life. Now, less than 2 weeks after its initial release, Charli is asking her fans to remix the album for her. She posted all of the album’s stems (the individual sound streams a song is comprised of) to her Twitter, inviting fans to remix them however they’d like, with Charli’s favorite remixes set to eventually be re-released as a B Side follow-up. In a similar vein, JK Rowling is releasing her new story “The Icabog” by way of chapter installments online, and asking her young readers to create illustrations that can fill the pages of the final print version upon its release later this year.
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Takeaway
Fans want to feel like they can play a role in the story of the figures they admire and follow. As we continue to explore partnerships with different influencers, how can we build on executions like What Whack Wears to create partnerships that allow them to connect with their audiences in ways they never have before?
What
Bringing people together is challenging in 2020. Nonetheless, we’re seeing several unique examples of brands and grassroots initiatives fostering remote collaboration and community. The Nearness Project - brainchild of creatives Anna White and Alia Wilhelm - is making waves as a home for people to seek and share inspiration from each other's experiences during COVID, self-reflect, and open conversations about mental health - akin to group art therapy. Spotify’s new Group Sessions feature will allow playlist hosts to share playback control with friends nearby as a way to make the listening experience more communal. On Zoom, we’re seeing groups of complete strangers [sometimes 200+] come together for virtual concerts and events based on shared fandom. Even Buzzfeed has introduced a new multiplayer mode to its classic quizzes, allowing friends to simultaneously find out which Family Guy character they are based on their personality.
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Takeaway
There is a pent-up hunger for connection right now - whether with friends or strangers. How can we build on the collaborative ethos of our brand and past student campaigns to inspire creative collaboration moving forward?
What
Instagram is making it easier to curate and group together content around a particular topic. The social platform’s new ‘Guide’ tab feature allows creators to curate their images, videos, and text in a single place to make it easier for their audience to discover new recommended content. Currently, the feature is meant to focus on health & wellness content to help people navigate the current pandemic, with future plans of broadening the scope of content.
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Takeaway
As Adobe continues expand the relevance of creativity to different interests, Instagram Guide could be a unique space to help us better target and connect with our audience around specific passion points.