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Date November 4, 2020

Sunnier Side Of The Home Office – November 4, 2020

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"What I loved about this story is there was a story of positivity and hope that involved human beings and the natural world being in one place. It was an opportunity to expand people’s perceptions of what the relationship between us and the wild can be.” 

- Pippa Ehrlich, director and editor of “My Octopus Teacher”, Netflix's documentary on a man's relationship with an octopus in the Great African Sea Forest off the tip of South Africa. Many call it the antidote to 2020. 

Twitch Gets A Beauty Makeover
By: Ben Thomas 

Before COVID-19 hit, the worlds of beauty and gaming were (mostly) mutually exclusive. Sure, some of the more innovative makeup brands were dipping their toes into the Twitch waters, but beauty was at home on YouTube and Instagram.

But with Twitch’s huge spike in popularity, and new audiences flocking to the platform, beauty brands are showing interest in the once-gaming-now-a-bit-of-everything streaming site. While Instagram and YouTube can feel more scripted when it comes to beauty content, Twitch is laidback and authentic. It’s a platform built for interactivity, giving fans more opportunity to be seen, and to interact with beauty influencers like they would at an IRL meet-and-greet. And the ability to mix conversation with gaming streams creates a more engaging backdrop for beauty content; influencers can talk about the acne masks they are wearing while playing Fortnite, or show off their body art during a Call of Duty mission.

It’s an appealing proposition for brands who lean into influencer marketing. Commercials can be played during livestreams and click-to-buy links added to the chat, allowing streamers to buy products that are being used or talked about during the natural flow of the stream.

Influencers of A Shopping Dimension
By: Jiho Chung

Less than three months ago, Facebook launched Shops across its two platforms: Facebook and Instagram; allowing users to purchase directly from the app. This couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune time following Amazon’s July release of its Live Creator app, dedicated to influencers shopping live online. With speculation that brick-and-mortar retail will decrease 14% YOY to $4.2 trillion dollars while e-commerce sales will increase to an estimated $709.8 billion in the United States, leveraging live shopping influencers for one’s brand is just instrumental.

When 42% of Amazon’s 720 million reviews from March through September were found unreliable and fraudulent, consumers are turning to influencers for both personal entertainment and brand credibility. Also, unlike awareness-driven campaigns, brands can easily detect how effective influencers are in real-time based on immediate online sales impact. For example, from the 40,000 who tuned in, YouTube influencer Nikita Dragun’s live shopping event on Instagram drove five thousand makeup items to be added to cart in her segment alone. Last, influencers can further evangelize both brand and products with a healthy dose of Q&A via DMs and live stream comments; closing the gap between prospects to customers furthermore.

As we approach the holiday gift giving season, don’t be surprised how your favorite social media celebrities become your favorite stylists, tech gurus, and overall shopping buddies.
Your Burrito's Environmental Footprint
By: Emily Menken

Overthinkers rejoice - Chipotle has released a new “foodprint” calculator called Real Foodprint, a model that will tally up the environmental impact of each individual menu item and show diners their final orders’ metric. Now, you can overanalyze even the simplest of choices: pinto or black bean?

Chipotle launched the Foodprint with the help of Bill Nye the Science Guy on TikTok. Given Chipotle’s college-aged fanbase and the environmental concern of that age demographic within the United States, plus the 2020 Election season, the launch makes sense. 

The foodprint mimics the “build your own burrito” ability within the Chipotle app so it is a familiar interface and experience for diners. The tool was initially created for internal sustainability research at Chipotle to understand their environmental profit and loss, something companies rely on to analyze the effects of their supply chain. Chipotle found the results helpful as a company -- but also translatable, and interesting to, a wider audience.

The foodprint will force consumers to realize the total impact of their food by taking into account water saved, soil health, and atmospheric carbon, among other components. It reacts to the addition of menu items like beef, which releases 181.7 grams of carbon into the atmosphere.

Information is sourced from sustainability research firm HowGood, using industry averages as their base. Per FastCompany, “That means your chicken burrito’s environmental impact is being compared to the footprint of a chicken sandwich from McDonald’s or Popeyes.”
In case you were wondering, Kanye West got around 60,000 votes across 12 states were he appeared on the ballot.