No one thing is enough.
Growth must be in multiple verticals. Flywheel, we like to say. Creators, celebs, media brands, cornershops, buskers? Everyone must have multiple lines of business and revenue and engagement. Relatedly, individuals must not have any hobbies anymore, everything ought to be a side hustle.
But I digress.
Jennifer Lawrence launched a haircare brand. A celeb conjuring another ‘revenue stream’? Not everyone enjoyed it.
I did though, very much enjoy a wonderfully textured spot from Senegal.
There are also vanishing exes, spiralling AI film costs, and some email zombies being slaughtered (or were they zombie emails?).
Slide in then, to our weekly collision of creativity, craft, tech and brands.
Enjoy,
Shakey
Curated/Cuts: Urban water & erasable exes
Celebrity Mess: JLaw’s passion for hair is real
Destroy The Unread: Email Zombies
AI vs 35mm? Cheap isn’t always inexpensive
➕ · Creator events in India · Netflix’s AI discovery · GTA VI last of its kind? ·
1. Curated/Cuts
· It is Noon ·
Kirene, in Senegal
Loving the texture and energy in this spot from Senegal. Kirene is a brand of water, and 25 years in they want to reiterate their roots. While the ‘subtle’ brand integration is a bit on the nose occasionally, I still enjoyed being taken on the ride- it felt beautiful and human.
I will admit there might be some “outsider looking in” joy here; I can’t claim to be familiar with Senegalese culture and you could argue the distance brings disproportionate enjoyment? But I’d rather not dwell on that over analysis, and embrace the feel of something refreshing and real.
Production: Couro Prod · CMO: Nabil Sargi Mccann dakar CD Elysée Liali
Directed by: Kes-Tchaas Eccleston & Xavier Damase
Cinematographer: Sam Meyer · Music: Orchestra Baobab
· Begone, Exes·
Canva is helping us erase our exes. Its a cute spot, and I can see it drawing many smiles, even maybe making Canva feel more like a friend than a service. But the little wet blanket in the corner of my head must offer a word- toying with memories and twisting records of the past seems… off, to me. It’s the kind of thing that grimy characters in dystopian stories hark back to as the time ‘when it all began’ :)
Unfortunately, Canva released this in the same week they announced layoffs & restructuring impacting over 20% of their workforce. There’s an incongruous connection there, but I don’t want it.
2. A Celebrity’s Mes°
There is, arguably some fatigue around celebrity brands. By all accounts in the US, yes; but in general, having famous people who you might well relate to, given the amount of social / parasocial connections we seem to have with them; having them also deciding to sell you stuff, can be a bit of a letdown.
Jennifer Lawrence recently, and famously, joined Instagram. She has been off social media mostly, and came on board with a typically stripped down, quirky post about wanting a happy friendly place. “I’m giving it a shot, and if anyone says anything negative, even thinks anything mean, I’m gonna quit”, she declared. There was some joy in seeing this, as fans have come to expect ‘JLaw’ to always be real, cute, awkward, clumsy, genuine and unaffected.
It took all of four posts, though, for her to launch her new haircare brand, mes (pronounced mess and written mes°, for whatever reason).
I was drawn to what seemed to be an interesting video. It asks people to “just dance”, and is a fun piece, without ever elevating into an inspiring watch (though you feel like it could have). Somehow, the very ‘diverse’ profiles of people dancing didn’t quite leave me feeling like I had watched something actually, wildly varied and diverse.
‘Unbothered Beauty’ is its mantra, which fits well with the celebrity founder’s persona. But a scroll through the comments on IG— 5,000 and counting— shows people can be quite bothered indeed. While there are many enthusiastic fans pledging their love & loyalty– “Yeah, buying whatever you’re selling”, and ““ik you’re using me but it worked“– I was struck by the running vibe of scepticism and disillusionment.
Disappointment, that she had gone the same way as so many celebs.
Fatigue, that she too after all just wanted us to buy stuff.
Annoyance, at the perceived disconnect with the real world.
Cynicism, around how her arrival on Instagram was not so real after all, and merely timed to launch yet another celebrity brand.
A selection:
“Jen I love you babe but out here we’re sick of celebs selling us stuff, it would have been fun to just have you on ig”
“The world really needs better celebrities, we’re over this.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool if wealthy people used their money to help make the world a better place, rather than make more products for us to buy?”
”Every road leads to capitalism.”
“Why do you ‘celebrities’ feel the need to sell us stuff? When the world is facing economic recession, wars and crises. C’mon.”
“I thought you were just here to be a person online. Should’ve guessed promotion was the reason.“
Or maybe just the most simple- “thought you were different”
Lawrence might seem like the type of actor who would roll her eyes at the celebrity–to–beauty brand pipeline. She has an Oscar and a production company and just shot a Martin Scorsese movie alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. Why spend time shilling a volume mist?
This piece looks for the answers to that question, and starts off with J Law saying, “There is an undeniable energetic thing that happens when you’re creating things, whether it’s a movie or a product”. And while it is quite an interesting read / profile, I don’t think the answer really goes much beyond that.
And that’s fine too. Celebrities are allowed to do things because they want to and have a passion that fans may not ‘get’. (Fans tend to think they ‘know’ their idols much more now than pre-social media fans, IMO).
But it remains an interesting little debate around what fans expect from their icons, and at what point a foray into a ‘business venture’ is viewed simply as a cynical money grab.
Ah, being a celebrity- it’s a tough life, eh?
3. The Unread
Die inbox madness, die!
Apparently there is research showing the average person has more than 1,000 unread emails. Never one for the mediocre, I reached out to my high-achieving friend who shared this screenshot of his inbox badge. Badge of Honour, I say.
All to say that the fun people at Uncommon Creative & Resn made a video game that manifests all those hundreds (thousands!) of unread spammy emails in your inbox as undead zombies. It’s called The Unread!
“Setting out to gamify one of modern life’s most disliked admin tasks, The Unread transforms unread emails into the undead, for users to blast out of all existence.”
“Everyone wants to make tedious jobs more efficient. But what if you just made them fun?”
That’s what Rik Campbell, CEO of Resn, has said. I like.
Play just for fun, or really mean it and annihilate your inbox- here.
4. AI = 35mm?
“AI Could Make Filmmaking Costlier Than the 35mm Era”
Over the years, I have often found myself noting (and evangelising!) how pre-production is a commonly undervalued part of the production process. This gains a certain sharpness in the unscripted, factual and short form spaces, possibly because we ‘wing it’ more there; but having worked across all of those as well as commercials, I know how significant serious and meaningful pre-production can be.
So I found myself nodding sanguinely when I read some takes coming out of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest.
“Preproduction was meticulous when every take burned through film stock, then digital let crews shoot and cut freely without extra cost.
With AI, every re-render is paid for again.”
In a panel where two Korean studios shared their experiences making features and commercials with AI, one distinct take was that AI costs have the potential to skyrocket. Without detailed pre-prod and a feedback process that is streamlined & and disciplined, it was felt that costs with AI projects could still be volatile.
Naman Ramachandran has good overview of the conversations, more instructive than panel reports can often be!
➕Quick Hits
Ben Feder reckons GTA VI, coming next week, might well be the last pre-AI blockbuster game of its kind.
Creators and stand-up comics are driving India’s live events boom. An interesting look at the events scene in India, the headline is a bit misleading. Music actually remains the biggest driver, with comedy second. “Creators are a different story. They can pull a crowd for a fan meet or a panel, but they rarely sell tickets on their own”
Netflix is launching an ‘AI Discover’ tab in a limited rollout- early, experimental ways to find something to watch. Start with themes (a mood, who you’re watching with, or how much time you have), narrow it down, see why titles are suggested, and ask to stop recommending something.
If you enjoy The Colour Bar, maybe get me a coffee ☕ and help fuel the next one?
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Till next week, go find some water… and do your hair?