The return of humans 🤖, sober partying 🫖 and Silicon Valhalla 🇸🇪. Accidental Insights #6 is here.
"When the newsletter arrives, it's almost weekend". –Account person and reader.
Hi and welcome to this week’s newsletter. I’ve tried to change the structure of the newsletter a little bit and introduced some new sections. Hope that you like it.
Update from the Strategic Accidents HQ: I played a small part in helping out with a Burnt Tongue Treatment for Mode Cold Brew.
As always, Accidental Insights is all about combating gatekeeping – insights belong to everyone. So please share this newsletter with your friends, enemies, and colleagues.
Also, big thanks to everybody who sent positive feedback, and even more thanks to those who tipped me off about stuff to write about. Keep it coming, please. Here we go!
INSIGHT DOWNLOAD
The most interesting things I’ve read, seen, thought about, or debated the last two weeks. High and low.
→ B2B moves to brand land. The latest B2B report from Brand Finance highlights how some of the world's strongest brands right now are B2B brands (it wasn’t like that 15 years ago). The most interesting point is that brand is essential because B2B buying usually demands that many different stakeholders with various amounts of knowledge of the supplier landscape agree. A well-known brand is a smooth way to get buy-in from all the least informed. When I talk to agency founders, many tell me they spend more time working with B2B companies, and I also get more requests for brand positioning from pure B2B players.
→ Work life balance goes dark mode. Investment firm KKR claims, “if you want to be a private-equity dealmaker, you can start by getting up from your desk.” Uber’s CEO states that his employees “can go elsewhere if they don’t like his RTO changes”. Skims co-founder and Good American CEO Emma Grede says that prioritizing work-life balance is not a recipe for success; it’s a red flag. Y Combinator and Mercor-backed startup Corgi is taking it to the next level with 6-7 day workweeks. Anton Osika (Lovable) and Joel Hellemark (Sana) are defending the 60-hour workweek. It’s evident that the honeymoon is over for everyone seeking work-life balance, and the talent market has become a buyer’s market. The news might not have hit Matilda Djerf yet because she is cutting staff to save her business, which has struggled since that article about her fearful management style and excluding bathroom habits.
→ Alt deletes pop. Harper’s Bazaar claims this summer will be “Alt Girl Summer” as a contrast to last year’s Sabrina Carpenter, Tate McRae and Chappell Roan. This year, “women who have paved their own way with their distinct sounds” will launch albums – Lorde, Haim, and Addison Rae. At the underground end of alternative music, Dazed reports NYC’s underground dance music scene held an “alternative Met Gala” filled with “fierce, club kid fashion, distorted techno edits, and a collective intent on honouring the independent roots of NY fashion”. Someone just wrote in NYT Opinion that “Today’s Youth Need to Be Punk”. Soon, David W. Marx (of Ametora fame) will release his new book on how we lost counterculture and started believing that selling out is cool.
→ The return of humans, or not? Last newsletter, I reported that many companies cut engineers and new grads due to recent AI development. A day later, the pendulum swung back. Klarna announced that they are back to hiring humans again (for customer support, on a new, gig-oriented setup). McDonald’s US also announced that they are back to hiring humans On the other hand, “Everybody’s Replaceable” according to American CEOs and the wave of CEO AI memos has stated that everything that AI can solve will be solved by AI.
Silicon Valhalla? My LinkedIn feed is filled with people posting about the return of the Stockholm Startup Scene. It’s also the vibe I’ve sensed when I’ve talked to startupy people lately. It’s deeply fueled by the AI development (and maybe also by Trump’s tariffs). Some people have started to call it Silicon Valhalla. Sana launched “AI Initiativet” – the home PC reform of the AI age. Ash Pournouri is launching a “Soho House for Investors”. Even Peter Carlsson of Northvolt is getting 58 million SEK to make factories work more efficiently (sic!). At the same time, Stockholm’s economy has hit a downturn.
(Image borrowed from Jonas Laében)
→ Sober partying. New Yorkers head to morning sober sauna raves, which have become a thing since the city’s private health clubs started pushing for social events. Gen Z is shifting from bars to teahouses as their favourite spot for socializing. Coffee raves are also becoming a thing in cafés across the globe.
→ Sexy wellness and beyond. The sexual wellness category is bigger than toys and mouth sprays. Kourtney Kardashian’s supplement brand Lemme is launching a sexual wellness product line. Mienne is a brand that delivers “skincare formulas for everyday eroticism”. Chandelier Creative (Rhode! Khaite! Equinox!) seems to be in charge of the brand. Both brands used Julia Fox as a key face for the launch.
→ The end of mainstream culture? None of the 25 movie stars who could drive Americans to theaters are under 30. I wrote about the tracksuit study a while ago, claiming that only 2% globally thought Brat Summer was the most significant cultural moment of 2024. I clicked on into the comment section on one of many Insta posts about Lisa’s (arguably one of the world’s biggest pop stars right now) Met Gala clothing, and most comments stated, “Who is she?”. Is media and culture too fragmented, and are there so many creators that becoming a mainstream star is almost impossible today?
→ Intimate experiences. Fashion brands are starting apartment shops where you need to make an appointment to be able to shop. I visited the interim Balue Café in a forgotten part of Södermalm, where you could have an individual coffee experience and pay between 85-225 SEK for a cup of drip coffee. At the same time, you watch the guy pouring it and listen to him give a short lecture on coffee. It also looks like BrewLab has a similar concept on Sundays, but I haven’t checked it out yet. I once worked with the CEO of a very successful low-price chain, and he said, “Either you position yourself on low price or luxury, everything else is worthless”. According to this, he might have been right.
Newsletter merchandise. Brands on Substack have been a thing for a while and are growing. But we are also seeing the opposite. FeedMe has been pushing merch for a while, and so has Airmail. Dirt is also pushing hard for its hats. I read Status sometimes, and now I've found out they also have a merch line. Brand stretch is real when you sell intellectual capital, taste, and status. Strategic Accidents “The Fun in Funnel” merch is now available, but the only way to get it is to ask me in person.
INSPIRATIONAL INSIGHTS
Interesting campaigns, products, and experiences to be inspired by.
Hinge - No Ordinary Love. Hinge’s latest campaign is a Substack with love stories about couples. They have also released it as a book, and the art direction is awesome.
Mercedes-Benz x Gustaf Westman is launching this week as a part of MB’s “Class of Creators” project.
Fashion goes anime. Within 24 hours, Loewe and Hermes launched anime-inspired ads. Both are amazing, this means you shouldn’t copy them but instead come up with something new.
COMMENTARY INSIGHTS
Me rambling on about stuff that seems to be the talk of town or the talk of the internet.
Airbnb is becoming the company of everything. Either this is the least strategic idea ever (Porter – strategy is what not to do) or as smart as Amazon when they figured out that people want to buy everything at Amazon. You can even buy a day with Sabrina Carpenter.
News media is having a renaissance for PR consultants since it’s the main source for the information that AI chatbots gives us. Maybe you don’t need to rethink your PR strategy for the AI age.
BEYOND INSIGHTS
Stuff that’s relevant for anyone in marketing. Hence, exciting job openings, new third places to freelance work, or random gossip.
🍽️ Agrikultur is back, but this time at Slussen. In the future I might write a special report on the developments at Slussen since it’s the Strategic Accidents HQ and the new hotspot for creative agencies.
🎓 Berghs is the first European School to be the most awarded at Young Ones. Congratulations!
💼 H&M is looking for a global social media planner
☕️ Pascal is now open in Hagastaden, and the interior looks stunning.
That’s all for this week. See you in two weeks, and don’t forget to share Accidental Insights with your friends.