Hey Snackers,
20 years ago tomorrow: nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the September 11th attacks on New York, DC, and in Pennsylvania. It's a day that changed the world forever. It's also a day of Service and Remembrance, when Americans are called on to volunteer, support each other, and find strength in unity.
All three major US stock indexes dipped yesterday on concerns about slowing economic growth and rising Covid cases.
Throwing major shade... First, Facebook copied (aka: #Zucked) Snap's stories on Insta. Then, FB announced plans to launch a smartglass rival to Snap Spectacles. Yesterday, FB unveiled those smartglasses — and they're called "Stories." FB teamed up with Italian glasses giant Luxottica to launch Ray-Ban branded glasses. FB's first smart glasses are about everything the selfie stick isn't: first-person perspective.
Lab goggle vibes... Smart glasses are Big Tech's holy grail, but all efforts have flopped so far: "Google Glass" was an epic fail. Snap lost $40M on 300K unsold AR Spectacles. But FB's smart glasses have one key advantage: they don't look like smart glasses.
FB’s big opportunity = unbranding itself... Stories look like Ray-Bans, not FB-branded gadgets — unlike FB's other hardware, Oculus and Portal. While FB supplies the tech, Ray-Ban handles the design and sales — a key difference from other tech-designed smart glasses. FB has admitted it has a public "trust deficit." By partnering with a well-loved brand, FB is giving Stories a higher chance of success.
Beautiful (cell) reception... Verizon is celebrating in the endzone. Yesterday, the NFL and Verizon announced a 10-year 5G partnership. By installing faster 5G connectivity in NFL stadiums, Verizon wants to foster new in-person experiences for football fans.
Brands go long on NFL partnerships... because they want the NFL's huge — and hugely engaged — audience. Last year, 71 of TV’s 100 most-viewed events were NFL games. Meanwhile: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile spend billions competing for the 5G market — which is expected to hit $148B by 2028 — but have still struggled to win customers. If football fans need 5G to get the most premium access at Cowboys games, they may migrate to Verizon.
Defining the relationship is key... and brands want to make it official. Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Nike, and Verizon pay as much as $100M+ per season to be official NFL partners. Thanks to corporate partnerships, NFL revenue increased 10% last season — despite empty stadiums. Similarly, the Tokyo Olympics had the worst TV viewership in 33 years, but the International Olympics Committed (IOC) still raked in a record $2B+ in global sponsorships — because Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Airbnb paid big bucks to be “official” Olympic partners.
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Snap
ID: 1832226
Clarification to September 8th Theranos story: The charges Holmes and Balwani face are from a criminal indictment first filed in June 2018 by a federal grand jury, separate from the SEC fraud charges, which Theranos and Holmes agreed to settle in 2018.