ICYMI — DROPS

If you’re new here, or missed the last few issues, we recently created DROPS, a monthly trend report series where we explore a specific consumer topic or category and dive deep into its inner workings.

In addition to the high-level and granular, we offer you tactical resources like where to find samples, how to handle merchandising, how to apply creative tactics for your own brand, and more.

In the report, you’ll find—

• Brand spotlights 🔦 

• Access to factories 📦️ 

• Product development videos 📹️ 

• Brand-building considerations 💡 

• Product development glossary 📖 

• Explanations of product materials 🔨 

• + more!

Here are our first two reports ⚡️ 

The Activewear Report on Running

The Activewear Report on Tennis

Bookmarks: the idea landfill

Look, we all know you’re (and us from time to time) guilty of hitting the save button without actually reading or watching anything. So your Bookmarks tab becomes a landfill of ideas that you never give any extra love or thought.

This week we decided to dig into our Bookmark tabs and see what stuff we’ve managed to save without reading… until now!

When what you’re running with and what you’re running on match

Our buddy Sam made a little thread about how running shoe designs reflect elements of topographic detail etched into the shoe itself, which is a minor thing to notice, but a hugely fun and important design detail to call out.

You start to see it everywhere, and it’s kind of awesome. What makes this cooler is that the product itself (the trail running shoe) is a visual reflection of the thing it’s used to run ON (the mountains, trails, hikes, dirt, rocks, etc).

Here are some good references from brands like Norda, HOKA, NB, Moncler, etc.

Make handsoap fonts great again 🧼 

If Wes Anderson were gonna design his own handsoaps, they’d probably look something like this.

Low key, though, these designs are fire. And it’s an important reminder that the best design stuff already exists; no need to reinvent.

We’re in our DTC ciggie era baby!

Farm-to-mouth

This is something we honestly didn’t see coming, but here we are.

Take a look at their website, and you’ll see just how hard they’re leaning into the narrative of organic, farmer-focused, harvested, crafted to perfection type of messaging.

But it’s still tobacco at the end of the day, and tobacco ain’t good for you!

The takeaway here is every product category is ripe for disruption on some level, even if it’s minor. You might not be able to make something truly new, but the way you reach customers and make people feel is always open to interpretation.

Website here

Personified packaging

Recently came across this packaging layout from a few years back featuring Kaffebox, a Norwegian coffee roaster, and it’s so so good. Kaffebox partnered with Herefor Studio to come up with advent-themed packaging.

Part of why the packaging is so fun (besides the fact that the packaging itself is shaped like a coffee tumbler) is that it’s a deviation from how 99.9% of all coffee beans are packaged, which is nice, outside-the-box thinking.

Gamifying customer reviews

Thingtesting recently dropped a new program called Thingtester, a review system that rewards users for sharing honest customer reviews about products of all kinds.

The more products you review, you reach new levels with points, and the more you’re rewarded. It’s a really clever idea to grow engagement for their audience.

They’re essentially crowdsourcing research, content, and reviews from within their existing community and enticing people with points they can use to redeem.

Given FTC’s new regulations around product endorsements, the review system is generally more complicated than ever. So, to have a third, independent space where people can honestly interact and share their feedback and experiences on products is important.

We hope this works.

As always, thanks for following!

-Oren & Clayton