This week, Oren threw out ideas to save Lacoste for the youth of America, and Clayton showed off some excellent garments from Toast.

In this HYPER, we talk photo licensing, product remixes, and kitchen sink collabs.

Let’s do it.

The New Standard in Photo Licensing

If you take your art direction seriously and are tired of using bleak stock images... you gotta check out stills.com.It's a design-oriented photo licensing platform for brand and agency teams that want unique, highly curated images that will elevate any project. They've solved a lot of great pain points for creative teams who license imagery like:  

1. Intuitive search tools: You can search by HEX, camera angle, and even lighting and framing. 

2. Unlimited watermarked downloads: You can download unlimited watermarked images so you can freely pitch projects and mockup ideas to your clients. 

3. Boards. Whether you’re working on a client project or finding images with the same color, you can organize and store all your images in one place with unlimited Boards. 

 4. Team access: You can invite your team to collaborate on Boards with unlimited team seats for your workflow. You can also invite clients as well so they can share real-time feedback.

It's the perfect bridge between stock photo sites and full custom imagery for teams that need access to consistent, campaign-worthy imagery on demand. If you don't want to settle for imagery in your designs, 

If you don't want to settle for imagery in your designs, start licensing with Stills today at stills.com!

_{This segment is in partnership with Stills.}

How Bandit took over the Olympic Trials

If you haven’t kept up with the Olympic runner trials recently, my god. You’re missing one of the more genuine, genius marketing plays we’ve seen in a while.

Bandit Running recently launched a campaign during the Olympics to sign signed track and field athletes to short-term deals by supplying them with financial resources to cover their travel costs while at trials and giving them unbranded—unsponsored—athletic gear.

If an athlete makes the Olympics, they’re easily identifiable with their all-black, unbranded kit, and should a footwear brand want to sign them to a deal, they’re not under any obligation to stay on since the agreement runs out.

Here’s the full video explaining their philosophy if you’re interested.

But overall, what an absolute genius move by Bandit. Why?

1. They’re heroes to the underdog

2. This gives them untold amounts of publicity and effectively free marketing

3. It’s a unique way of activating their products in situations where they'd otherwise have to pay for it.

Remixing is the new originality

There’s a fascinating shift happening within consumer goods.

Let’s start with the notion that originality is gone. Nothing is original anymore. And while guys like Virgil taught us this (which is why his “The Ten” partnership with Nike was pivotal for its time), brands like MSCHF effectively took it to new heights.

How?

First, MSCHF exposed our desire and thirst to do it for the ‘Gram. We crave virality, and they’ve successfully fed off of that with their drops.

Second, they’ve proved that at a time when nothing is original, creating a product that already exists and remixing it slightly with subtle (or loud) design details. From the famous red boots to the classic Timbs, they’ve positioned what can be done on the brand side to create products that stand out in a sea of sameness.

It’s been uniquely emulated across different categories, like Nicole MchLaughlin’s ongoing partnership with HOKA where they use upcycled materials to enhance existing footwear collections.

Goods & Services’ business model is taking existing footwear and flipping the soles to make an entirely different shoe.

Whether you’re using this as a revenue-driving or a brand marketing play to create more brand awareness, there’s a path for either.

The kitchen sink of collabs

Recent partnerships we’ve come across and loved.

Palace ran it back with Stella Artois, this time partnering on a Wimbledon-themed activation, where the beer cans had tennis balls inside 🍺 🎾 

3sixteen and Crocs made a clog together, and the creative positioning was a work of art 🪨 

Madewell Men’s and William Ellery tag-teamed on an adventure collection that involved making a fold-up microfibre towel that doubles as a chess table ♟️ 

Hyper Reports

Check out our market reports. We spend many hours researching markets, categories, and brands & products within the consumer space so you don’t have to.

• How to Source Blanks 101 — HERE — a guide to finding and producing your own merch

• Reports on Running, Golf, and Tennis — HERE — a guide to each sport, the market opportunities, and how to launch your own brand

Inquiries? Shoot us a note here: [email protected]

We’d love to chat!

Oren & Clayton ❤️ you