The sun is out, but you better get your iced coffee quick because Pret has cancelled its coffee subscription. Find out all about it, as well as the recent campaigns and tech updates the team have been talking about lately.
If there’s one shoe brand you’re bound to have noticed in the past year or so, it’s Hoka. With their distinctive designs, vibrant colourways, and incredible comfort, the brand has made a considerable impact in the running community.
In a bid to ramp up their takeover of the running world, they recently launched a global advertising campaign titled “We Are All Born to Fly”, featuring an eagle flying over the French Alps, providing an aerial view of runners below. The 60-second ad is a nod to the brand’s origins, as it was founded in the region, and highlights their vibrant and diverse running community around the world.
Since its founding in 2009, Hoka has gained popularity amongst runners due to its active outreach to running clubs and its comfortable and fun running shoes, which has helped it surpass $1billion in sales in the past year.
The brand has been seen as a major disruptor in the sportswear space, competing against giants such as Nike and Adidas. The weakening of established brands has allowed smaller sportswear brands such as Hoka and OnRunning to gain a foothold in the market by creating stronger relationships with consumers and prioritising direct to consumer channels.
Watch the full campaign video here, or read more through this article.
It’s a tough day for Pret subscription holders, as the coffee branch has announced
that from September 3rd they’re scrapping their 5-free-coffees-a-day offering. Now before those of you with a monthly subscription run to your local coffee shop to stock up on your five daily iced matcha frappuccinos while you still have the chance, it’s not all bad news.
In fact, one of the reasons Pret is binning the current service is in favour of a more accessible model (now we’re listening).
Sitting at £30 a month, the current plan is pretty hefty, but it does give subscribers 5 free coffees a day as well as 20% discount on food.
Under the new model, subscribers will get up to five half-priced drinks every day, but for just £5 a month, a plan that the business feels will be more popular amongst its customers (although it will go up to £10 a month after March 2025, something they’re shouting about less).
In addition, the business is reducing the price of popular items such as croissants and filter coffee, again with the goal of making them more affordable.
Personally, we think £5 a month for half priced coffees sounds pretty great, but have Pret made a mistake in changing the current plan? Find out more here, and let us know what you think…smart business move, or big business fail?
The idea of talking to your favourite influencer or celebrity through an AI chat bot might have sounded like the premise of a sci-fi show a few years ago, but it’s slowly becoming reality.
Meta has launched the first stage of its AI Studio, which allows Instagram creators to build AI versions of themselves that can interact and talk with fans via DMs.
These AI chat bots will be able to answer questions in the style and tone of the creator, with Meta clearly indicating that these are bots to avoid confusion or deception for users.
The main use of these AI chat bots is to handle fact-based queries and questions that fans might have for creators, but there are concerns about the authenticity and value of these interactions.
In addition, Meta has announced that they plan to expand this to user-generated AI characters that will interact with people in different ways.
While this is a big update for the platform, it’s not all change over at Insta HQ. In a recent video on his own profile, CEO Adam Mosseri shut down questions on plans to move to Long-form videos, saying they’re not symbiotic with the platform’s purpose.
Apple has partnered with Taboola to handle the ad inventory for its Apple News and Stocks app. Taboola will sell ads that run in Apple’s apps’ main feeds and within articles for certain publishers, using native ad placement intended to blend in with surrounding content.
Taboola is known for chumboxes, or ad boxes formatted to look like news stories that you see at the bottom of articles, often with click-bait headlines.
Apple is likely looking to take advantage of Taboola’s massive global footprint and direct relationship with publishers and advertisers as the advertising industry continues to expand.
The partnership is a sign that Apple recognises the need for a robust sales operation to grow its advertising business – which has grown to a total estimated revenue of $10.34 billion this year.
Deals like this are becoming more and more common, as more companies are entering the advertising space and building advertising businesses to make their services more affordable and widely available.
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