Can we all agree Green Day still rocks? 🎸

New year, new me.

I’m a big fan of January energy. The new year, new goals and a fresh start. Sign me up! For most of us, the rhythm is the same every year. Dusting off that old gym membership and setting the alarm a few minutes earlier. Maybe you even committed to Dry January. Or just Damp January? No judgment here. Progress over perfection, my friend.

When we think of the new year with our marketing caps on, there’s a similar anticipation. We look forward to how certain brands will evolve, which strategies will take off, and what campaigns we’ll see from our favorites. Here’s some of the Tegan team’s thoughts on the year ahead.

Kelsey– I might be stealing Katie’s favorite product thunder, but I’ve been loving watching Poppi’s rise to the top! Their current Soda’s Back! campaign is saturating the social space. It’s leaning into the notion that drinking soda doesn’t have to be shameful. While I prefer Olipop, Poppi is totally owning the prebiotic soda space.

Ryan– Open AI or Midjourney. I’m curious how they’ll make AI tools more and more user friendly, and continue to spin the negative views on AI.

Julianne– I am always interested to see what Adobe is doing, especially with Illustrator. In the past years, they have added a cool 3D tool, a reverse font identifier, and a mockup creator. Plus, they do something that annoys me each year. I hate their new font organizer! But it will be interesting to see how they implement their AI tools without alienating their core base of artists/creators.

Laura– Geico because they brought the Caveman back!! Curious to see if they keep running with it this year. We saw this ad last night and loved it.

Carley– The Gap. With stores closing over the last few years, and inventory steadily decreasing, I’m curious if it will make it through the end of 2024. They still hold a semblance of their once iconic casual, American style, but I’m worried the clock is ticking. Where will a girl get a decent priced denim jacket if their doors close?

Important footnote- we will also be closely watching Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce in the year 2024. In depth analysis and passionate hot takes to come.

Top Stories

Zuckerburg plans for AGI.

The latest in the AI craze is the race to achieve artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg is certainly on board. He’s announced significant resources dedicated to the technology and by the end of the year, predicts Meta will own more than 340,000 of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs- the industry’s chip of choice for building generative AI. Zuck’s end goal is to release Meta’s AGI version as open source software for everyone.

Sounds amazing… until it doesn’t. Critics claim pursuing the technology is “a bit like giving people a template to build a nuclear bomb.” This article even teases out How Artificial General Intelligence could make humans obsolete. No big.

Let’s back it up a bit. AGI is the ability for technology to achieve complex human capabilities like common sense and consciousness. Experts are all across the map on what AGI will actually look like in our everyday, but everyone agrees that progress is being made towards a new form of intelligence.

AI analyst Ian Hogarth defines AGI as “God-like AI” that consists of a “user intelligent computer” that “learns and develops autonomously” and understands context without need for human intervention. It’s the “without need for human” part that raises a red flag. The potential emergence of AGI has alarmed experts and politicians around the world who fear such a system, or a combination of multiple AGI systems, could evade human control and threaten humanity. Super.

Sephora kids and TikTok drama.

The latest social media firestorm is swirling around beauty retailer Sephora in response to the US locations’ apparent shifting demographic.

Shoppers have taken to TikTok, flooding the platform with posts complaining that young girls are taking over beauty product stores, such as Sephora and Ulta Beauty. The main idea? If you see a kid at Sephora, run. The hashtags #sephora and #sephorakids are currently trending, revealing the conflict in full force. Stores are shown messed up, product displays trashed, and testimonies of run-ins with young, unruly customers abound.

The Pew Research Center found nearly 1 in 2 US teens say they’re on YouTube or TikTok several times a day. Almost 1 in 5 say they’re on it constantly. With access to social media, and the rising trend of “get ready with me” and “makeup haul” videos, Gen Alpha’s latest obsession makes sense. Add excessive social media use with a heightened concern for one’s appearance (come on, you know you couldn’t pass up a mirror when you were 12), and you have the perfect storm. This past Christmas only brought this obsession even more to the forefront. Many parents noted how their pre-teens weren’t asking for dolls or roller skates. Instead, kids wanted face masks, serums and creams.

Brands have taken notice. Several cosmetics and skincare brands have launched items to serve not only tweens, but even younger demographics. Yawn is a company that launched to offer make-up and skincare for customers who are aged 3+. And Gryt, which launched in 2023, says its products are for tweens and teens, but can be used for those as young as eight years old.

To my own eight year old daughter- Taylor, if you’re reading this, the answer is no.

Best of the Week

Tips and Tricks

The state of email marketing. There’s an entire excerpt about how the Tegan Digest is the most influential newsletter of the century, but we can’t link that part for some reason…

The More You Know
From Freakonomics Radio, the No Stupid Questions podcast. Episode 176 teases out the overwhelm that comes with too many options, and lays out practical explanations for our decision anxiety.

What to Watch
The Emmys brought this one back on our radar, and now we can’t sleep at night. The 2022 miniseries tells the true story of a convict who strikes a dangerous deal with the FBI. Watch now, sleep later.

Weekly Mix
One of Jimmy Fallon’s latest bits involved a subway concert featuring him and Green Day. It’s fantastic. And it took us back to the emo soundtrack of our youth. Rock on.