Issue #187

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This is issue no. 187. The last issue had a 🔥49.06% open rate with 5.98% of you going to this article on Kith's eCommerce rise.

Brief: How Tech Ate Media and Our Minds
Brief: Ford Invests in Argo AI
Brief: Nike Scores Record High in Granted Patent Applications

I regard it as a big idea, like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don't have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I think AR is that big, it’s huge. I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining.

-
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

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Today's Top Intelligence (10 Reads)

Last Word: What Hodinkee Accomplished



Over at the vibrant LeanLuxe Slack Chat, I banter with luxury business founders or as P. Munford calls them "Modern Luxury Companies." One of their utmost concerns that they have is a changing retail market forcing them to sell higher priced SKU's in online-only environments. For brick and mortar retailers, this can be a frightening shift.

This past week, Hodinkee (a successful watch blog and eCommerce vertical) released 36 Vacheron Constantin watches priced at $45,000 per. All stock was gone within three hours. Absolutely amazing.

From their native coverage of the product:

This 36-piece limited edition is the result of over a year’s worth of meetings, conversations, and collaboration between us here at HODINKEE, and the creative team at Vacheron Constantin. Choosing the model on which to base our project was simple. The Historiques 1955 Cornes de Vache is exactly the type of timepiece that we love – a subtle homage to a great piece of horological history, but with several tweaks that make it even more cohesive. Christian Selmoni, Vacheron’s Artistic Director and a friend of Ben’s since his earliest days in the industry, did a masterful job with the platinum and rose gold watches, adding a tachymeter scale, streamlining the lugs, and carefully refining the proportions of the original piece from 1955.

One of the theses of 2PML is the on-going convergence of media and eCommerce, a practice that I spend countless hours studying and facilitating each week. There are a dozen or so media companies who could build similar operations, working together to achieve positive outcomes. This success was a huge nod for a growing methodology thought to have been extinct after the separation of Thrillist and Jackthreads. The Ben Lerer / Jason Ross eBaby was an early adopter of this practice. It's grown up quite a bit since 2012 and there are quite a few "content commerce" players who are succeeding in the space.  - @web