👀 Anthro Newsletter #017 | ✨ TikTok x Shopify, Burberry, Gaming & The John Lewis Christmas Ad
Your weekly newsletter on brands, campaigns, culture and insights.
Welcome to Anthro, a weekly community newsletter featuring must read content about the best and most exciting movements by brands, with a heavy focus on culture, actionable insights and brand’s relationship to business success. Whether you’re the founder of a company, at a start-up, in an agency or in-house - this is the place for your dose of industry news. I’m trying to make this one of the most valuable emails you receive each week. If you’ve enjoyed this issue, please like it above 💗 and leave me a comment 💬
Coming at you with heartfelt and warmest wishes for Diwali this weekend. It’s the Indian festival of light, and this year it seems more poignant than ever. For those of you new to this beautiful Indian celebration, it’s about the spiritual victory of good over evil, of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. In Hindu mythology after being exiled from their home for 14 years, Ram and Sita returned home after defeating the evil demon Ravan, and on their journey home they found the road lit up with lights. Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity is especially revered around this time of year as we all light up our homes with diwas to welcome the good vibes inside.
And on that note, happy Diwali to you and yours - wishing you a new year full of prosperity, love, comfort and joy.
Here’s what you’ll learn today:
TikTok’s social commerce functionality launches in the US
How Burberry is venturing into gaming
THE JOHN LEWIS CHRISTMAS AD IS OUT! And it’s AMAZING!
TikTok has partnered with Shopify - embedding social commerce into our daily lives
TikTok is constantly in the news these days. Normally we hear about former US President Trump’s desire to ban it (God it feels so good to say “former”!), but most recently it’s all about TikTok’s new partnership with Shopify, the ecommerce provider. This is shedding light on the direction of social media, with TikTok now competing with Facebook and Instagram’s shopping functionality, and brands having the ability to diversify their social commerce efforts. Some key takeaways below, and click the link for the “How to” on setting up your TikTok shopping functionality 👀 Read the full Anthro Industry Analysis
TikTok has over 100 million highly engaged users in the US alone. Social commerce is due to grow to $253 billion by the end of this year in China. It's currently valued at just $20 billion in the US. That's a lot of room for growth 📈
TikTok's partnership with Shopify in the US is paving the way for smaller businesses - diverting people away from the Walmarts and Amazons of the internet 👛
Currently in the US, TikTok is due to roll out social commerce functionality in Europe and South East Asia in 2021 🌏
Burberry is building on its virtual world, with another foray into gaming
Remember during London Fashion Week we looked at how Burberry was the first luxury brand to livestream on Twitch? 👀 Read the full Anthro Industry Analysis. Well, since then the luxury British fashion house has partnered with China’s Tencent Games. Super cool! There’s currently an uptick in consumers wanting to align their digital lives with their physical lives - especially in China. While making your social media channels reflect your personality is one thing, being able to personalise your avatar in a game is another extension of yourself. Brands like Glossier have also ventured into games like Animal Crossing. Some interesting notes for you below on this growing and novel way of brand storytelling.
Introducing Burberry into Tencent Games’ environments “allows customers to engage with the brand in more novel and freeform ways.” - Josie Zhang, President of Burberry in China 👾
Projects like this are a prime example of where and how to merge Eastern and Western cultures according to Mars Hou, VP of Tencent Games 🎮
Tencent offers 140+ games across 200 countries, with 100s of millions of users. The potential for brand collaborations is huge 🌍
Other interesting things:
THE JOHN LEWIS CHRISTMAS AD IS OUT! Not sure if it’s EXCELLENT or I’m just PMSing. History tells me it’s excellent though 💗💗💗 Well done JL!
Super interesting thread on the future of curation/knowledge management/community - Sari Azout, Twitter
We are living through the emergence of a new business category which I believe will become an important part of our digital lives: community-curated knowledge networks (a thread on why)Community driven companies - Lolita Taub, The Community Fund
And in case you missed it:
👀 Anthro Free Guide #1: Brand Strategy 101
👀 Twitch & London Fashion Week
👀 Brand Experience: What a Non-Whisky Lover can learn from Macallan
👀 Part I interview with Mark Carroll, Creative Strategist at Pinterest
👀 Emily In Paris: The basis of market research & cultural sensitivity
👀 Part II interview with Mark Carroll
👀 The power of partnership: North Face x Gucci
👀 Interview with Vikki Chowney, Global Head of Content & Publishing at H+K
Righto, I hope you enjoyed this week’s issue of Anthro. Any feedback, tips or tricks? Hit me up in the comments or ping me on hello@anthro.global to say hi and tell me what you’d like to see in future issues.
Wishing you all the love, comfort, joy and prosperity this festive season.
Sanya 😊
Know someone who’d like this newsletter?
Or was this newsletter forwarded to you? Please do subscribe and join the club!
Written by Sanya-Jeet Thandi, a brand strategist & consultant with a love for culture, start-ups and good karma. British Indian currently in Kent & London, and soon to be US ex-pat. You can connect with me on Twitter & Instagram.