Amazon, Meet Tik-Tok

Amazon Builds Tik-Tok-like Feature

This week we learned about the latest major upgrade coming from Amazon. Amazon will be adding a news feed of shoppable content through its app. The scrollable news feed will be called inspire and it will consist of short videos that showcase products the retailer thinks you may be interested in. Inspire has clearly taken a lot of liberties from Tik-Tok, based on its design and rollout for this new feature.

 

Copycats

It’s becoming extremely common especially within big-tech to see companies replicating popular ideas under their own umbrella. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are some of the most egregious offenders in this category. And now Amazon is taking a page out of the Facebook playbook by trying to capitalize on the success of Tik-Tok.

But Amazon is only the latest to try and emulate or copy Tik-Tok. Amazon hopes that ‘Inspire’ will incentivize users to make purchases as they’re seeing new content online. Ironically enough, Tik-Tok has also been looking to further monetize their app by incorporating a livestream function, something more akin to Instagram.

 

Inspire

Going forward, Inspire will appear as a lightbulb in the Amazon app and the new feature expects to roll out next month. To further the excitement, Amazon has been actively recruiting ‘influencers’ to help launch the Inspire platform. Again, a very similar tactic to Tik-Tok.

Once within the Inspire application, users can select from a wide range of categories, from pets to skincare that features content, videos and links to Amazon products.

What it Means: Companies are always trying to replicate the success of others, especially within user focused apps. While many companies have tried to emulate the success of Tik-Tok, Amazon may be the first company with the ability to meaningfully challenge Tik-Tok. Tik-Tok has built a powerful tool that has proven its ability to generate sales and now Amazon is looking to do something very similar under their banner.

 

Fastest Growing Brands of 2022

Despite a turbulent year of bad press and a very public downsizing, Morning Consult has named Meta one of the fastest growing brands among U.S. adults. This can certainly be attributed to the massive pivot of the company to move from social media giant to potential architect of the metaverse.

Ironically enough, data has shown Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) is especially popular with Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. It appears Meta’s rebranded focus toward the Metaverse is a popular idea, but we’re way far too early to say how financially successful the Metaverse can be.

Meta Platforms is becoming synonyms with the Metaverse, as you can’t really think of one without the other these days.

 

Croc’s in Second Place

In surprising news, American footwear company Croc’s took home the second spot on the fastest growing brands list. It seems they are also getting renewed interest from consumers as they also attempt to rebrand themselves for today’s customers.

In a recent earnings report, Croc’s noted a whopping 50% increase in sales within 2022. While some of that growth may be attributed to people wanting to comfortably work from home, that’s only a fraction of their sales.

With that said, it’s also clear that inflation has played a role in this year’s findings. Many of 2021’s fastest growing brands like HBO Max for example did not even place this year. That’s a good example where people may have been inclined to save money by axing their subscription for yet another streaming platform, but still needing to buy new shoe like Croc’s.

 

Starbucks' NFT Loyalty Program

Starbucks is testing the rollout of an experimental loyalty program that combines rewards and NFT collecting. “Odyssey” is the name of the highly anticipated new reward program that is set to roll out a soft launch in the coming weeks.

This week, the premier coffee chain opened up their Web3 extension to its current Starbucks rewards program. This will initially only be rolled out to a small group of waitlisted members. Odyssey looks to engage customers through interactive ‘journeys’ that earn ‘journey stamps’ in the form of polygon-based NFTs.

Customers can also collect ‘Odyssey points’ which will open them up to future crypto and virtual based experiences. It’ll be interesting to see how this move effects the already successful Starbucks rewards program.