Happy Monday. Here is a recap of industry news from the last week. Sources are in the hyperlinked text after the headline.
Brands and Retailers
- J.Crew to sell its factory products, J.Crew Mercantile, on Amazon. AdWeek
- Walmart was asked by several outdoor product brands to remove items from its website. The Wall Street Journal
- Urban Outfitters launches its own beauty brand. InStyle
- How Nike and REI made experiential retail a strategy. Retail Dive
- Glossier CEO on why the company won’t sell on Amazon. TechCrunch
- Inditex to sell all its brands online by 2020. Reuters
- How Adidas and Carbon are changing the sneaker supply chain. TechCrunch
- Jeff Bezos on what he plans to conquer next. Forbes
- AllBirds is opening a massive store in New York and plans more across the US. CNBC
- Amazon ordered 20,000 Mercedes-Benz vans to start a delivery service. Fortune
- The mystery of Amazon’s HQ2 has finalists seeing clues everywhere. The New York Times
Marketing and Social Media
- Snap loses its chief strategy officer. Fast Company
- Colin Kaepernick campaign gives Nike a big sales boost. Fortune
- Snapchat eyes the fashion set with its latest line of Spectacles eyewear. Fortune
- WeWork wants to provide content marketing services to startups. Digiday
- A new Spotify initiative makes big record labels nervous. The New York Times
- Amazon surpasses Google in product searches. MediaPost
- J.Crew’s relaunch campaign tries to win back lapsed customers. AdAge
- Instagram is reportedly building a standalone app for shopping. AdWeek
- The menswear market is going all in on experiential retail. Fashionista
- Pinterest reports 25% increase in monthly active users. TechCrunch
- Instagram is testing the ability to tag friends in videos. TechCrunch
- Ulta highlights diversity in new campaign. AdAge
- Glamour magazine set to cease print operations. Fashionista
- Apple wins a Creative Arts Emmy for “Carpool Karaoke.” Fast Company
Startup + Emerging Tech + Acquisitions
- HP’s new 3-D printers built items not of plastic but of steel. Wired
- Deep-linking startup Branch is raising more than $100M at a unicorn valuation. TechCrunch
- Deloitte is buying a marketing AI platform to expand its ad-tech holdings. AdWeek
- Facial recognition tech is ready for its post-phone future. Wired
- Theranos is shutting down. The New York Times
International
- Alibaba CEO Jack Ma will retire in a year. Fast Company
- Alibaba’s journey to become Asia’s most valuable firm. Bloomberg
- Starbucks enters Italy with an opulent roastery. Fortune
- Mulberry kicks off international expansion with show and pop-up shop in Seoul. Vogue