The Hot Sauce fascination with the success of White Claw can’t be ignored! To debate more of whether the claw is a fad or a new staple, we need to take a look into how its “brewed” (which it is!, brewed, that is) and how it’s formulation allows it to be subject to less regulation.

Rather than a spiked/vodka soda, a Claw does not originate as a spirit, and is instead brewed, like a beer (it also has a similar alcohol content to beer) which allows it to be sold with less regulation, especially in NY and other states with tougher spirit regulations and strong alcohol lobbying groups (MA, I’m looking at you!) But since it is not brewed with grain – the Claw uses sugar, which gets fermented fully into alcohol – the taste is milder and the output less caloric.

Why It’s Hot? 

Think of this as innovation, not a fad. Per our regulatory system, we can’t add small amounts of spirits to soda and sell it like beer, even if its alcohol content is 5% or less. This work around allows a preferred bar drink, especially to those who count calories, to be served up at our corner bodegas and local CVS’. The Claw’s the law and it’s here to stay.

Popeyes has a new chicken sandwich (which I’ve head is delicious). And it seems that Chick-fil-a is getting defensive with the new Tweet they’ve posted.

Bun + Chicken + Pickles = all the ❤️ for the original. pic.twitter.com/qBAIIxZx5v

— Chick-fil-A, Inc. (@ChickfilA) August 19, 2019

Popeyes responded as a matter of course…

… y’all good? https://t.co/lPaTFXfnyP

— Popeyes Chicken (@PopeyesChicken) August 19, 2019

And TYPICAL WENDYS, clapped back with this tweet.

Y’all out here fighting about which of these fools has the second best chicken sandwich. pic.twitter.com/4v9RJFgy0T

— WENDY'S SPICY NUGGETS ARE BACK!!! (@Wendys) August 19, 2019

At the end of the day this started a branded chicken sandwich themed posting frenzy.

yall acting like the greatest chicken sandwich of all time didn't already exist pic.twitter.com/twri14NVat

— Whataburger® (@Whataburger) August 22, 2019

But the real question is, how do consumers feel about this.

Why it’s hot?

Do these brand rivalries entertain customers or piss them off. A few customers have responded with takes about larger issues.

What the chicken sandwich war says about the inverted yield curve

My hot take coming up shortly…

— Ben Carlson (@awealthofcs) August 22, 2019

I just am really baffled that the rainforest is on fire for ANIMAL AGRICULTURE, and you guys are on Twitter hyping a chicken sandwich…..? Like eating dead animals isn’t cool anymore and especially ones from fast food places… THE WORLD IS DYING STOP BEING SO DENSE

— Rhinestone CowboyⓋ (@FlickMyVVIC) August 22, 2019

But we can’t expect Wendy’s to act like anything but Wendys. Guess brand consistency is key…

With some major changes happening globally, its interesting to note the ways that the digital world around us are affecting where attention falls and how we perceive international events. Two examples from this week, the massacre in Sudan and the protests in Hong Kong are key to understanding how innovation is not only affecting how we take in global media but how events unfold.

Protesters in Hong Kong wait on huge lines to pay cash. 

There is usually never a line at the train ticketing machines. Judging from an overheard convo, it appears that people are reluctant to use their rechargeable Octopus cards for fear of leaving a paper trail of them having been present at the protest. pic.twitter.com/s1rsgSnCqL

— Mary Hui (@maryhui) June 12, 2019

Use of octopus cards to show proof of demonstration was used to convict the “Umbrella 9”  in 2014.

In this case, protesters are being deliberate about the digital footprint they are leaving, something that protesters in 2014 didnt know to be wary of.

Instagram gets close and personal with Influencers from Sudan 

Mashable reports: “On Thursday, Shahd Khidir, a Sudanese influencer and blogger who mainly shares beauty, fashion, and lifestyle content, went “off-brand” to raise awareness to her nearly 64,000 Instagram followers about the dire situation in Sudan. Khidir, who is based in New York City, posted a photograph of herself crying at her desk along with a heartbreaking story about her friend, who she learned had recently been murdered in Sudan.”

I noted amongst my friends (a HIGHLY informal poll) that those who tended to use instagram were talking about the Sudan, while Twitter users were talking about Donald Trump’s interview with George Stephonopoulos.

EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Trump tells @GStephanopoulos he wouldn't necessarily alert the FBI if approached by foreign figures with information on his 2020 opponent: "It’s not an interference. They have information. I think I’d take it." https://t.co/yWRxMOaFqW pic.twitter.com/qwLw53s5yc

— ABC News (@ABC) June 12, 2019

The hashtags #IAmTheSudanRevolution, #SudanUprising, and #Sudanese_Protest are trending and a much younger group than those typically concerned with international news.

Why It’s Hot? 

Imagine the Tienemen Square protests on social and how the Arab Spring was affected by social and digital. Our world is evolving around these innovations and will continue to change as our digital world evolves

I don’t know how. But it is.

Trending now, after a truck accident that left one car covered in slime. People are having hagfish fever!

What is a Hagfish? It’s an eel like isopod that creates a slick slime when threatened. According to The Atlantic, “typically, a hagfish will release less than a teaspoon of gunk from the 100 or so slime glands that line its flanks. And in less than half a second, that little amount will expand by 10,000 times—enough to fill a sizable bucket. Reach in, and every move of your hand will drag the water with it.”

What is truly cool is the structure of the slime, it’s almost like a spider web that quickly unravels when the hagfish is in danger. “Once these cells are expelled from the slime glands, they rupture, releasing the threads within them. Ewoldt’s colleague Gaurav Chaudhury found that despite their length, the threads can fully unspool in a fraction of a second. The pull of flowing water is enough to unwind them. But the process is even quicker if the loose end snags on a surface, like another thread, or a predator’s mouth.”

Watch the hagfish basically drown it’s predators! And how they survive the inital bite? “The animal is effectively wearing a set of extremely loose pajamas,” Fudge says. If a predator attacks, “the body sort of squishes out of the way.”

Why it’s hot?

Sometimes nature’s technology is the coolest of all. I’d love to see how studies on hagfish slime and it’s genetic composition and properties, might turn into new technology.

https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1088787389441556481

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/hagfish-slime/581002/

This week, Twitter platform users reported that usually liberal friends and followers were liking tweets from Donald Trump and other right wing politicians.

Okay, so I've seen a lot of people upset because their followers are liking DJT's stuff. This is a thing that Twitter is now doing to attempt to make us 'get out of our bubbles.'

Oh, and they totally didn't like his tweets.

Since last night, I've checked seven cases of this. pic.twitter.com/hhQdQQWcaO

— Tappy Paws (@TappyPaws) September 4, 2018

A representative from Twitter has responded:

“[What’s] happening is when someone Likes and then unlikes a Tweet it could appear with the social proof ‘Liked by’. So these people did indeed like these Tweets at some point but then unliked them.”

Some users have been skeptical to the response, noting Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s comment as well as reticence to expel right wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the platform.

Why it’s hot?

A lack of transparency among platforms, about advertisers in politics and now about the algorithm is leading to mistrust among users. How might that affect us as advertisers looking to protect brand safety?

Snapchat and Adidas put together a winning partnership. Adidas sold a new pair of shoes exclusively on the social media platform. By nailing the demographic exactly right (70 percent of consumers were 13 to 24-year-old women), they were able to sell out the new shoe in 6 hours (in Adidas defense, the last iteration of this shoe sold out in 24).

There was a direct e-com in app purchasing that allowed sales to be seamless. This was a great way to get the word out and the shoe out to influential people online before the wide release of the shoe.

Why it’s hot?

Adidas acknowledges the high value of a Snapchat audience, not just at CPC or ROI. These are people who are more likely to share their purchases and therefore provide added value.

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal we would have thought Facebook would have been more diligent about data protection.

Per their own new bug bounty solution, Facebook found an opening that let many malicious actors (their words) request information from their system. But this new bug didn’t get closed up for over a month.

The hacker who found the leak, Inti De Ceukelaire says he began his search by “noting down what third party apps his Facebook friends were using — finding quizzes were one of the most popular apps.” He inferred quizzes rep for being an easy and shady sourve of data. “So he took his first ever Facebook quiz, from a brand called NameTests.com, and quickly realized the company was exposing Facebook users’ data to “any third-party that requested it”.”

It’s JavaScript was leaking data and gave users a pin to access any data on an individual they wanted in the future. “Depending on what quizzes you took, the javascript could leak your facebook ID, first name, last name, language, gender, date of birth, profile picture, cover photo, currency, devices you use, when your information was last updated, your posts and statuses, your photos and your friends,” wrote De Ceukelaire.

Why it’s hot?

As Facebooks marketing tries to preach more transparency, are they really practicing?

Amazon’s Echo just wants to be part of the conversation. In the case of one Portland family, it sent that conversation to a random contact. The family was told about the incident when the colleague reached out to them.

Amazon, when asked to comment said that it was a misinterpretation of the family’s words.

Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like “Alexa.” Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a “send message” request. At which point, Alexa said out loud “To whom?” At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, “[contact name], right?” Alexa then interpreted background conversation as “right”. As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.

Why it’s hot

As voice recognition becomes more prominent in our lives we may see more of these incidents. If Alexa is sending a private conversation, then what is the Echo listening to. As data collection grows, we have to wonder what restraints businesses are putting on themselves. Here’s Sillicon Valleys US House Rep talking about an internet bill of rights.

It is outrageous that the Amazon Echo is recording every conversation in a person’s home and transmitting it to the cloud. This is exactly why we need an internet bill of rights! Didn’t we fight a revolution to prevent exactly this kind of surveillance? https://t.co/N6yn51QUxn

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 27, 2018

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/amazon-echo-recorded-conversation-sent-to-random-person-report.html