SKIMS Gave Us Twelve Days of Junk Drawer
Your Shopper Still Has Thumbs. For Now.
If the hype train is to be believed, the robots are coming for your sponsored listings, but they keep tripping on the way to checkout.
In Visa’s test of 22 AI shopping agents, purchases went through only about 57% of the time. So for now the human is still in the loop, doing the research with AI and then clicking through to see the thing with her own eyes before she taps buy.
That leaves a $74.4 billion retail media industry selling to two customers at once.
On the twelfth day of junk drawer Kimmy gave to me…
If your social media feed has become a long-form, multiplayer analysis of the SKIMS advent calendar, congratulations, you’re online. The $148, 12-day “accessories” calendar dropped with the brand’s holiday shop on October 29, and the unboxings were not kind: keychains, scrunchies, bobby pins, a squishy toy, and a bra-elastic headband. One viral comment compared it to everything that falls between your car seats. Unboxing videos are the new product reviews, and millions watched this one live. Even other brands piled on. (Well played, Five Below.)
Our Take: Is SKIMS truly wrong for trying to cash in on the $2.6B advent calendar market? Some consumers believe the final assortment is a major breach of trust, especially since SKIMS markets itself as a prestige brand. Others believe outrage marketing was the play all along. The brand is being shared relentlessly across social media —for free!—and if shoppers decide to seek a store credit refund, that’s money they’ll have to spend at SKIMS.
Our take is that both are true. This is a clear example of Little Treat Culture gone greedy, but it certainly isn’t a new or novel move during the holiday season. We’re looking at you, Starbucks. But this time of year, social media CAC is through the roof, and SKIMS has managed to hack the algo to work in its favor. Kim Kardashian is the queen of “all press is good press,” after all.
The Creator Layer.
US creator media budgets are on track to reach $44B this year, up from $37B in 2025, according to the IAB. As creator ecosystems grow, finding, engaging, and managing partners is becoming even more complex. Motom is attempting to change that with Opportunities. Retailers and brands can now control every part of their creator program: the creator storefront, the data, the creator relationship, and the campaigns.
Motom works alongside social platforms like TikTok Shop, as well as affiliate marketplaces such as LTK and ShopMy. The difference is Motom creates white-label creator storefronts that live within a brand’s owned space. For instance, Sephora shoppers can browse on the eCommerce site, then seamlessly click to creator spaces to view their social content, curated lists, and dedicated shops.
On the back end, Opportunities helps brands manage the end-to-end process, including creator recruitment and onboarding, campaign strategy, execution, and measurement. Campaigns drive to the creator’s storefront or product affiliate short link, with the ability to compare paid and organic sales.
‘Craftmas’ is Coming.
The Hobby Economy is getting a seasonal spin. Creators are using their feeds as forums for daily analog crafts that serve as holiday decor and gifts for loved ones. It’s the antithesis of advent calendar-fueled overconsumption, and it’s a great way to channel holiday shopping stress. Interest in “Craftmas” peaked on social on November 5 and has garnered 13.5M social views so far this season.
Maybe, Possibly.
Maybelline New York has reframed its legendary slogan, focusing less on uncertainty and more on possibility. With Miley Cyrus as the star of its new brand campaign, Maybelline is using punctuation to make a statement: “Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline.”
The use of “we” was also intentional, reflecting a broader, more inclusive understanding of beauty.
This isn’t the first time the 110-year-old brand has rethought its positioning. “Make It Happen” was the North Star of 2016, and in 2024, the brand brought back “Maybe It’s Maybelline.”
Curiously, this is the second large-scale brand relaunch ad that Miley has been involved with in 2026H2. The singer appeared in a social, CTV, and subway media campaign with Peloton Tread, ahem, retreading her 2021-era viral Super Bowl prep video.
Poppi’s Founder: Thirsty Again.
Allison Ellsworth made soda a lifestyle with Poppi. With her marketing savvy, she made gut-healthy soda so coveted that even Coca-Cola has hopped on the bandwagon. Now, she’s eyeing the already crowded hydration market with her new brand Jetty. But is it differentiated enough to stand out on the shelf?
Inside the AI Black Box.
OpenAI is giving brands more visibility into the black box that is ChatGPT performance. Just as Google has added “AI Performance Insights” to Google Merchant Center, OpenAI has released Business Hub for brands, letting them see total mentions, website clicks, and top five discovery topics on the platform. Brands can claim their businesses through the hub and create an official ChatGPT profile that appears in model responses. This is another metric to help brands gauge consumers’ interest and intent.
The Hub launched shortly after OpenAI shared its Q3 revenue, which surged to $10B. That’s 50% growth in a few months. However, WSJ reported that adjusted operating losses also increased from $10.1B to about $10.9B. Sam Altman and his team are working diligently to keep up with Anthropic, which may see its IPO valuation reach $1.5T after reporting $10B in new deals. Either way, both Altman and Dario Amodei are having a better week than Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
Reddit Pushes Further into the Funnel.
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have pushed to monetize their feeds, which makes Reddit one of the last authentic spaces on the internet. Reddit is now turning user conversations and experiences into a competitive advantage with a new product reviews hub—what The Verge calls a “crowdsourced Wirecutter.”
Reddit Reviews organizes product conversations across the platform into dedicated reviews and highlights, so people can understand what a product is really like before they buy. Users can access this new feature by searching for a product or category in the search bar, or by clicking a highlighted product name in a comment. This is a clear effort for Reddit to support already-established user behaviors: 50% of US shoppers go to the platform to validate AI recommendations.
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