Weekly Intake - 10.2025
AN ENGINEERED RECESSION? FIGMA IPO. PRADA GROUP THRIVES. SUPERSONIC TRAVEL. THE RISING COST OF YOUTUBE PRODUCTION. CHRISTIES AI AUCION RESULTS. TAVARES STRACHAN - STARLESS MIDNIGHT
“The Simulation hypothesis is untestable”
AN ENGINEERED RECESSION?
Leading with this seems sadly mandatory with the past month of carnage.
Cracks in market euphoria started in January, and the downward slide has picked up speed over the past week. Monday saw the worst day since 2022, as China’s retaliatory tariffs on US imports took effect, and Trump's Sunday morning interview about a 'period of transition' when asked if the economy could see a recession this year.
Over the past week, I have begun to see lots of posts about an ‘engineered recession’.
The Kobeissi Letter dives deep into this idea. Why would Trump, who ties his brand and the health of the U.S economy so closely to market performance, do this? The answer: debt. Trillions in U.S. debt must be refinanced in 2025 at higher rates, and that’s a problem. (Last year, we started spending more on interest than defence for the first time in history).
The argument is that we cannot afford to refinance in the high 4% range, so perhaps the chaos is designed to soften asset prices in conjunction with reducing government spending, giving the Fed justification for rate cuts. It's a risky bet with real short-term pain, with many investors unwinding the Trump trade into a ‘Trump put’.
Anthony Pompalino’s article digs in a bit more, as does Mehreen Khan’s article about Trump’s “shock therapy”
Action on this is very hard though, as we just saw the 5th fastest correction in history. The Compound and friends make a good point yesterday - the trades pretty much happened by the time its written about. Referencing the WSJ article this weekend Stock Investors Go on Defense With Dividends when its already too late (saying that article would be more helpful 10 days earlier).
Re-enforcing market timing being near impossible, and to maintain a long term view as selling off news your often late to the party and miss the rebound.
Will market turbulence affect what was perceived to be a great year for IPO's?
FIGMA EXPLORES IPO
If they can pull this off, Figma stands to be the ultimate winner after the blocking of their Adobe Acquisition in 2023.
Rumors of a planned IPO in the back half of this year according to the New York Times. The question will be, what is the state of the IPO market this year, and does it emerge from a ‘winter’.
The initial pain of prolonged, year-long regulatory scrutiny over the Adobe acquisition, which led to the deal collapsing, could come with a silver lining:
Adobe paid it a $1 billion breakup fee.
That gave them $ to extensively develop new product offerings.
(their new ‘slides’ is a keynote killer)
Only 4% of their staff took their severance buy out offer after the deal fell apart.
“Adobe Fatigue” is real—Adobe feels built for designers, but Figma appeals beyond them. Two-thirds of its users aren’t designers, drawn to its simplicity and collaboration features over Adobe’s complexity.
Rapid advancements in AI since 2023 have expanded on people moving away from complex deck building. Adobe has not paced, Figma is a better product for presentations and collaborative work.
It will be interesting to see if they can surpass the $20 billion evaluation they got from Adobe within a year of their IPO.
I pay attention to products I use, and find superior. Figma has been the primary tool for UI design, prototyping, and design systems, but in recent years it’s become a superior product for multimedia presentations.
As an agency, we’ve spent the past year skilling our creative team over at Figma. The ‘live link’ is better than sending a PDF without multimedia, or a 5 GB keynote that no one will download. Currently, I ask every designer I interview about their Figma skills. A good deep dive on Figma by Jan Takacs for those interested.
PRADA GROUP THRIVES
Prada Group continues double-digit growth as it enters its 2025 financial calendar. Releasing it in fiscal 2024 on March 4th with a 15pc sales bump, lead by a record for Miu Miu, with Retail growth at +93% yoy. This is a remarkable achievement in the current luxury landscape, being one of the few brands bucking demand for expensive goods. Prada Group is now in talks to buy Milanese rival, Versace in a deal that could reach €1.5bn.
We ended 2024 with very positive results across our brands, marking four consecutive years of double-digit, like-for-like growth.
Andrea Guerra, Group Chief Executive Officer
Prada also had big cultural moments last year, securing the design contract for NASA’s new spacesuits for the Artemis III lunar mission, which will be the first crewed Moon landing since December 1972. While outside the typical fashion sphere, this showed the strength of Prada’s market position and put them in front of a much wider audience.
Miu Miu has been leading the charge. Nailing a combination of celebrity ambassador selection (muses like Elle Fanning & Sydney Sweeney), campaigns, viral designs, and great show reviews. This led to Gen Z’s becoming the most coveted brand, claiming the title “hottest brand in the world” for the second year on the LYST INDEX.
What if a brand was built for the little sister that loves to steal your clothes?
- Hypebeast (on Mui Mui)
SXSW UPDATE
Some things coming out of SXSW that caught my interest.
SUPERSONIC TRAVEL ADVANCEMENTS
Nasa’s quest mission holds a panel on the 11th to discuss the future of commercial air travel. I did not know there has been a 50+ year old ban on commercial supersonic travel (stemming from environmental impact, safety, and noise pollution). We’ve held flight innovation back for 50 years over the sonic boom…
The aerospace industry is wild in its entrenchments. We have not innovated aviation since the 50’s, and we still fly in planes built in the 80’s in some cases. Hopefully we are on the cusp of innovation decades in the making, between Nasa’s Quest mission, and Boom Supersonic’s recent approval for test flights after achieving ‘boomless’ breaking of the sound barrier.
Flight times with supersonic jets will transform global travel as we know it, some example projections:
New York to London: Approximately 3.5 hours.
San Francisco to Tokyo: Around 6 hours.
Washington DC to Los Angeles: Around 3 hours and 40 minutes.
HIDEO KOJIMA DROPS DEATH STRANDING 2
I can’t commit time to games anymore, but I appreciate from afar, especially anything from Kojima. Sony just released the second installation of perhaps the strangest franchise in gaming or entertainment period: Death Stranding 2 : On the Beach Special SXSW Panel | 3.09.2025
Kojima doesn’t really make games, he makes works of art that are strange and completely unlike anything before them. Metal Gear Solid defined an entire genre and aesthetic. Death Stranding is essentially a WALKING SIMULATOR, its slow and weird and darkly beautiful.
His cult following also broke a barrier in the industry, landing AAA level acting talent. The first death standing starred Norman Reedus and Guillermo del Toro, the second installment see’s them return with many more celebrity appearances including Elle Fanning’s first role in a video game. Woodkid scores the trailer with a haunting ‘to the wilder’
Game’s are becoming the highest form of entreatment, with annual revenue now exceeding music and movies combined. As of 2024, The Gaming industry has a 3.4 billion audience with $ 183.9 billion annual revenue.
A recent BOF article explores how Video Games, Not TikTok, Could Be Fashion’s Gateway to Gen Alpha.
JOËL ANDRIANOMEARISOA’S MIRACLE
Last Thursday it was raining buckets, making it very easy to justify skipping a trek to 78th street from soho. I’m glad I went, as I’m trying to keep a weekly cadence of openings. Whenever an artist is present and giving a tour, its a great way to hear directly the inspiration, process and ‘why’ of it. Cultured Mag hosted a preview with the architect-turned-artist’s intricately woven works at Almine Rech.
‘No geography except the geography of our emotions’
- Joël Andrianomearisoa
The pieces are delicately woven in raffia, a traditional medium in Madagascar.
Another show at Almin Rech worth paying attention too:
Jean Miotte: Return to China (In 1980, Miotte was the first Western painter to be invited to show his work after Mao’s regime.)
Jan 10 — Mar 15, 2025 | Shanghai
CONCERT TICKETS SOARING
Last week I wrote about America’s wealthiest 10% driving half of our economy, and the downsides of that in regards to pretty much everything becoming ‘dynamically priced’. Anyone who’s gone to a concert in the past 3 years has experienced this directly. 86 percent of recently surveyed Gen Z’s admitted to overspending on live events, with FOMO being a leading reason.
In 1996, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours was $25.81, or about $52 adjusted for inflation. By 2024 this has nearly tripled, with average ticket prices at $135.92
(source - The New York Times)
With Taylor Swift, its 10x the above stat - in 2023, average eros tour ticket: $1,088.
Why Gen Z Is Willing to Pay Big Money for Concert Tickets - The New York Times
STUDIO GHIBLI AUCTION
Heritage Auctions hosts a special lot in celebration of Studio Ghibli’s 40th anniversary, along with a wider range of works including cel animations from Akira.
The Art of Anime will take place from March 22 through 24 online and by-appointment at the house’s Dallas home base. Miyazaki cells and original art tend to command some of the highest prices at auction for this category.
THE RISING COST OF PRODUCING CONTENT ON YOUTUBE (FOR TV)
Youtube continues to expand its TV viewing share over other streaming platforms, accounting for a record 11.1% of U.S. television watch time as of December (beating Netflix at 8.5%). By February, TV surpassed phones as the main consumption point for YouTube in the U.S
This is Leaving top producers grappling with an unforeseen product of this shift, a need to produce TV quality, longer videos in order to stay competitive.
Jordan Matter, with 28 million subscribers is adapting his production format for TV
MrBeast’s exemplifies the trend of escalating production costs among YouTube creators. With significant increases in production value to rival TV network level production, he reinvests almost all of his revenue back in. His media business lost nearly $80 million last year, however he makes it back in other revenue streams such as chocolate.
Kai Cenat brought movie level production value to the promo’s and set backdrops for his Batman Arkam livestream marathon. Warner Bro’s was not involved, he paid for this himself.
Mainstream media has also adjusted tactics, realizing they can’t win the fight. Many networks have begun putting archives of existing episodes in full on the platform.
Youtube bears none of this production cost, which is a great business model for them, they continue to gain market share while Netflix plans to spend 18 Billion in 25’. not an apples to apples comparison but interesting to consider.
We will probably see a devide, of blue chip creators spending money to rise to the top, while others opt out of the arms race and look to new platforms like Substack for monetization (see Carla Lalli Music tripling her income by moving platforms).
CHRISTIES AI AUCION RESULTS
The highly contested Augmented Intelligence AI auction at christie’s did $728,784 in sales, far exceeding its initial estimate of $600,000 and achieving an 88% sell through.
This show was protested by artists and heavily criticized, a primary issue being that much of the AI is trained on the work of existing living artists.
There are a slew of lawsuits moving through the U.S. courts in which artists claim AI companies trained large language models on their works of art without notifying or compensating them.
-NPR
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO WIN AN OSCAR?
Media buys, hard copy screener mailers, merch and stunts. The Oscar arms race has been increasing year over year to garner votes in the final sprint to awards season.
On A recent episode of THE TOWN podcast, Neon’s CEO Tom Quinn discussed Anora spending $18m on marketing this years best picture, THREE TIMES its budget.
For indie distributors like Anora’s Neon or case study marketer A24, this can be a smart bet. Small great films can be made for fractions of Hollywood AAA studio budgets, then a smart marketing campaign can propel it into the cultural zeitgeist and STILL come in under the average studio picture budget.
The last time Neon did this was with Parasite at Cannes, investing $20m and rising the film to Palme d’Or winner.
The Guardian breaks down some of the most recent awards season marketing efforts from indie and larger budget films.
MAXIMUM EFFORT
Ryan Reynlods and George Dewey have bought back control of Maximum Effort, merging the marketing arm of the business they sold in 2021 to MNTN (An advertising platform). The advertising and creative agency will merge back with their production company behind projects like the Deadpool franchise, Free Guy, IF, Welcome to Wrexham and Shotgun Wedding
This agency has made waves for the past several years with fast moving culturally responsive ads that seem to move faster than brands could typically without the firepower of someone like Reynolds. Most famously his Peleton ad dropping 48 hours after “Mr Big” in HBO show Sex in the City dies of a heart attack while riding the company’s stationary bicycle
I’m impressed with how involved he seems to be in the business, you see a lot of celebrity fronts, or ‘creative directors’ who are most of the time just figureheads for work that armies of people do. In this case it feels genially different, he has said in many interviews he loves the medium, its a perfect place for wit and comedy.
“Most of what we do really is necessity being the mother of invention. A lot of times we’re working really quickly, working with limited budgets, but we’re also acknowledging and playing with the cultural landscape. So, that’s a huge part of what we do, we try to create marketing that’s moving at the exact same speed as culture is.”
- Ryan Reynolds
TAVARES STRACHAN - STARLESS MIDNIGHT
Friday I went to Tavare’s Starless Midnight opening at Marian Goodman. Its beautiful, the music is haunting, the ground floor set brings you into a whole world.
The storytelling is especially captivating. The first thing you see is a book that looks 100 years old: the ‘Encyclopedia of Invisibility’. Accompanied by a manifesto from Strachan explaining historical and cultural references, untold stories of historically marginalized individuals, places, and events.
People like Matthew Henson, an African American who was the FIRST Explorer to reach the north pole.
The show in its entirety spans three floors, with a mix of paintings, custom created musical instruments that play themselves, ceramics and sculptures. Highly recommended for those in NYC.
- Thats it for this week.
adobe fatigue is a bar