Saying “I Do” in front of a giant hot dog on wheels
Nothing says love like exchanging vows of lifelong commitment in front of a giant hotdog-shaped car. Oscar Mayer introduced an unusual new brand experience over the weekend—in Las Vegas, naturally—with its iconic wienermobile rechristened the “Wienermobile of Love” to host all-expenses paid weddings.
The Kraft Heinz brand, which claims it gets thousands of requests each year to be a part of the special day for couples, said in a release that the promotion is “designed to subvert the seriousness of stressful wedding planning and highlight the joy weddings should bring.”
The hotdog wedding includes a live wiener whistle quartet, a wiener cake, the 27-foot hot dog on wheels, with its drivers, the “Hotdoggers” performing the ceremony. According to Oscar Mayer, the weddings are an extension its “iconic brand platform, ‘Keep It Oscar,’ focused on saving people from taking things too seriously, freeing people up to enjoy themselves with seriously delicious meats.”
Is the Tupperware party over?
Tupperware, which like Kleenex is among the few brands that has become synonymous with an entire category, says it is danger of going out of business. “The Company has concluded there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern,” it said in a statement.
The 77-year-old company became iconic in the 1950s and 60s for the popularity of its products and the “Tupperware Parties” used to sell so much of it. But over-reliance on that direct sales model, combined with increased competition from brands able to match the utility of the products, led to difficult times in recent years.
“It was a brilliantly designed product that was made magical by the way it was sold,” Alison Clarke, professor of design history and theory at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, told the BBC. “But in this digital world, that face-to-face model is no longer as relevant.”
Does English soccer need new sponsors? Bet on it
England’s top soccer league is banning front-of-shirt sponsorships by gambling companies starting in 2026, a move that has drawn mixed reactions, according to The Guardian. While logos won’t be allowed on the front of shirts, they will still be permitted on the sleeves of game jerseys and elsewhere in the team stadiums.
“Just moving logos to a different part of the kit while allowing pitchside advertising to continue is totally incoherent,” said James Grimes, founder of The Big Step, which has campaigned to end the relationship between soccer and betting in the U.K. “The government and the sport itself now need to wake up to the reality that gambling ads are unhealthy, unpopular and will be kicked out of football. Delaying that moment is risking the health and lives of another generation of young fans.”
Currently, eight of the 20 teams in the Premier League have gambling company logos on the front of the shirt, collectively valued at about £60m a year. Everton, for example, gets £10m a year for putting Stake.com on the front of its game jerseys.
Child advocates want metaverse to be adults only
A group of 70 children’s health and privacy advocates have signed a joint letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to keep children 17 and under off the virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds.
The experts say the metaverse is harmful to children and cite research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found minors on the platform were exposed to sexual harassment, abuse, racist, misogynistic and homophobic slurs, reports Quartz.
“Meta is making the same mistake with Horizon Worlds that it made with Facebook and Instagram,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCDH. “They have prioritized profit over safety in their design of the product.”
While Meta has recently signaled it may reduce its focus on the metaverse as AI becomes the big story in technology, the company’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, told reporters last month that Meta was “going to stick with it.”
Saint Laurent: from fashion to film
The iconic fashion brand Saint Laurent is moving from the catwalk to the silver screen with the launch of a film production company led by its artistic director Anthony Vaccarello, reports Variety.
Saint Laurent Productions will debut two short films in Cannes and has a number of projects in the works with famous filmmakers including Pedro Almodóvar, Paolo Sorrentino, David Cronenberg, Wong Kar Wai, Jim Jarmusch and Gaspar Noé.
Vaccarello said the new subsidiary gives him “the opportunity to expand the vision I have for Saint Laurent through a medium that has more permanence than clothes.”
Saint Laurent Productions will co-produce two to three films per year to start. “In some ways, making a film can be more impactful than a seasonal collection,” said Vaccarello. “For me it’s a natural extension to another field of creativity that perhaps is more general and popular.”
