You might not be familiar with Laguna Beach Textile Company, but you’ve probably seen one of its blankets recently.

Earlier this month, an Instagram story of Selena Gomez looking zen while wrapped in the brand’s Cabo Mexican Blanket became a meme, creating an unexpected marketing opportunity as the image traveled across social media.

Lauren Franks, director of branding and partnerships at Laguna Beach Textile Company, told us that the brand sold blankets to a private member’s club in Malibu, where she said the photo was taken, but she could have “never imagined” those sales would lead to something like this.

“The buck stopped with, ‘I’m happy to have the blankets here because the clientele will like us as a luxury good, and they’ll be able to see our tag or logo on these blankets as they use them,’’ she said. “Then this all happened.”

Danny Meurer, the brand’s president and founder, told us it has sold around 200 blankets, a 400%–500% increase from normal sales rates, since the meme took off. According to Franks, social engagement is also up, with one TikTok getting more than 91,000 views compared to its average of around 1,200.

After capitalizing on the meme’s popularity, they said the hope is to keep the meme-ntum going with holidays like Halloween and Christmas on the horizon.

Read the full story here.—KH

You’re already reading the newsletter, but did you know you can also listen to and/or watch the wittiest and smartest takes on business news?

Morning Brew Daily hosts Neal Freyman and Toby Howell have you covered on everything you need to know before your morning cup of coffee, from the latest headlines on the economy to explanations of viral TikTok trends.

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New episodes are released every weekday at 7am ET. Check ’em out on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Global ad spending is predicted to exceed $1 trillion in 2024, according to a report from marketing research firm WARC.

Spend is expected to increase 8.2% next year, the report estimates, while this year it’s set to jump 4.4% to $963 billion.

Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Alibaba, and TikTok parent ByteDance will pull in 51.9% of all ad spend next year, per WARC’s analysis. Nitin Sinha, head of paid media at ad agency Laundry Service, told Marketing Brew he isn’t surprised that advertising spend could hit $1 trillion next year, especially considering the many advertising options these tech companies offer.

“As you would expect, some of these companies rely so heavily on advertising as their sources of revenue, so they’ve done a good job of optimizing that and giving advertisers a lot of options,” he said, pointing to YouTube’s move into short-form video as an example.

Continue reading here.—JS

It might seem like Memorial Day was just yesterday, but signs of the end of summer are already all around us: Labor Day is right around the corner, pumpkin-spice products are cropping up (even iced ones), and students are heading back to school.

Marketers, it’s time to shake off the sand from those summery campaigns and start focusing on the trends of the fall. Since (in our opinion) it’s far too early for pumpkin spice, here are a few takeaways from Deloitte’s back-to-school survey to set the mood.

All about inflation: Parents across income brackets plan to spend less per child this year than they did last year, largely due to a decline in disposable income and a rise in prices, according to Deloitte, which this spring surveyed more than 1,000 parents of children in kindergarten through 12th grade.

• Average spend per child is expected to decrease 10% year over year, from $661 to $597. That would mark the reversal of a growth trend from 2019 to 2022.
• About half (51%) of parents spending less said it’s because they have less money to spare this year, while 75% of those spending more said prices are higher this year.
• “Although parents were willing to endure higher prices last year for replenishing BTS items after the pandemic, 18 months of inflation have changed their tune,” per the report.

Keep reading here.—AM