Mountain Dew officially brought back its old “Do the Dew” slogan this week, the latest in a series of recent tagline revivals, including Gatorade’s “Is It In You?,” Sprite’s “Obey Your Thirst,” and Fanta’s “Wanta Fanta.” Your move, 7Up: It’s time to restore the king of all soda campaigns — “Make 7Up Yours!” — to its rightful throne.
In today’s email:
Phone bans: It’s an unpopular move, but it’s good for the kids.
Beyond Meat: A lifeline in the form of Panda Express.
Pet psychic: Not only a real job, but perhaps a lucrative one.
Around the web: A weird way to play chess, how to find cool RSS feeds, and more.
👇 Listen: Schools will keep banning phones. What’s the best way to go about it?
The Big Idea
Will banning phones at school become the norm?
Students don’t hate school phone bans as much as you might think.
2024-07-18T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Rylah
If you’re a boomer, Gen X, or millennial, your phone was probably connected to a wall in your house for most, if not all, of your schooling days.
But now, 72% of US high school teachers say phone distraction has become a major problem, not to mention growing concerns about the harms of social media.
But what happens when you take phones away?
Some schools in New York have tried not just classroom, but daylong bans. They initially struggled with angry students and protests, but ultimately found positive changes, including:
Higher test scores and grades
Increased attendance at after-school events
More engagement in the classroom and among students at lunch
One principal toldBloomberg that some students secretly thanked her for the ban and the improved focus they achieved.
Now, NYC — the largest school district in the US — may implement a ban that would affect 1.1m+ students across 1.8k campuses, and the entire state may follow.
Similar bans will take effect in January 2025 for Los Angeles Unified, a district with 429k students, and the state of Virginia, affecting 1.2m+ students.
What are the challenges?
Apart from students’ ire? A glaring issue is the epidemic of violence in American school systems and the worry that in the event of a shooting, students would have no way to alert parents or call for help.
However, experts say phones don’t actually help, as students’ phones distract during emergencies, too.
Another challenge is putting the burden of policing bans on teachers, who may face backlash.
One solution? Requiring students to place their phones in pouches that, at day’s end, unlock with a magnetic tool, which can be kept in offices or individual classrooms.
They work on adults, BTW
One such pouch is made by Yondr, a startup founded by Graham Dugoni in 2014 after he saw music festival attendees filming a drunk man without his consent.
They’ve since made their way into comedy shows, concerts, and other performances where artists would prefer people be present as opposed to documenting everything. It’s an alternative to confiscating phones because you still have yours, you just can’t annoy everyone with it.
Free Resource
The key trends shaping customer service
“Business is the most personal thing in the world.”
That’s a quote by Michael Gary Scott of Dunder Mifflin. He’s not here to expound on what that means, but that’s fine, since we worked very hard to sum it up beautifully.
The 2024 Customer Service Trends report is this year’s field guide to connecting with customers, understanding industry shifts, and winning in an AI-powered future.
Shouts to customer service agents everywhere, because 82% of customers expect immediate solutions to their problems, and 100% of our staff agrees that that is a lot.
Former OpenAI researcher Andrej Karpathy is launching Eureka Labs, an AI-forward education platform that will create subject-specific AI teaching assistants to guide students through coursework. The first subject it’ll teach? How to train AI, naturally.
SNIPPETS
Amazon’s Prime Day is a “major cause of injuries” for warehouse workers, per a US Senate report. In 2019, its rate of recordable injuries — those that must be reported to OSHA — exceeded 10 per 100 workers, 2x+ the industry average.
EssilorLuxottica — the eyewear company that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley — is acquiring streetwear brand Supreme for $1.5B.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is suing the developer of his $27m San Francisco mansion over alleged defects including a leaking infinity pool. The developer, Troon Pacific, previously had to pay $50m to investors over an incomplete home renovation.
Puerto Rico sued ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and other energy companies for $1B in damages to protect itself from extreme weather, alleging the companies’ approach to climate change led to more destructive natural disasters.
Dozens of old bridges are being replaced or repaired across 16 states with $5B of federal funding. America’s bridges — which are 70 years old on average — carry ~167m vehicles a day, and ~42.4k of them are in “poor condition.”
Willow Bay and husband/Disney CEO Bob Iger gained control of LA’s Angel City FC for $250m. The women’s soccer team says this deal makes it the world’s most valuable women’s sports team.
The WNBA is also cashing in: The hoops league lined up a $2.2B media rights deal with ESPN, Amazon, and NBC, more than 3x the annual value of its current TV agreement. They can also reprice the terms three years into the 11-year arrangement.
FX’s “The Bear” earned 23 Emmy nominations, the most ever for a comedy series. Previously, “30 Rock” held that record with 22, though “Game of Thrones” holds the overall record with 32.
Tinder’s new AI-powered Photo Selector tool wants to end bad dating app photos: After taking an in-app selfie, the tool uses facial recognition to browse a user’s camera roll before selecting photos “optimized to help users find a match.”
Don't miss this...
A Microsoft exec tells us why most marketers are at risk of “just selling things to yourself.” Oof.
Data point
Nominations for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize are closed, and that’s a damn shame. The 7.3k+ brave signatories of this Change.org petition stood up to immense power (Panda Express) and said, in one united voice, “The people are outraged.”
Now, their nonviolent revolution has succeeded: Plant-based orange chicken is back on the menu. In some of the chain’s restaurants. For a limited time.
But a win’s still a win — and it’s a big one for reeling Beyond Meat, coming off eight straight quarters of losses amid a cratering plant-based meat market. This appears to be the first Beyond Meat restaurant collab to get a second life; limited test runs with McDonald’s, Del Taco, Dunkin’, KFC, and Pizza Hut were all discontinued.
And this isn’t just any average product either — plant-based orange chicken opens up Panda Express’ most popular dish, which in chicken form constitutes one-third of its sales, to the non-meat-eating masses.
Back to the petition signers: Orange “chicken” may be all the thanks they sought, but for defending truth, justice, and the American way, they’ve also gained our eternal respect and gratitude. Let freedom ring.
Fit The Bill
There are thousands of companies valued at $1B+. How many clues do you need to identify today’s billion-dollar brand?
Clue 1: This global brand started out as Huff Daland Dusters, the world’s first commercial aerial agricultural company.
Clue 2: In 1928, it changed its name to honor the Mississippi region it served and its logo to a triangle, representing the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.
Clue 3: Its past slogans include “Airline of the South,” “We Love To Fly, And It Shows,” and our personal favorite: “The Air Line with the Big Jets.”
👇 Scroll to the bottom for the answer 👇
You do what now?
This is an actual job actual people do for actual money: Next time you’re faced with the prospect of a career change, you may want to consider becoming a pet psychic.
Truly. We’re being entirely earnest here.
The same pet wellness trend that brought us animal Reiki, pet massage therapy, dog acupuncture, and animal sound baths has led to boom times for animal communication. Searches for “pet psychic” have sporadically spiked throughout 2024 with the practice no longer existing on the fringes, perThe Wall Street Journal, which said clients are now “more likely to be asked for referrals than be mocked.”
It can also be relatively lucrative — animal communicators in Los Angeles often charge between $150 and $335 per hour, perSFGate.
That makes this $145, 10-module “Animal Communication Specialist” so-called “certification” program one of the best educational investments a person can make. Even if it doesn’t lead to a full-fledged career, it’s bound to improve human-animal relations around the house.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1947, General Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Florence Blanchfield, superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps during WWII, as a lieutenant colonel, making her the first woman to hold a permanent military rank in the US Army.
The majority (41%) said they adhere to a business casual dress code while 31% said they sport their street clothes. A lucky 20% said it doesn’t matter what they wear since they work from home.
Despite some who traded suits for slippers, 61% said the way they dress for work remained unchanged after the pandemic.
Plus, almost everyone dresses up for certain social events, like weddings or graduations (97%), job interviews (86%), and dining at fancy restaurants (73%).
You also had strong opinions on what not to wear to work: Top complaints were Crocs (seriously — a disturbing amount of you said Crocs), flip-flops, and shorts. It turns out, people really despise seeing their co-workers’ feet.
And you shared some fashion horror stories:
“A remote co-worker only ever had on an *open* button-up shirt for calls.”
“Worst was a Snuggy with pajama pants underneath. And this was days after we experienced layoffs. I mean… READ THE DAMN ROOM!”
“Socks and Birkenstocks. At a tech company, of course.”
“Flip-flops. Toenails don’t have a place in meetings.”
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Today’s Fit the Bill answer is Delta Air Lines (Market cap: $29.51B)
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman. Editing by: Ben “Communed with your dog and she wants to go for a walk” Berkley.
