Edition 80 | November 9, 2025

From bear-merch mania to the markdowns worth watching, let’s unpack brand humor, chaos, and the systems to bake into your playbook this season.

Five brand bytes to elevate, inform, and inspire you this week:

1. Teddy bear cups and customer brawls.

“It’s totally adorable, and it’s driving customers to the brink,” said The Wall Street Journal.

They weren’t kidding.

Starbucks dropped a limited-edition Glass Bearista Cold Cup on Thursday.

It’s a 20-ounce bear-shaped tumbler in a green silicone beanie with a striped straw.

But this $30 bear-cutie brought out the customer claws after selling out within minutes—

Prompting long lines, store chaos, and even police intervention.

Videos on social captured the frenzies, including a Houston store dispute that ended with deputies breaking it up.

One viral clip showed shoppers wrestling on the floor, the cup’s beanie popping off mid-scuffle.

Bear-ista down. 🚨🧸

Resale listings hit eBay within hours.

So you can skip the in-store brawls if you’d like.

For the gouged prices of $350 – $1,500.

And Starbucks told the press, “The excitement for our merchandise exceeded even our biggest expectations.”

That’s an understatement.

But the Bearista isn’t just a cup.

It’s a case study in brand affinity and design-driven desire.

The right mix of nostalgia, scarcity, and social proof can turn even the cutest cups into real-life chaos.

Stanley knows.

2. When brands banter.

SKIMS lit up social media last month with the launch of its Faux Hair Micro Thong.

Don’t ask.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign helped the product sell out within hours.

But what I enjoyed most was the brand banter that followed.

European Wax Center delivered a viral counterpunch with in-store posters reading:

“We’ll take it from here, Kim.”

Cleverly contrasting SKIMS’ faux fuzz with the chain’s signature wax-smooth finish.

It’s a brand response that doubled as both harmless shade and self-promotion.

The friendly exchange showed how humor and cultural commentary can fuel visibility for both sides.

SKIMS earned attention for bold product development paired with an equally bold marketing blitz across social and video,

While European Wax Center (EWC) boosted awareness with simple, timely in-store posters.

It also proved that a brand response *doesn’t* need a massive media spend.

File this under ‘things your brand could do, too.’

When two brands share similar audience demographics (and likely psychographics), the wit of EWC’s brand response becomes “if you know, you know” humor.

It turns playful rivalry into shared publicity.

And, as PR experts call it: news-jacking.

3. This font stopped my scroll.

New font alert.

One of my favorite typography companies, Atipo, dropped Quablo™

And the font is as cool as it sounds.

It’s a “sans extended” typeface where the “oval shape takes center stage.”

Quick font lesson: 🤓

• sans refers to having no serif, meaning the letters have no decorative endpoints, and
• extended refers to the wider letterform of each character (letter-by-letter).

Quablo nails both.

It feels modern and slightly futuristic, and gives personality with precision.

And, most importantly, it has range.

A range of font weights are key when choosing fonts for branded print, web, merch, and beyond.

Check out this demo page for inspiration on how the font is used across industries — from film, to food, to hospitality.

With 14 font weights and a “pay what you want” model (with one free font weight to start), it’s as flexible as it is stylish.

Here’s the takeaway: when you’re designing a brand or updating your website, invest in fonts that do *more* than look nice.

Choose ones with range.

A thoughtful typeface doesn’t just decorate your words.

It defines how your brand feels, speaks, and stays remembered.

Flashback to brand awareness 101 😉

4. Be on the Black Friday lookout (your favorite software might be on sale)

’Tis the season not just for shoppers, but for founders and biz owners to shop smart.

While we plan our own Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) promotions, it’s also a great time to look inward at the tools that keep our brands running behind the scenes.

From email service providers to web hosts and workflow automations, these subscriptions quietly stack up every month.

But BFCM is when many of those platforms roll out *rare* discounts.

Often letting you lock in lower rates for up to a year.

I’m already spotting some early deals worth sharing:

• SiteGround: a web hosting platform known for its speed, security, and reliable site backups. I host four websites with SiteGround and can vouch for the ease of use and reliability. They’re running an Early Black Friday Sale with offers over 80% off.
• Omnisend: an email service provider that helps automate campaigns, flows, and audience segmentation for e-commerce brands. I recently switched my sensory candle brand to Omnisend, and the switch was fairly seamless. They’re offering up to 30% off monthly plans for three months. I took advantage of this.

A few tools I’m keeping a BFCM eye on (fingers crossed for discounts):

• Kit: My ESP for The Brand Bloc and Shavaun dot com
• RightMessage: for personalized on-site and email segmentation; this would be a new tool I’d like to test
• Zapier: which powers my Typeform-to-Kit quiz automations, and
• Typeform: home to most of my in-bound forms and score-based quizzes across brands.

If you’ve had a wishlist tool you’ve been meaning to try, now’s the time.

Your tech stack doesn’t have to drain your wallet, and BFCM might just be your Super Bowl for smarter systems.

P.S. If this whole paragraph read like a foreign language to you, let’s talk. I’m here to help!

5. Segment like a pro, and sell like one too.

I was talking tech stacks with a friend recently, and perfect timing, one of my favorite online educators dropped an email this weekend explaining how segmenting his email list for a course launch led to a 38% lift in sales.

While I’m building up my resource library and planting the seeds for more robust funnels and a masterclass (have you peeped the email workshop coming soon?),

I couldn’t help but forward that case study to the same friend and break it down this week on the Bloc.

If you’re not already familiar, email segmentation is the (ideally automated) process of tagging and organizing your email subscribers into smaller, more targeted groups based on shared traits or behaviors.

Product- and service-based business owners have *a lot* to gain from applying these principles too.

We can:

• send more personal messages for evergreen and seasonal promotions
• get a clearer understanding of our audience’s needs, interests, and wants, and
• increase open rates and conversions by delivering content that feels made for them

In short, segmentation turns your email list from a one-size-fits-all broadcast into a living, breathing conversation with the right people at the right time.

And the coolest part: it can *all* still be automated.

More brand bytes next Sunday at 5!