Beauty brand Tatcha is venturing into the popular game Animal Crossing: New Horizons with its own island, aptly named Tatchaland, as a way to connect with pandemic-era consumers.
"What we've learned and what we sought to do was to really take Tatcha's platform, which has always been about self-care, providing joy and moments of calm and respite in skincare, and bring that experience to our community in the virtual world," Sarah Henry, CMO of Tatcha, told Cheddar Thursday.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has taken off during the pandemic after its launch in March when stay-at-home orders started picking up steam across the U.S. CNET reported in May the Nintendo Switch game sold more than 13 million copies in just six weeks.
Fans have praised the game as a way to relax and take their minds off coronavirus-related stress with cute characters and whimsical missions. Now, brands are also seeing it as a marketing landscape.
Gamers who visit Tatchaland will find features that reflect the products' packaging, a replica of the Tatcha lab, an avatar version of its founder, and elements of Japanese culture that have influenced the brand. Virtual visitors can also learn more about the recently-launched Rice Wash.
Henry said brick-and-mortar "is still incredibly important," but the coronavirus accelerated existing trends pushing into the virtual space.
"The reality is that pre-COVID and now, what we do in the virtual world in the digital space really informs that retail experience," Henry said. "And the retailers that will win going forward are the ones that are able to provide that omnichannel experience to kind of take the consumer from her phone into the store."
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
