Extreme Weather Summer

Plus: Climate's Latest Push & Gen Z's Costco Mentality

Banner Image: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Edit: Hirsch Leatherwood

Happy Monday! For this week’s edition of Out of Scope, we tackle the climate and commercial zeitgeist. But first, here are other stories from last week with some staying power...

📡ON OUR RADAR

• President Joe Biden’s age continues to cause headaches and headlines as the Democratic Party contends with his candidacy. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’ popularity increases among the extremely online and Former President Donald Trump’s election odds continue to surge following the attempt on his life. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, we all can agree political violence has no place in our democracy. 

• Abercrombie has foregone the inexplicably deep v-necks of the early aughts in favor of more subtle, versatile styles and inclusive, customer-conscious marketing. This approach has yielded soaring sales—with their stock outpacing even Nvidia in growth—which is highly promising for other 2000’s-chic brands looking to stage a comeback.

• In an effort to reach younger audiences, NATO tapped Tony P, a 25-year-old influencer known for sharing D.C.-based "cooking, fashion, and adulting tips," to be the face of its 75th-anniversary summit video. Some backlash ensued, and many parties—including Tony himself—seemed confused by the decision.

💡ON OUR MINDS: Climate Change’s Push Notification Era

• For most of the United States, it’s been a summer marked by extreme weather and push alerts with heat and other urgent advisories.

• Push notifications have become the main form of climate change communication. For the most part, they serve as an effective way to swiftly warn Americans of heat advisories and natural disasters headed their way.

• But what happens when we’re not hearing from government agencies or utility companies ahead of, or during, weather-induced crisis moments? One option, in true American fashion, is to turn to your local fast food app.

• After Hurricane Beryl left nearly 1.8 million utility customers without power, Texans used the flagship app from the local burger chain, Whataburger, to track power outages when local utility company, CenterPoint Energy ,couldn’t supply a map feature or timely updates.

• As climate change worsens and extreme weather becomes the norm, climate communication leaders may have to reconsider the best avenue for updating Americans. A key reason: it’s clear weather push alerts are well on their way to becoming just another recurring notification.

🥊QUICK HITS:

In case you missed these reads:

• Paramount Global is merging with Skydance Media in a deal that will end the Redstone family’s reign and inject $8 billion into the studio’s revitalization. 

• To piggyback on The Wall Street Journal—it’s worth double-clicking on whether our verbiage is a mission-critical value-add in order to ensure we don’t boil the ocean and remain synergistically aligned. 

• Pop music is so back (with a few exceptions) and we all have Hannah Montana to thank for raising the next generation of superstars, including Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter.