The Atlantic Daily
Sex sells. Brands are banking on the idea that heartbreak does too.
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Brands seem to have zeroed in on the ultimate relatable situation: a romance gone bad. Cue the ex-based marketing promotions.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
- What Tom Suozzi’s win means for Democrats
- Carry-on baggage has reached a “breaking point.”
- The Moneyball theory of presidential social media
- How to spend your time “poorly”
Branding Bad Romance
If romance has failed you lately, fear not. Brands are standing by with surreal promotional stunts just for you.
Want to send your significant other a breakup pizza? Pizza Hut has you covered. Seeking free dumplings? Simply prove to P. F. Chang’s that you have been dumped over text. Last year, Topo Chico ran a campaign to send customers’ exes a scorpion. Ex-focused stunts are everywhere lately. Start-ups and consumer brands are the worst offenders, but others are getting in on the action too: The City of New York advises, “Don’t text your ex. Text your mayor.” The San Antonio Zoo will feed a rat or roach named after your ex to a zoo animal, and animal shelters will neuter pets named for your ex.
Valentine’s Day has long been lampooned as a paragon of consumerist excess. Data from the National Retail Federation projected that consumers will spend a record $14.2 billion on significant others this year; earnest ads attempting to sell flowers and jewelry and chocolate have been around for decades, and they’re not going anywhere. But now, having successfully monetized the good parts, brands are standing by to commercialize the hardships of dating.
Those with a thirst for vengeance—or at least plausible bad feelings about an ex—represent consumers with spending power. The NRF found that about 55 percent of Valentine’s Day spending is on significant others—and that the other half is on friends, family members, and pets, among others. Many who focus their spending in that second category may well be single: As a blog post on the Chamber of Commerce’s website put it last year, Valentine’s Day is now “a time when brands and retailers are increasingly aware that the happily single demographic is growing faster than the happily-ever-after cohort.” About 30 percent of American adults are single, according to a 2022 Pew survey—and about half of adults under 30 are single. Presumably, many of those people have at one point dated someone, and others are likely wading through the challenges of dating apps; they make up an untapped Valentine’s Day market.
Ex-oriented ads are a case study in the lengths brands are going to appear relatable—and to reach for that elusive holy grail of Gen Z values: authenticity. Such campaigns attempt to make a product feel so me. Indeed, it is so everyone to have once had and lost a relationship (or at least a situationship). Aiming to appeal to young consumers, who are conditioned by years online to spot corny sales pitches, brands are seeking to seem self-aware at the corniest time of the year.
The turn toward ex-obsessed marketing may also reflect a broader change in how people regard one another. Good ads attempt to pick up on cultural shifts, and it seems the brands have caught on: For many young people who spend time online, earnest wholesomeness is out. Recrimination and harsh boundaries are in. After recent generations trended toward staying friends with exes, many young people today seem more interested in cutting people off. As my colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in 2022, we are in the midst of an epidemic of shunning toxic people—in part, she suggests, because young people’s “brains have been pickled in wellness culture and ‘self-care’ rhetoric, which stress the need to privilege our own well-being above all else.” These attitudes are seeping into pop culture too: Revenge songs are big right now. Pop divas such as Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift croon about former flames and getting back at those who hurt them.
As Valentine’s Day has evolved, brands have followed close behind. First, it was a major spending holiday for people in relationships. Then, after Parks and Recreation coined the name “Galentine’s Day” for celebrating the holiday with friends, Hallmark and others swooped in to sell people ways to partake without a significant other. Now even the haters are getting products marketed to them. Perhaps that’s the natural end point of a holiday that for decades has been so closely tied to spending. But those who want to can still find genuine joy in the day, and I will end on an earnest note myself: Regardless of whether you buy anything this year, I wish you a happy—and hopefully not too vengeful—Valentine’s Day.
Related:
- That’s it. You’re dead to me.
- The new Valentine’s Day is coming for all your relationships.
Today’s News
- House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner stated that intel about a “serious national-security threat” was shared with members of Congress. CNN reported that sources say the threat is related to Russia.
- In light of last week’s failed Senate border bill, ICE is considering a plan to address its budget shortfall by releasing thousands of immigrants and reducing its capacity to hold detainees, according to The Washington Post.
- At least one person is dead and 14 others were injured in a shooting near the Chiefs’ Super Bowl rally in Kansas City, according to the Kansas City Fire Department. Two armed individuals are in custody.
Dispatches
- Work in Progress: Why did Americans suddenly stop hanging out? Derek Thompson investigates the rise of introversion.
- The Weekly Planet: A second Trump term would be a disaster for the climate, Zoë Schlanger writes. Would the U.S. be able to recover?
Explore all of our newsletters here.
Evening Read
The Case for Spending Way More on Babies
By Annie Lowrey
Holding her infant patients, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha felt a deep sense of frustration. “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do as a pediatrician,” she told me, describing counseling her patients’ parents about vaccines, a healthy diet, safe sleeping, and car seats. But Hanna-Attisha practices in Flint, the poorest city in Michigan and one in which more than half of children grow up in poverty. That poverty means her patients are more likely to miss milestones and fail to thrive, and more likely to grow up to have heart disease and diabetes, or to experience psychological distress. She felt like she was only ever applying a “Band-Aid,” she said. Poverty’s “a really big problem. I can’t fix that.”
Except it turns out that she can.
Read the full article.
More From The Atlantic
- When Valentine’s Day meets Ash Wednesday
- What to do if the course of true love is not running smoothly
- What would it take to convince Americans that the economy is fine?
- Great apes know just how much to annoy one another.
Culture Break
Watch (or skip). Madame Web is another unexciting entry in the bloated world of superhero movies, David Sims writes.
Read. Lauren Markham’s new book, A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging, explores the contradictory prejudice behind anti-migrant attitudes.
Play our daily crossword.
Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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Lora Kelley is an associate editor at The Atlantic and an author of the Atlantic Daily newsletter.
