Severance's Genius Marketing & The New TikTok Alternative
Vol. 2 Issue 3 – 18th January 2025
Think inside the box
Ahead of the new season of the show Severance, the otherwise elusive Apple TV+’s marketing team had a stroke of genius. The guerilla marketing/performance art tactic involved a live pop-up at the busy Grand Central Station in New York City. The installation involved a glass box with a life-size replica of the Lumon Macrodata Refinement office from the show. But the cherry on the top came on 15th January, when for 3 hours actors Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry and Tramell Tillman entered the box as their characters, doing their desk jobs and interacting with each other as they would in the show. Director-writer of Severance, Ben Stiller was also present on the outside.
Everyone passing paused to watch the silent spectacle, a brilliant take where reality mimiced the themes of the show that highlights a dystopian perspective on the concept of work-life balance, and one’s privacy and agency in a world under acute surveillance. The first episode also dropped on Friday, providing some answers and even more questions post the 3-year long wait after season 1. Episodes will drop weekly, every Friday on Apple TV+.
Around the world
The TikTok ban is going through in America on Sunday, the solution for Americans was to migrate to another short-form video sharing app called Rednote. And learning Chinese. Rednote’s original name is Xiaohongshu and is the popular alternative to TikTok for young people in China. The Chinese have openly welcomed the American social media refugees on the app and the two nations have shown great camaraderie on there. So much so, that Duolingo has reported a 216% increase for users learning Mandarin Chinese in the US.
Timotee Chalamet showed up to the London premiere of ‘A Complete Unknown’ on a rental Lime bike, even raking up fines amounting to £65 for wrongful parking. It has also been announced that Timothee will be performing double duty on Saturday Night Live. Its being speculated that he’ll sing Bob Dylan songs from his movie, which would be more appropriate than a new rendition of ‘Statistics’ by ‘Lil Timmy Tim’.
The Korean game of Gongii has risen in popularity after being featured in Squid Game 2.
Chris Martin and Dakota Johnsonn were spotted roaming the Marine Drive in Mumbai ahead of Coldplay’s concert there, and fret not if you didn’t win the battle of the tickets, the concert in Ahemdabad will also be livestreamed for Indian audiences on Disney+!
Instagram is testing a new rectangular profile grid layout on some accounts, instead of squares they’re known for.
The Australian Open YouTube live stream features not the real players, but Nintendo Wii-esque tennis player characters replicating the matches, to get around rights issues.
Justin Baldoni is now suing Ryan Reynolds and Marvel, as he thinks the character of ‘Nicepool’ in Deadpool and Wolverine was based on, and poking fun at him.
A woman in France was scammed out of €830,000 after believing she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt. These are the pictures she received.
The new Nintendo Switch 2 was unveiled. The more mature design sees a larger display, and the colourful detachable Joy-Cons replaced by bigger and sleeker black ones.
Rumour has it that the creative director of the Spanish luxury fashion house, Loewe, Jonathan Anderson, will be leaving to replace Maria Grazia Chiuri at Christian Dior.
American filmmaker David Lynch, 78, is no more. He directed several acclaimed projects including Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, Dune (1984) and Blue Velvet.
Watch out
The BAFTA nominations were announced. Conclaave leads with 12 nods while movies like Dune 2 and Challengers were nowhere to be seen. See the full list on nominations here.
Greta Gerwig's Chronicles Of Narnia adaptation is officially releasing in theaters and will have a 4-week exclusive theatrical run before releasing on Netflix Christmas 2026 in 1000s of IMAX screens.
The director of Miss Congeniality and How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days is teaming up with the writer of Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and She's The Man, for a new rom-com titled ‘The Last Resort’.
The much-awaited return of Daredevil in the MCU. The trailer for Daredevil: Born Again is here.
British singer Robbie Williams’ biopic, starring a CGI monkey as the lead playing the singer (yes, you read that right) may have bombed at the box office but is getting rave reviews on social media.
The new Hunger Games’ prequel book, ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’’s first excerpt has dropped. Read it here. The book, which is already being made into a movie, covers the Quarter Quell when Haymitch Abernathy represented District 12 and won.