• Markets: Stocks were as mixed yesterday as your feelings about whether eating a salad is healthy right now. The S&P 500 and the Dow rose as oil prices fell, while the Nasdaq was dragged down by flagging chipmakers. Nvidia in particular took a hit as investors worried about its circular financing deals, giving Apple the chance to reclaim the world’s most valuable company crown.

Not-so-wide web

Niv Bavarsky

If your dream career involves a ring light, but you can’t get millions of people to like and subscribe, your moment has arrived. Big brands are increasingly looking to do business with small-time influencers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Research firm Emarketer forecasts that US-based influencers will earn $21 billion this year and…

• Around 45% of brand spending on influencer marketing will go to creators with less than 20,000 followers, compared with 19.5% in 2021.
• Nearly 20% of spending will go to “nanoinfluencers” with less than 5,000 followers, compared with a measly 3.1% five years ago.

It’s not just brands with tiny budgets going micro: Companies like Target, American Eagle, and Soul Cycle are among those working with smaller creators—some with as few as 500 followers, per WSJ.

Why are brands thinking small?

Like everything suddenly becoming pistachio-flavored, you can blame it on the algorithm. Since most of what you see in your feed now doesn’t come from accounts you follow, sponsoring a creator with a big following no longer guarantees views.

Meanwhile, the little guys are driving engagement in a big way. Growth marketing firm ATTN found that microinfluencers average a 3.2% engagement rate, while those with 1+ million followers average a 1.1% rate. Accounts with big followings can generate significantly more revenue for brand partners, but they also cost as much as 18x more to partner with, according to Bloomberg.

But maybe don’t quit your day job yet: Evangelizing a brand to your small but mighty band of followers probably isn’t a shortcut to livestreaming from inside a private jet. Compensation for smaller influencers can often just be discounts, $10 gift cards, or some freebies, the WSJ noted. And unlike a steady but less glamorous office job, the size of your paycheck from influencing can vary each month. More than half of the 3,000 full-time creators surveyed by Influencer Marketing Hub last year said they earned below a living wage.—AR

      

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With 500m+ people afflicted worldwide, a $560b opportunity’s waiting. Join 7,500+ people and invest in Cytonics before the round closes.

World

Tour de headlines

Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

🍴Cracker Barrel CEO steps down one year after failed rebrand. Remember last summer when Cracker Barrel tried to update its logo and decor, and everyone got mad? Investors (both activist and not) sure do, and now the chain’s CEO, Julie Masino, is moving on. She’ll be replaced on August 10 by David Deno, the former head of Bloomin’ Brands, which owns Outback Steakhouse. Masino joined Cracker Barrel in July 2023 and was tasked with attracting new customers. But the changes to the logo were met with fierce backlash online, with even President Trump piling on. Although Masino rolled back the changes within days, the chain’s stock and sales took a big hit. However, there were recent signs of recovery, so the surprising announcement sent the stock down 2.38% yesterday.

📈 Chipmaker’s IPO bump makes it China’s most valuable listed company. CXMT, the world’s fourth-largest maker of DRAM, debuted on the Shanghai market yesterday and popped 466%. The soaring share price gave it a value of more than $487 billion, as investors bet on AI. That was enough to make it China’s most valuable listed company on its first day of trading. It still trails rivals like Micron and South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix, but Apple has reportedly been considering CXMT’s chips for devices sold in China.

📬 Trump asks SCOTUS to approve mail-in voting curbs before midterms. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court yesterday for an emergency ruling to let it implement an executive order targeting mail-in voting. The request to the nation’s highest court came after a federal appeals court over the weekend blocked the order’s implementation in 23 states that sued to challenge its requirement barring ballots from being sent to anyone not on an approved eligible voter list. The administration is seeking a quick decision, noting that any new policies would need to be active by August to be used in November’s election.—AR

JUST LET FORD DO IT

Ford

Ford is going to help make your car engine rev louder and whatever else you need to manage your midlife crisis. The US carmaker said it’s expanding its customization menu, offering customers more options to soup up their cars with performance parts and flashy accessories—as well as adding special-edition vehicles reminiscent of buzzy Nike shoe drops.

Yesterday, it unveiled a pink version of its Bronco SUV with a slew of features inspired by the hues of the landscape surrounding Salt Lake City. Costing an extra $13,695, it’s the first of several planned limited-edition cars that Ford’s head of customization told CNBC the carmaker hopes will generate the same level of hype as “Nike dropping a sneaker.”

Don’t DIY

Upcharging for custom cars allows Ford to tap further into the $53 billion aftermarket auto enhancements industry—while juicing revenue for dealers. The company is pitching the expanded options as a win for drivers, who now don’t have to manage modifications themselves:

• Ford says half of its customers already ask for some form of customization, ranging from floor mats to turbo engines.
• Unlike with post-purchase modifications, Ford is offering the usual three-year warranty on all specialty parts, and will finance them through its auto loan department.

But…some industry observers note that Ford’s push to add bells and whistles to existing vehicles might be a way to compensate for its lack of new models.—SK

      

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MY SOLD KENTUCKY HOME

Bob Grannis/Getty Images

The residence of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Harland Sanders and his wife, Claudia Sanders, will be sold at auction today—as will, perhaps, the exact combination of 11 herbs and spices that make the colonel’s chicken finger lickin’ good.

The three-acre property served as the original KFC headquarters and now contains two structures: the Blackwood Hall mansion and Claudia Sanders Dinner House. The latter is a restaurant the couple opened after selling KFC for $2 million in 1964—a decision the Colonel came to regret despite remaining the business’s mascot, as he believed quality slipped.

• The family that bought the estate from Sanders five decades ago is now ready to sell.
• It was listed for $9 million in 2022 but then reduced to $4.9 million in 2023.
• The auction also includes some of Sanders’s personal memorabilia.

As for the secret recipe…among the items for sale, auctioneers are touting the Colonel’s day planner, which they say lists the precise measurements of the 11 herbs and spices. However, a spokeswoman for Yum! Brands, KFC’s current parent company, told the New York Times the true secret recipe is “locked in a digital safe encased in two feet of concrete.”—DL

      

Reader poll

Matty’s work-life balance

You probably just need some alone time

Unsplash

On Tuesdays, the Brew’s Matty Merritt brings you the news you need to make life a little easier during your 9-5, 5-9, or OOO.

It turns out the greatest workplace perk is some gosh darn peace and quiet. Consulting group Superteams Inc. surveyed 6,000 workers across different industries and found that members of the most successful teams all reported having uninterrupted time to work solo.

When asked which amenities they had available to them—including collaborative workspaces, free coffee, gyms, etc.—individuals identified as members of “superteams” (i.e. more productive, collaborative, minimal tense Slack DMs) were 52% more likely than teams considered average to have access to spaces for quiet, focused work.

It might not matter where that space is. This research suggests that the debate over remote work or RTO may not be as important as whether employees can find a silent spot and a chunk of time to tackle all the stuff they’ve been brainstorming during the team huddle.—MM

Sponsored By Cytonics

Investment window closing. Big Pharma’s spent $1b trying to cure osteoarthritis, without success. But they may have found their newest acquisition target in Cytonics, a biotech with a treatment that cleared Phase 1 clinical trials and is moving to the next phase. While nothing’s guaranteed, an uncured $560b disease is exactly what acquirers want. Invest before the round closes.

News

What else is brewing

• Police said that a 15-year-old suspect was arrested after a shooting at a Seattle food festival that killed three people. Authorities continued to search for a second suspect yesterday, and the AP reported that court documents show that investigators believe a third shooter was killed at the scene.
• President Trump said the US was having “good talks” with Iran, but that the US would resume attacks if talks failed.
• Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $5.5 billion to settle ‌tens of thousands of long-running lawsuits that claim its talc products cause ovarian cancer.
• Nvidia and other tech giants, including SpaceX and Microsoft, announced a new AI safety initiative yesterday amid the continued fallout from a rogue OpenAI model hacking another company.
• Carly Simon revealed that she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
• Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming, and Benedict Wong urged the UK to block Paramount’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying the merger would “harm our workers, our culture and the public.”

recs

• The case against killing off paper checks. (Of course, there are also all the uses SNL identified.)
• What health experts say about wood vs. plastic cutting boards.
• Watch this explanation of why every song you’ve heard lately has the same melody.
• You know those beat-up suitcases everyone makes fun of? This one will prevent you from being the butt of a joke.**

^{*A message from our sponsor. **This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Morning Brew may earn a commission.}

Play

Brew Mini: Today’s little puzzle has us thinking about Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, because it’s called “Busker.” Play it here.

Trivia with a bite

In honor of Shark Week, which started Sunday, who were the original five sharks on ABC’s Shark Tank?

Answer

Barbara Corcoran, Kevin Harrington, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Kevin O’Leary

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: evangelizing, meaning “spreading the gospel.” Thanks to Nina from Portland, ME, for opening our eyes to the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.