Ray-Ban. Cool is a tradable asset.
Meta has put $3.5 billion into Ray-Ban's parent for 3%. Every future gadget will come wearing an old name.
THE GIST ON RAY-BAN: "Cool is a tradable asset"
What did Meta just buy?
A $3.5 billion investment for 3% of Ray-Ban's holding company. That's more than Ray-Ban was worth as an entire brand 25 years ago.
How did Ray-Ban get rescued?
It's hard to believe, but Ray-Ban was a dying brand in 1999. They'd been sold in petrol stations for so long you wouldn't be seen dead in a pair. The American owner flogged them to Luxottica, an Italian eyewear giant, for a measly $640 million.
All Luxottica did was take them out of petrol stations, jack the price up and put them in fancy boutiques. That was the rescue operation, and it's the oldest trick in the book.
What was the brand worth all along?
Wayfarers and aviators had been on famous faces since 1952: James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Tom Cruise in Top Gun. That all existed while they were rotting in petrol stations. Change the setting and 70 years of cultural weight comes flooding back.
And that is what Meta has bought.
Why does it matter?
If a shape can carry that much cultural weight, it can carry their tech too. Google Glass, Snap Spectacles and Vision Pro all flopped because wearing them makes you look like a goon. Integrate with the coolest look in the world and you get the best selling smart glasses in history.
That's the moment cool became a tradable asset. But cool is the only asset that gets less valuable the more explicitly you own it. Every heritage brand in bed with a suspicious partner is on a slow clock. How long do you think they've got?
Do you wear Ray-Bans?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
What did Meta invest in Ray-Ban?
$3.5 billion for 3% of its holding company.
How was Ray-Ban rescued in 1999?
It was sold to Luxottica for $640 million, taken out of petrol stations, priced up and put in fancy boutiques.
Why do smart glasses work where other wearables flopped?
Huw says wearing Google Glass or Vision Pro makes you look like a goon, whereas the old Ray-Ban shape already looks cool.
See you on the next one.
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The conversation
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