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The front of the Wheaties box has served as a hall of fame for some of the greatest athletes of all time, from baseball star Lou Gehrig to boxer Muhammid Ali, basketball legend Michael Jordan, and seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. Now, a fresh face is gracing the boxs hallowed orange frame: Marty Mauser, the fictional ping-pong player played by Timothée Chalamet in A24s upcoming film Marty Supreme. [Screenshot: Instagram] The cereal box comes just weeks after A24 released a now-viral 18-minute long parody of a marketing meeting to promote the movie (which releases on Christmas). In that video, Chalamet joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives and proceeds to fill up the meetings airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the films marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas. Since then, several of the comedic ideas have, astonishingly, become realityincluding an ad campaign on bright orange blimps and, now, a $25 limited-edition Wheaties box. Our current era of movie marketing is dominated by discussion of properties like Barbie and Wicked, which have rewritten the roles of brand partnerships by flooding stores everywhere with hundreds of collabs per film (Wicked part one, for example, netted more than 400 collabs). When Barbie can show up on a Heinz bottle and Elphaba in a box of mac n cheese, the novelty of movie-branded partnerships can start to wear off. A24 is combatting that consumer fatigue with a masterclass marketing campaign for Marty Supreme. Its co-branded merch balances scarcity, which makes every drop feel aspirational, with a kind of unexpected flair that makes perfect sense for the filmand for its audience of young Chalamet fans. How Marty Supreme is courting its young audience In late November, Chalamet posted the address of a New York storefront with the message, C u at 7. By 4:30, fans were lined up around the block. View this post on Instagram They were queuing to get their hands on what turned out to be a line of Marty Supreme-themed merch, designed by the luxury L.A.-based brand Nahmias. Every item sold out, but one in particulara $250 windbreaker inspired by an outfit from the showwas the clear star of the show. Since then, its sold for $5,000 on Grailed and become a topic of considerable discourse on Reddit, where users are avidly yearning for a bigger drop. View this post on Instagram The Marty Supreme marketing campaign is leaning unabashedly on Chalamets star power and influence with a younger, primarily male audienceand clearly, its working. Chalamets audience wants a piece of his effortless swagger, and that becomes even more desirable when, instead of being available on the shelves of every local Target and countless digital Amazon storefronts (Wicked, were looking at you), his Marty Supreme collabs are only available in the most limited of supply. That thought process clearly also applies to this new collab with Wheaties. Why the Marty Supreme marketing campaign is genius, actually Like the windbreaker, the Wheaties collab is directly tied to a moment in the film, when Marty, (whos portrayed as an extremely confident, assertive salesman), says, It’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box. Its also a reference to the aforementioned Zoom parody, wherein Chalamet tries to convince the marketing team that Marty deserves a spot on the Wheaties box alongside names like Michael Jordan. To me, its marketing 101, Chalamet says in the video. Apparently, the team at Wheaties agrees. View this post on Instagram For more than 100 years, Wheaties has celebrated iconic athletes and moments in culture that transcend boundaries, from sports to unexpected heroes, says Emilie Knox, vice president and business unit director of cereal at General Mills. Marty Supreme fits squarely into that tradition as he embodies determination, heart, and the belief that greatness can come from the most unexpected places. When designing the box, the Wheaties team leaned into its most recognizable brand elements, including its iconic orangewhich, coincidentally, is also the central color of Marty Supremeand the featured figure front-and-center. A fictional athlete, with real return? General Mills produced several thousand of the special edition boxes, each at the hefty price point of $25, which Knox says reflects the collectible nature of the box and its limited run. On Reddit, users are skeptical of the cost. One commenter wrote, This would be a cool giveaway gift, but for $25 you will not be staring at me from the cover of a Wheaties boxa sentiment that appears to be shared by several others. [Image: A24/General Mills] Wheaties declined to share specific numbers, but as of this writing, the limited box is already ‘sold out’ on the A24 website after going less just a day ago, creating a sense of scarcity among consumers (though its still available through Wheaties’ site). According to Knox, the early response has been extremely strong, with collectors moving quickly to get their hands on a box. A24s marketing team has been incredible partners, Knox says. The playful teasers leading up to the drop, like the Zoom marketing call seen around the world, were driven by their creative genius, and weve had a lot of fun working together to continue building fan excitement. Marty Supremes marketing prioritizes depth over breadth, opting to prioritize a few deeply thought-out collabs over an all-out blitz. Ironically, by limiting its marketing’s scope and availability, the films team has managed to break through the sea of content online and reach new audiences.
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E-Commerce
AI is part and parcel of many corporate design processes these days, including one company making a product many creatives are familiar with: Dropbox. Its VP of design and research, Shannon Butler, is optimistic about the techs integrations into her teams workas long as designers are pragmatic in its integrations. Butler leads a design team that she feels has a bigger impact than filing deliverables on deadline: redefining work through the intersection of creativity, collaboration, and AI. A veteran of Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and LinkedIn, Shannon has spent two decades shaping products that influence how billions connect and create. Shannon Butler [Photo: Dropbox] In her interview with University of Texas School of Design and Creative Technology assistant dean Doreen Lorenzo, Shannon discusses how Dropbox is reimagining design in the age of AInot as a replacement for human creativity, but as a force multiplier for it. She reflects on lessons from leading design through hypergrowth and crisis, the role of taste as the next big differentiator in tech, and why the future of design leadership will depend less on tools and more on human judgment, curiosity, and conviction. When did you realize you were interested in design? Like many creatives, I was always a maker: drawing, writing, creating. The pivotal moment came in college. I was studying to be a teacher but told my dad I wanted to be an artist and didnt know how to make a career of it. My dad, a self-taught software engineer, said, You need to be in technology. This was when CSS and JavaScript were freeing web design from rigid HTML tables. I started building websites for small businesses to pay for college and graduated with a full roster of freelance clients. That led to a marketing agency role helping larger clients go online. Then the iPhone came out, the world discovered UX, and the rest is history. How is AI influencing your work from a design perspective? We have this unique opportunity to make design a differentiator again, by putting ourselves in a human-first perspective rather than an AI-first perspective. Dropbox isnt using AI to replace people or steal from creatives. Were inserting it into creative workflows so that output is amplified and accelerated. By removing the grunt work of knowledge management or finding the right assets, we empower people to become even better at what they do, whether that’s crafting a commercial, running a photo shoot, or pitching a business plan, all the things that only humans can do. What do you enjoy about the meshing of technology and design? The scale is unmatched. I’ve been fortunate to work on products that don’t just serve users, they actually shape how society connects, creates, collaborates. I see that as both a tremendous privilege and responsibility that I take very seriously. I also love the pace. Technology moves so fast that you’re constantly operating at the edge of what’s never been done before. At YouTube, we invented new ways for creators to build community. At Airbnb, we reimagined trust between strangers. At Google, we designed for billions coming online for the first time. You have to be visionary and pragmaticdesigning experiences that feel magical while working within technological constraints. Its like being an architect who not only designs buildings but new ways to live. Can AI play a role in making peoples lives better through design? AI is an accelerant to the design process. Tools like Cursor and Figma Make are now essential for rapid prototyping. We built internal Slack channels called Ask a Writer or Ask a Researcher that tap into our brand guidelines and research repositories instantly. The speed boost is dramatic. Were getting to meaningful first drafts in hours, not days. But our approach is pragmatic. AIs limitations are realsome temporary, some long-lasting. We use it as a brainstorming partner, not a decision-maker. Anything customer-facing goes through rigorous human review. AI can optimize for metrics, but it cant make judgment calls. It doesnt grasp cultural nuance, brand intuition, or the subtle human behaviors that build long-term loyalty. Thats where designers become more valuable, not less. Who inspires you, and how does that show up in your work? Im drawn to people who refuse to accept thats just how its done, especially in a tech landscape where consolidation has created a dangerous gravitational pull toward sameness. What energizes me are leaders who stay true to their values, even when it’s harder. RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian, could have built a Tesla clone, but hes challenging the industry without sacrificing brand or product excellence for short-term goals. I also admire investors like Kate McAndrew at Baukunst, who unapologetically focus on women, creativity, and the long view in an industry obsessed with quick exits. Shes proving the status quo can change. Across your career, what projects are you most proud of? Im drawn to win-win-win projects where customers, business, and society all benefitproblems that feel almost nonprofit in ambition but are positioned for sustainable impact at scale. At Google, we worked on products to bridge the connectivity divide in underserved marketsexploring satellite-delivered content and peer-to-peer transfer when those approaches were considered radical. The goal was to bring the internet to billions who couldnt access it via traditional infrastructure. At YouTube, I loved the transformation from distraction media to engagement media. We built features that empowered creators and supported movements like It Gets Better. The comments sections of videos improved from cesspool quality to featuring content almost as compelling as the videos. At Airbnb, I led Trust, core to the vlue proposition. Later I led nearly every product area through COVID and the IPO. AirCover was the culmination, radically transforming what happens when something goes wrong on a trip and eliminating the fear that prevents people from trusting strangers or having transformative experiences. The throughlines have been purpose-driven breakthroughs, a shared sense of “why,” and rallying a team around “impossible” goals. What are some of the most important lessons you have learned? Al Gore once came to Airbnb and told our team, People do what you pay them to do. That changed how I evaluate design opportunities. Some of my biggest successes were failures because I ignored the fundamental question: how does the company actually make money? I invested in work that would never translate into impact because the organizations werent structured to profit from that impact in the short term. Its brutal to realize talented people can pour their hearts into work thats structurally doomed, not because the ideas are wrong, but because the business model doesnt reward those outcomes in the short term. Is todays AI discourse helpful? How do you guide your creatives to take the right signals and uplift creativity? Competition is tough. Everyones racing to be the fastest, biggest, and most innovative. That focus on competition forces many tech companies to lose track of what matters most. Much of Big Tech product development is disconnected from the end customer, often because the business model isnt optimized for them. Echo-chamber thinking focuses on beating competitors or last months metrics, not delivering real value. Short-term optimization is addictive and damaging. I coach my team that, yes, AI is powerful, but its another wave of tools like weve adapted to many times. Humans must provide talent and judgment AI cant. Our mandates havent changed: human-centered design and delivering real value. How has design changed since you started? Where is design headed? When I started, in-house design barely existed. Design was misunderstood as beautification at the end and often outsourced. Then agencies like IDEO and frog proved its strategic value. Everyone brought design in-house, and teams ballooned across design, engineering, and PM. Now were seeing a retrenchment. Unfortunately many companies often lack the talent and the muscle memory to ship new value. Theyre in optimization land, not innovation land. Design has gone through cycles of being valued and devalued. After several years of devaluation, I believe were entering a period where taste will again be the differentiator in the AI era. Everyone can move fast and ship quickly, but durable brand loyalty and user value require design input. Companies bought design firms, moved them in-house, but didnt know what to do with them. Then they started hiring designers to manage designers, shaping teams differently. Now were seeing better output. I believe the next era for design should be more design founders and design-minded entrepreneurs, a new crop of companies that show a fundamentally different way of working and doing business. I believe that if design leaders were truly leveraged, we’d have fundamentally better products and a healthier digital society. What advice do you have for aspiring designers? Design is more relevant than ever. Twenty years ago my job didnt exist. Now theres a wave of enthusiasm and talent we desperately need. Every poorly designed product or soulless interface should strengthen your conviction that creativity is necessary. Pair your anger about whats broken with a vision for what can be. Dont quit. I love Ira Glasss point about the gap between your taste and your work. Youre in this field because you have great taste. Now your execution just needs to catch up. The only way to close that gap is through relentless practice. My early agency years at Sapient Nitro and frog forced me to deliver at high volume under tight deadlines, and those reps gave me confidence for impossible briefs later. Design in tech is nothing but change, and thats what keeps it exciting. Becoming a lifelong learner, staying curious, and being unafraid to try new things are critical for designersand for anyone navigating the 21st century workplace.
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In a Rye, Colorado, cattle pasture now subbing for the moon, an otherworldly vehicle bumps along a scrubby course of furrows and mounds, weaving around rocks and kicking up a fine dust. Its an open-concept machine dubbed Falcona silver solar-powered rectangular frame on wheels, with a partial roof, windowless sides, and a spacious cockpit flanked by monitors and steering controls. An engineer sits in one of its two seats for safety as the vehicle autonomously navigates around obstacles to a location dictated by Mission Control 160 miles away.Suddenly, a wheel hits a rock, and Falcon halts, relaying real-time feedback to Mission Control. There, an operator revises a command for another attempt, driving home the hurdles in developing novel spacefaring technology.We dont stage any of this for you guys, laughs Justin Cyrus. We show you real testing.Our play-by-play guide is the 32-year-old CEO and founder of Lunar Outpost, a rising star in the space robotics and mobility field. In less than a decade, the Denver area startup has already operated technology on Mars, landed the first commercial rover on the moon, and lined up another six lunar and cislunar missions with government and commercial partnershipsthe most of any private company. Now, its vying with two other firms to build NASAs next-generation lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) to shuttle Artemis V astronauts and experiments in 2030. At stake: a contract worth up to $4.6 billion. NASA is slated to make its decision this month.Justin Cyrus [Photo: Lunar Outpost]That modela sleeker upgrade to Falcon, named Eagle, after Apollo 11s crewed landerawaits in a barnlike workshop, a short walk down a sloped dirt road where visitors are warned to keep an eye out for snakes. This is not your grandparents moon buggy. Eagle reaches speeds up to 25 mph (compared to Apollos 11 mph) for emergencies, though astronauts will stick to under 15 mph for safety. It can also climb 25-degree slopes, which engineers test on a nearby shale rock ridge, and carry more than 2.4 tons of cargo. It will operate in four driving modes: manually, assisted autonomy, teleoperated from Earth, and full autonomy with preprogrammed missions. And its crafted to run for years in the lunar south poles punishing radiation levels, abrasive dust, severe lighting, and temperature extremes ranging from 130 F in sunlight to334 F in permanently shaded craters.This 1,000-acre patch of the Cyrus family ranch seems an unexpected Lunar Vehicle Test Site, as announced by a nearby sign. But the rugged landscape surrounding futuristic machines and a CEO decked out in black jeans and cowboy boots implies a fitting message: the adventurous spirit of the American West vaulting into the space age.[Photo: Susan Karlin]For the space economy, you need a robotic workforce, says Cyrus. So, the idea behind Lunar Outpostlets make that robotic workforce for extreme environmentsevolved over the years into a robotic workforce on other planetary bodies. We want to be the company that makes outposts on the moon and cities on Mars.Eagle in the lunar economyNASAs Artemis missions seek to return humans to the moon and establish a sustainable lunar base and economy as a springboard to crewed missions to Mars. As part of it, the space agency last year awarded contracts to Lunar Outpost, Venturi Astrolab in Hawthorne, CA, and Intuitive Machines in Houston to design LTVs to shuttle astronauts, transport equipment, and conduct sample gathering and analysis.Regardless of NASAs choice, the Eagle is still headed to the moon. Last year, it secured a commercial agreement with SpaceX to use its Starship to deliver Eagle to the lunar surface, where it can be used commercially when not needed by NASA. Eagle is a feat of engineering. It boasts a sensor suite of 360-degree stereoscopic cameras, LIDAR, and an electrodynamic dust system (EDS) that clears particulates off solar panels and lenses. Its sides contain MOLLE panels with quick-connect grips for utility tools (an idea borrowed from the teams off-roading vehicles), flaps that open into workstations, pop-out drawers for thermally controlled sample storage, and radiators that dispel heat from motors and avionics.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]The energy system includes dual-sided solar panels to ensure one always faces the sun, and an advanced version of General Motors high-nickel lithium-ion battery cells that, with additional heating and insulation, can survive the 14-day lunar night and operate even if individual cells fail. An open cockpit with inlaid lighting and oversize control switches enables two astronauts, regardless of size, to easily acess and operate in bulky spacesuits and gloves. Engineers incorporated feedback from astronauts who test-drove LTV simulators and prototypes.That was critical to evolving our design, says AJ Gemer, Lunar Outposts CTO and cofounder. We get used to moving here in this one-g Earth environment. When you translate that into a big, pressurized suit and one-sixth gravity, all your motions become different. Things that your gut and intuition tell you would be a nice, simple maneuver suddenly become more difficult.A 6.5-foot extendible robotic arm that attaches to the back of the vehicle can autonomously switch tool ends for tasks ranging from solar panel cleaning to sample extraction and handling to construction.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]All of the payloads on board need zero human interaction, says Cyrus. So, you can accomplish a lot of science and exploration objectives, even without astronauts on board.But the niftiest technology is the Goodyear-designed wheels36-inch metal mesh tires with a little give and bounce for better traction, shock-absorption, and longevity. This has a lot of advantages over other types of tires, which only have so many thermal cycles before they become brittle and crack, says Cyrus. If a spring comes loose or a section breaks, it doesnt unravel the whole tire. These are better for vehicle dynamics at higher speeds, because they disperse the energy better when you hit obstacles.[Animation: Susan Karlin]But space isnt necessarily the limit. Cyrus envisions future Earthbound applications for Eagle technology, most notably in the electric farm and self-driving car markets, with lunar-grade batteries that can operate in any Earth winter, and autonomy and localization that can navigate without GPS.That is probably the most under-our-hat technology, Cyrus says of the latter. Because if were able to do that, what it offers is self-driving cars to go anywhere in the world and still know where youre at without supporting infrastructure.An impassioned riseCyrus was still a kid when he first learned about the concept of sustainability in space. Hed grown up around the space industry, thanks to a dad who worked at NASAs Johnson Space Center and later, Lockheed Martin. When JSC ran a competition for employee children to fashion new Lego space station designs, Cyruss entry missed the top spot, but yielded some serious inside baseball tips.Thats cool that it unfolds and folds back up, but what are you gonna do with all the oxygen? How are you gonna refill the volatiles that you need for humans to survive?' Cyrus recalls one engineers critique. That was the first time I remember being passionate about figuring out where resources come from in space.The passion stuck. Later, while working as a Lockheed Martin engineer and pursuing graduate degrees at the Colorado School of Mines, he founded Lunar Outpost in 2017 to develop mobility and infrastructure for a sustainable human presence in space. He amassed a robust leadership team: older brother Julian, an aerospace engineer who now serves as COO; AJ Gemer, a dust science expert with eight space missions under his belt, as CTO; and Forrest Meyen as chief strategy officer. Meyen codesigned MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), a NASA demonstration technology on the Perseverance rover that produced oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. Its very rare to have cofounders with that much experience at this stage, says Cyrus.Potential backers were less enthusiastic.I pitched 300 investors; not a single one said `yes, Cyrus laughs. Theyre like, `Youre crazy! Why would I invest in a lunar company?So, the team pivoted to commercializing an air quality monitor, called Canary, that the company had designed for the International Space Station and NASAs Lunar Gateway, a planned lunar-orbiting space station for the Artemis missions. Canary detects and analyzes pollutants, including methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. It was a hit with the oil and gas industry and the U.S. Forest Service, selling some 5,000 units in more than 35 states and 14 countries to monitor forest fire emissions, air pollution, and industrial leaks.That gave us the revenue to invest in some of this advanced and deep technology, says Cyrus. Our revenues grown over two times every single year since 2017 to the point that these investors are like,`Alright, theres something there. From 2017 to 2021, they saw us evolve and do exactly what we said we were gonna do. And thats a rare thing in space.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]Since 2022, its raised $23.6 million, per market insight platforms Traxn and CB Insights, and grown to 140 employees in Colorado, Luxembourg, and Australia. (The staff also includes the youngest Cyrus brother, Austin, now a program manager.) As a private company, Lunar Outpost doesnt disclose its revenues, though platforms such as Growjo estimate theyre just north of $50 million. It developed the LTV through partnerships with Leidos, MDA Space,Goodyear, and General Motors, while Castrol collaborated on its state-of-the-art mission control at its Golden, CO headquarters, which also includes design, manufacturing, and additional testing facilities.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]The last four years have seen two space ventures. From 202123, Lunar Outpost operated MOXIE on Mars. Last March, its Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover flew aboard the Intuitive Machines Athena lander as part of a mission to collect regolith samples and assist with the first lunar communications network. Unfortunately, Athena fell onto its side, trapping MAPP and preventing its deployment. Despite the setback, we were able to do a full checkout in space and get a lot of data down, says Cyrus. That journey will be chronicled in a 2026 documentary, Drive Me to the Moon.Meanwhile, the company has another six lunar and cislunar missions planned. The company is developing Mobile Autonomous Robotic Swarms (MARS) software for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, which it will test next year in low-Earth orbit. And four of its rovers are headed back to the moon. Next year, one MAPP will fly aboard a third Intuitive Machines lunar lander to investigate a magnetic anomaly at Reiner Gamma as part of the NASA/Johns Hopkins University Lunar Vertex mission. In 2027, one MAPP will ride a fourth Intuitive Machines lander to the lunar south pole, while an exploration class rover, dubbed Roo-ver, will carry scientific and commercial payloads for the Australian Space Agencys first lunar mission. In 2028, another MAPP will join NASAs Artemis IV DUSTER mission (short for DUst and plaSma environmenT survEyoR) to carry instruments that will characterize landing-site dust and plasma. Then theres another mission the company cant announce just yet. The advancements from each mission inform the others. We have spent about a decade developing critical technologies that were going to test on many missions before it ever gets to a lunar terrain vehicle, says Cyrus. So that way, we have a high degree of confidence that the astronauts are safe, and we can reliably perform the services that NASA needs. We are a lunar mobility company, so regardless of what happens with the LTV, well keep moving.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]Another long-term vision is creating a legal and economic framework for mining space resources. Five years ago, NASA contracted with Lunar Outpost, among other companies, to purchase regolith samples for $1 to set legal and procedural precedents for private companies to own and sell what they mine on celestial bodies. (Had it been able to deploy, the initial MAPP rover would have provided the first such exchange.)Considering the investment cost and potential rewardshelium-3, for example, is abundant on the moon but among the most expensive substances on Earth due to its scarcitythis step gives companies more confidence that they wont be legally challenged before spending billions to extract resources on a large scale.Engaging the publicA fully spacefaring existence will require all aspects of humanity. To that end, Lunar Outpost is tapping artistic imagination and STEM learning by collaborating with artists, designers, and toy companies. On its last lunar mission, the company teamed with MIT Media Lab on two art tie-ins: a mock ground control to track the mission and a rover payloada Voyager Golden Record-inspired two-inch silicon wafer containing etched recordings of voices describing what space means for humanity. And last summer, in a full-circle moment, it released a Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle set for young STEM enthusiasts. Its call for future payloads welcomes pitches from the creative community. NASAs still a public organization, says Cyrus. The art, toys, and stories are critical to getting the public aware of whats going on. Getting them interested in the new cis-lunar economy is important to the long-term sustainability.Perhaps no one is more excited than Cyruss father, now watching his sons carry the torch. Hes thrilledthis is what he wanted to see back in the `90s and early 2000sthat sustainable presence on the moon, he says. He wants to see humanity get out in space. And thats why he let me dig up a test site in front of his ranch.
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