When parental leave is a pipe dream

TOGETHER WITH

Jumpshot turned out to be an airball. Avast Antivirus said yesterday that it was yanking the plug on Jumpshot, its analytics business, after an investigation revealed that Jumpshot was selling tons of user data to giant corporations. Today:

• Parental leave could be more bold
• The market for tea is going cold
• Your top Super Bowl ads are gold

Corporate America still has parental-leave problems

Companies across the US are finally getting wise to a simple concept: Hey, it might be a good idea to give new parents paid time off. Genius, right?

But the trend isn’t benefiting everyone equally, Bloomberg reports. In some industries, women and low-income workers dominate — and those sectors offer little or no time off.

Companies don’t treat paid leave like child’s play anymore

The advocacy group Paid Leave for the United States started tracking paid-leave policies in 2016. Since then, the picture has improved:

• Target now covers part-time workers under its policy. Goldman Sachs allows all new parents  — not just “primary caregivers” — to take 20 weeks of paid leave.
• In December, President Trump signed a law that extended paid leave to 2.1m federal workers.

But the group’s new report breaks paid-leave policies down by sector, and for some workers, paid leave is a pipe dream:

• Women make up 74% of workers in education and health services. But those fields offer an average of 8 weeks of leave.
• 9.5m people are self-employed, and independent contractors are ineligible for the Family and Medical Leave Act. That means many people have no access to paid or unpaid leave.

What’s the solution? A federal paid-leave program (which the US still doesn’t have) would help. The idea is catching on in Congress, but — surprise! — Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on how to implement it.

Snippets

This week’s weirdest ways to spend money

Pampered pets are getting all the attention. Last week, we wrote about all the money that’s pouring into pet-tech land. This week, we’re featuring some of the weirdest ways we’ve recently found to spend cash on our furry friends:

• dogPACER Minipacer Treadmill, $531.43. Dogs need to get their steps in, too. Enter: the treadmill for dogs. 
• Hot Doll, $217. It’s not just cats that get frisky, so here’s, uh, a doggie sex toy. If your dog Sparky is a little too “friendly” with guests, this could be exactly what you’re looking for.
• Neuticles, ~$310. These are fake dog testicles for furry little friends who are feeling emasculated after getting fixed. Wow. That escalated quickly. Anyway… yeah, let’s just stop there.

SPONSORED

Stick to your RESTolution to break the Cycle of Suck

You know the Cycle — when you get bad sleep, so you feel bad all day… so you perform badly at work and the gym…  so you’re in a bad mood when you get home… so you sleep bad again and it all starts over? 

Exactly.  

See, not getting enough rest is basically telling your body “sorry bud, but I couldn’t afford to fill your tank up all the way… you know how gas prices are these days.” 

Do you think sports stars like Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods let their days get consumed by this very same Cycle? Hell no. 

They do everything in their power to keep them fully fueled, so they can go win championships. And now, it’s your turn to join them with a RESTolution for better sleep. 

Break the cycle with WHOOP

WHOOP is a 24/7 performance and recovery tool that can put you on the path towards better rest. We’re not talkin’ an extra hour of shuteye — we’re talkin’ changing lifestyle behaviors that will help you sleep deeper, recover faster, and perform better. Not too shabby.

It’s all in the wrist… 

WHOOP wraps around your wrist and collects data up to 50 times per second to analyze key indicators of performance, such as heart rate variability. This data is then analyzed by the intelligent algorithm of WHOOP, which delivers insights into your daily lifestyle and offers you advice to change for the better.

If it sounds like the fitness tracker of the future, you’re right. Which leaves us with one question… why haven’t you made a RESTolution yet? 

WHOOP WHOOP →

Will Unilever spill the tea? A food giant may cut the leaves loose

The world leader in tea is thinking about pouring its cup of the business down the drain, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

The consumer-goods behemoth Unilever sees a familiar story in your morning cup: Changing tastes and younger consumers mean a once-hot market is cooling off.

Unilever swallowed the global tea market, but it’s turned cold

It became the top tea purveyor in the 1970s and 80s, when it acquired Lipton and then Brooke Bond. 

• But consumption declined as tea drinkers turned away from Lipton’s core variety: boring ol’ black tea.
• The company’s leaders say the tea business is about as big as the spreads division it sold in 2018 for $8B. 

Did millennials kill chamomile?

They (sometimes unfairly) take the blame for murdering a bunch of beloved products: napkins, cereal… um, homeownership.

Unilever’s CEO, Alan Jope, trotted out a familiar argument: Younger drinkers want experiences, and a plain cup of Lipton doesn’t cut it. 

Jope blamed another factor for tea’s demise: You can’t sell loose leaf like it’s gold leaf. Tea prices are so cheap that making extra fancy tea — the kind that might appeal to experience-thirsty millennials — is hard.

These are your favorite (and least favorite) Super Bowl ads of all time

Reebok’s Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, should ride triumphantly into the NFL Hall of Fame atop a Budweiser Clydesdale.

That would make for a legendary Super Bowl ad. It would also combine two of your favorite characters.

On Monday, we asked you to pick your favorite — and least-favorite — Super Bowl spots of all time.

Terry Tate and the Clydesdales (they’d play a killer halftime show) were the clear standouts. Many of you said you’d take any Clydesdale ad — but the 2011 spot, which marked 10 years since the 9/11 attacks, got special attention.

Now for the cringeworthy ones

We’ve got bad news, GoDaddy — Hustle readers think your ads are 🤮. 

Same goes for Mountain Dew’s head-scratching “Puppy Monkey Baby” commercial from 2016, which plugged a concoction of Dew, juice, and caffeine.

Reader Shannon R. put it best: “I wish they Mountain Didn’t.”

Don’t change that channel

This weekend, our Conor Grant will rewind the Super Bowl game clock to the year startups took over — 2000, when the dot-com bubble was about to burst. 

What happened to all the fledgling companies that poured money into Super Bowl ads that year? Stay tuned to find out. The story will hit your inbox on Sunday morning.

Shower Thoughts How did you like today’s email?

hate it

meh

love it

	Now Playing:
		Girl Ray, Show Me More.

[%Count%]	Share the Hustle
REFERRALS
[%URL%]
YOUR UNIQUE URL

Conor Grant STAFF WRITER Nick DeSantis STAFF WRITER/EDITOR Bobby Durben AD WRITER Meg Furey-Marquess MEDIA STRATEGIST
Brad “Helicopter Dad” Wolverton HEAD OF CONTENT	Toney Blare Director of Luxury Car Horns

SUBSCRIBE	JOBS	ADVERTISE	EVENTS	SHOP

You opted in by signing up, attending an event, or through divine intervention. 251 KEARNY ST. STE 300, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108, UNITED STATES • 415.506.7210 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and unsubscribe