Welcome back. Today, high-end water gets its own menu; a social-media movement gives antidepressants a #makeover; sales of secondhand luxury goods grow faster than in brands’ own stores; and Apple pursues full-season sports rights instead of slices.

A small but growing group of restaurants are asking diners to buy into the concept of “fine water,” marketed on water menus that highlight attributes like origin, acidity, minerality and sweetness, Natasha Dangoor writes.

The Los Angeles hot spot Gwen sells bottles from as far away as Australia and Armenia, described at length in a detailed flavor menu and generally priced between $11 and $13.  L.A. tap water appears on the menu too, priced at $0.

Some restaurant goers aren’t convinced. “It was hard not to laugh at it,” Jessica Hammerman, 48, said of Gwen’s water menu.

But Martin Riese, the water sommelier behind Gwen’s menu, said the restaurant makes as much as $100,000 a year in water sales.

“No one would think it’s strange if you served different types of vodka at a bar,” said Riese, “so why should it be any different for water?”

Millennial and GenZ influencers, some paid by telehealth companies, are evangelizing for antidepressants on TikTok and Instagram with hashtags like #livelaughlexapro, #lexaho and #zoloftgang, recasting the medications as pop-culture touchstones, Betsy McKay, Shalini Ramachandran and John West report.

“People know their favorite celebrity who’s taking them,” said Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring, a psychiatrist and former FDA official.

Many people have been helped by antidepressants. But the rosy picture painted by cheerleading influencers glosses over potential adverse effects. Some suffered side effects that diminished rather than enriched their lives but kept quiet about it on social media.

Nadya Okamoto was one of the influencers paid by Hims & Hers, including for an Instagram video she posted in December 2022. At the time, Okamoto had, in fact, been trying to reduce her Zoloft dosage with the help of physicians unconnected to Hers.

The medication had numbed her sex drive and caused her to sweat profusely in her sleep, Okamoto said. On a podcast a few months after her paid posts for Hers, she skewered the medical profession for pushing antidepressants.

The resale market seems to have switched from being mildly helpful to luxury brands to a growing headache, Carol Ryan writes.

Shoppers used to buy new stuff with the money they made selling old clothes, boosting luxury sales, but young people in particular have begun using those proceeds on yet more secondhand goods.

They are motivated by the high costs of new luxury goods following years of above-average price hikes and a shakier economic outlook.

“Appetite for these brands and products remains high but willingness to pay current prices is low,” says Claudia D’Arpizio, global head of fashion and luxury at Bain.

All is not lost, though: Brands are starting to track the secondhand market for clues about which of their old products are catching on again. After the price of used Chloé Paddington handbags surged this year on The RealReal, Chloé reissued the bag in the primary market to cash in on the buzz.

Apple has signed a five-year deal to carry Formula One races in the U.S after ESPN’s rights end this year, broadening the menu of live sports on the tech power’s streaming service, Joseph De Avila reports.

Terms weren’t disclosed, but The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Apple bid as much as $150 million a year for the rights.

The F1 deal may have appealed partly because Apple isn’t generally interested in sharing a particular sport’s rights with other services and networks, as is common for football, basketball and baseball.

Having to locate games and maintain the necessary subscriptions to see them has become a frequent fan complaint in the streaming era.

“We’d like to own a sport, end to end,” Eddie Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, said on the podcast “The Town” earlier this week, citing the ease for sports fans to not have to navigate blackouts or search for where to watch which event. “Taking little rights here and there across all these different sports just doesn’t deliver that,” he said.

This Nov. 18 and 19, CMOs will gather in New York for The WSJ CMO Summit, featuring marketing leaders such as Vanessa Broadhurst of Johnson & Johnson, Cheryl Krauss of Chubb, Alicia Tillman of Delta Air Lines, Laura Jones of Instacart and Taylor Montgomery of Taco Bell. Together, they’ll explore fan-fueled growth, AI in marketing and the evolving CMO-CEO partnership. Join the CMO Council and be part of the conversation shaping the future of marketing leadership.

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Court cases pitting Smucker against Trader Joe’s and Lululemon against Costco are the latest battles between big-name brands and retailers’ private-label products. [WSJ] 

Olipop’s new SpongeBob-themed ad campaign takes a shot at prebiotic soda rival Poppi. [Ad Age] 

Former Mozilla CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff and his partner, artist Alexandra Roberts, are using generative AI to speed development of their new cannabis brand Eleanore. [BI]

A holistic wellness concept from the co-founder of Whole Foods aims to serve customers’ every medical, fitness and health need short of emergency care. [Glossy] 

Millennial and Gen Z fashion brand Revolve struck a multiyear deal to sponsor the Los Angeles Lakers, its first foray into the NBA. [THR]

Heineken capitalized on the overpowering New York City subway campaign for an AI companion called Friend, running a billboard that replaces the device with a bottle opener and says, “The best way to make a friend is over a beer.” [@newyorkers on Instagram] 

Taylor Swift’s marketing is becoming too much for her music to bear. [NYT]