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Walk through any trendy shopping area and you’ll notice something. A familiar grouping of brands. Entryways into hospitable, curated spaces inviting you in for a hang. The music is right. The lighting is low. Brand-approved candles are lit. The mood is unmistakable. Youre stepping into a worldview. Theres a tempo to it. A shared language. A subtle but clear sense that youve crossed a threshold; one where youre more than a customer, youre a part of something. That feeling isnt accidental and it isnt just marketing. Its anthropology. The best retail experiences optimize beyond conversion. Theyre engineered for belonging. On pieces themselves, garment branding may be subtle or even invisible. It becomes an IYKYK (if you know, you know) situation, and that may be the most powerful (and most overlooked) advantage in modern commerce: Brands that create community intentionally, intelligently and culturally are building moats no discount can breach. Retail is becoming ritual Humans are wired for tribes. Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar proposed that we maintain meaningful relationships in nested social groups, with the most stable number being around 150. Its now known as Dunbars Number. When a brand creates the conditions for that kind of familiarity through design, cadence, tone, and storytelling, awareness starts to feel an awful lot like identity. This isnt just theory: Kantar research notes that millennials, in particular, value brands that foster community and shared identity, suggesting that belonging is a purchase driver. GWIs trend data shows that even Gen Z (the most digitally native generation) prefers in-store shopping for apparel as long as it delivers something meaningful. Social Identity Theory shows we become like the groups we join. The more a brand helps someone say, This is who I am, the more likely they are to return, advocate, and embed themselves in the ecosystem. Were clearly seeing this shift play out across retail. Café Leon Dore offers coffee and sets a scene. The space blends Aimé Leon Dores boutique retail with the mood of an old-world social club: polished wood, curated reading material, and an unspoken dress code you can feel. Lacostes country clubthemed concept stores evoke the quiet prestige and ritual of tennis clubs and exclusive enclaves. Think crests, clay courts, locker rooms. Genesis House in New Yorks Meatpacking District, Hyundais luxury showroom, is a restaurant, library, and event space. You literally cant even buy a car there. These arent nostalgic flourishes. They are signals built using visual language that says: This space is for you. Settle in and stay a while. Modern retailers have embraced the third place, the essential social space outside home and work where people gather, connect, and express identity. Its the role barbershops and jazz clubs once played. Now were seeing it in stores by Kith, Tecovas, Alo, Vuori, Todd Snyder, Lululemon, Buck Mason, and others. From transaction to tribe Contrary to how it seems on the surface, this shift is all about structure. Its a move from customer relationship management (CRM) to community, from footfall to familiarity, from stores as destinations to stores as social signals. Brand strategists call this concept brand citizenship: a framework where people effectively join the brands they shop. That shift changes everything about how you design space, train staff, listen, and measure. Heres the tension: You cant spreadsheet your way into a community. You have to observe, and design for soft signals. Data plays a critical role, but the output is mood, energy, attention, flow. Its about sense-making. Belonging is the differentiator In a world of endless options, the scarcest resource is meaning. Thats what the best retail brands are offering. Beyond products, they offer places to align, express, and belong. So no, the store isnt dying and we never stopped going to the mall. The mall just splintered, reborn as a network of third-place brands with better lighting and better coffee. The next wave of retail isnt about traffic. Its about tribes. The brands that understand this will win. The store is no longer the finish line: Its the invitation. James Chester is cofounder and CEO of WVN.
Category:
E-Commerce
Boring is expensive. The first time I saw those words was the summer of 2023. Our head of strategy in New York had them on a slide during a meeting, and it stopped me cold. Since then, its become something of a mantra around here, not because it was a new idea, but because it captured something Ive felt in my bones since the beginning of our agency. It put a price tag on the thing weve been fighting all along: sameness. Ive always believed that distinctive work wins. It wins creatively, emotionally, and commercially. That the best advertising doesnt blend in with the category. It stands out from it. Sometimes it even does the exact opposite of what the rest of the category is doing. And now, more than ever, that matters. The age of sameness Were living in an age of sameness. Average is everywhere. The gravitational pull to fit in is strong. And Im not just talking about advertising. Fitting in, after all, is a good thing for us humans. We want to belong. We want to blend in with the group. We want our kids to be accepted at school. We even want our dogs to fit in with their furry friends at the dog park. But if youre a brand, fitting in is the fast track to irrelevance. When everything looks and feels the same, what are people supposed to base their choice on? Usually, its price. The cost of boring At our company, we talk a lot about fighting sameness.” Because while comfort might feel like safer bet (especially in turbulent times), safe can be forgettable. And it can be costly. Thats what research from Binet & Field, System1, and the IPA has shown us: Emotional ads that drive fame are 29% more likely to deliver major profit growth Roughly 50% of ads are neutral, meaning they make people feel nothing Dull ads require 7.3 more share of voice pointsor around 9.8M more in spendjust to compete with a strong emotional campaign Thats the cost of boring. And weve seen the upside of doing the opposite when brands are brave enough to stand out, the results follow. Like when Extra Gum launched their now-famous comeback ad in 2021, set to Celine Dions Its All Coming Back to Me Now. While most brands were preaching caution and isolation, Extra leaned into humor, joy, and pent-up human connection. Sales spiked. Brand metrics jumped. It won the Global Grand Effie, the top recognition for advertising effectiveness. Make people feel something Weve seen it firsthand in our own work, too. At the height of inflation, we launched The Fixed-Rate Pizza for Pizza Pizza, a tongue-in-cheek campaign that treated pizza like a financial asset. People could lock in their price for a full year, complete with pre-approvals. It cut through the noise and immediately drove increases to store, web traffic, and sales growth. With Harrys, our brand platform Man, that feels good challenged the overpromising masculinity tropes of the grooming category. And it’s paying off. Honesty has always been part of the brands DNA and leaning back into it has drove lifts in awareness, consideration, and perceived quality across the board. When the work dares to be different and it makes people feel something, it works better. Full stop. So yes, boring is expensive might be a clever turn of phrase. But to all of us in the marketing community, its more than that. Its a reminder. A challenge. And maybe even a little warning. So if you’re in a position to shape the work, as a marketer, as a CEO, as a CFO, this is your moment. Push for the bold The next time you brief your agency, ask for something you havent seen before. Something that makes you feel something. Resist the comfort of category conventions. Dont reach for the familiar. Reach for the stuff that scares you a little. The stuff that gets talked about, remembered, and passed around. Fight for the work that doesnt blend in. Back your creative teams when they bring you bold, emotional, human ideas. No, actually push them further. Challenge them to surprise you. Because safe might get approved, but it rarely moves the needle. So push for bold. Ask for different. Fight sameness. Mike Sutton is president and CEO of Zulu Alpha Kilo.
Category:
E-Commerce
Fuck around and find out, read a TikTok post that followed a screenshot announcing that California is suing President Donald Trump for deploying the National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles. But the post wasnt shared by a typical meme accountit came from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. I damn near fell over when I realized this was Gov. Newsoms page, one user commented. Since Friday, demonstrations have erupted across Los Angeles in protest of the presidents immigration policies and the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Although many of the demonstrations have remained peaceful, there have been violent incidents including authorities deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, and protestors setting Waymo vehicles ablaze throughout the city. As tensions escalated, the Trump administration deployed the National Guard and Marinesdespite objections from local officialssparking a lawsuit from the state, threats of arrest against Newsom, and a surge of defiant memes. And remember, kids, the next time anybody tells you the government wouldnt do that . . . oh yes they would, says the popular TikTok sound used on Newsoms official account video, playing over screenshots of news headlines and images of armed forces confronting demonstrators. In another viral video from the governors page, which amassed over 5.4 million views, Taylor Swifts “You Need to Calm Down” plays over a series of photos of the two politicians. r u ok? the post asks, with a caption reading: Americas keyboard warrior. Newsoms clapback drew widespread praise in the comments. I do disagree with Newsom a lot, but him standing up to tyranny and standing with your state takes some serious guts. Hats off to you Newsom, wrote one user. Newsom has also taken to his personal account to deliver meme-laced messages to Trumpone featuring a Photoshopped image of the president wearing a crown that’s captioned Send in the troops. The slideshow ends with a shot from the musical Hamilton, with text reading: Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. Its time for all of us to stand up. The online showdown has significantly boosted Newsoms social media presence, growing his personal TikTok account by approximately 397,000 followers and his official governor account by 479,000 since Friday. Newsom is the latest in a growing number of politicians leveraging memes and social media to bypass traditional media and speak directly to the public through humor. Famously, Kamala Harris gained momentum during her presidential campaign with Brat Summer and the coconut tree trend, while Joe Biden leaned into the viral Dark Brandon meme during his reelection campaign. Although meme strategies can generate enthusiasm and visibility, the 2024 election results suggest that online popularity doesnt always translate at the polls.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its 2009. Everyone is rocking ankle socks. TikTok, is just a Ke$ha song. You pull out your BlackBerry Bold 9700 and update your BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) status. All is well. Before the iPhone, the BlackBerry was the it phone. At its peak in the early 2000s, BlackBerry commanded over 50% of the U.S. and 20% of the global smartphone market. But times changed. Physical keyboards gave way to touchscreens, and eventually, BlackBerry discontinued support for its classic phones in 2022. But this isnt where the story ends. The 2000s have since made a comeback. As The New York Times recently reported, Everything Millennial Is Cool Again. Adding to that list, Im happy to report, is the humble BlackBerry. Getting a blackberry bold just because, one TikTok user posted, holding up a BlackBerry Bold they purchased on eBay for $40. This is a sentence I never thought I would say, especially not in 2025, another wrote, unboxing a second-hand BlackBerry Bold 9900. I got a Blackberry. @alyssa.lenore Whats your pin? #blackberryphone original sound – alyssa.lenore She goes on to explain: My first phone was an iPhone in 6th grade so I never got the chance to get a Blackberry like I always wanted. This has always been a dream of mine. The hashtag #blackberry on TikTok now has over 125K posts, with users sharing their retro finds and long-forgotten phones pulled from drawersincluding models like the BlackBerry Classic Q20 and a lilac BlackBerry Curve. @kaia.chanel lillac blackberry curve from 2009. This phone its older than many of you on this app ! #y2kaesthetic #blackberryphone admire the perc – ! Just in time for Digital Detox Summer, Gen Z is putting down their iPhones and bringing back flip phones and trackpads. POV: you bought a blackberry in 2025 bc your iPhone is ruining your life, one post with 6.4 million views reads. This was PEAK technology, a commenter wrote. BlackBerry has the opportunity to make an amazing comeback, another added. @shozi_055 My phone addiction is getting way too out of hand, Im trying to take my life back #fypviral original sound – NOLSTALGIC SOUNDS A recent Reddit post hinted that might just be in the cards. Reddit user u/coldheartedsigma shared a since-deleted post to the r/BlackBerry subreddit but kept most of the details vague, citing an NDA. While some were skeptical, others couldnt contain their excitement. Please be real, one wrote. Color me interested if this ever actually materializes, another added. Whether or not the rumors pan out, Gen Z is bringing back the BlackBerry either wayeven if its just to take a break from scrolling TikTok to play BrickBreaker.
Category:
E-Commerce
Before launching a viral campaign that would jolt corporate boardrooms, E.l.f. Beauty faced a familiar problem: a lack of dataand an even bigger lack of direction on how to turn that data into action. To tackle both, the beauty brand enlisted help from Oberland, a New York-based creative agency. After sifting through more than 35,000 data points on board diversity, the Oberland team started asking a different kind of questionnot just what the numbers said, but how to make them matter. They found inspiration in an infamous 2015 New York Times analysis known as the John study, which revealed that more Fortune 500 CEOs were named John than were women. We said, What if we modernize this? What if we think about this in terms of boardrooms? recalled Kate Charles, Oberlands chief strategy officer, speaking at Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies Summit in New York last week. The result was both irreverent and revealing: a campaign called So Many Dicks that exposed a striking imbalancethere are more men named Dick on corporate boards than there are entire underrepresented groups. We had to break the malaise, Charles said. We wanted to do it in a way that had a shocking statistic like the John study, but also carried a clear call to action. And thats exactly what happened, added Laurie Lam, E.l.f.s chief brand officer. We had to do something sticky, something memorable, something disruptiveand it caught fire. CEO Buy-In While the so many Dicks campaign was what really caught fire, its not even the first piece of a larger initiative the company has dubbed Change the Board Game, Lam told the audience during the panel discussion. The Oakland, California-based company recently celebrated 25 consecutive quarters of net sales growth, she said, which is why the campaign also connects how embracing diversity in a company and boardroom is the profitable thing to do. Lam credited E.l.f.s CEO, Tarang Amin, with leading the cause by fundamentally understanding why its so important to champion diversity and ensure its not a check-the-box sort of thing, but rather the ethos and core purpose a company is built upon. And, in that way, its not difficult to achieve diversity if theres intentionality, she said. Every single day, we walk that talk, Lam said. It’s rooted in the culture of who we arethat diversity matters, that we are rooted in positivity, inclusivity, accessibility, that makes it easy. Messaging Matters Of course, theres been pushbackboth long-standing and more recentlyto diversity-focused efforts, which Charles said is weird, given the results. Theres so much proof to show that when you have a diverse board, diverse leadership, diverse base, that you’re all succeeding, you’re more profitable, including Dicks, she added. It’s really good for everybody. But the messaging also mattered. The campaign could have been called too many Dicks or dont be a Dick, Charles shared, and opting for so many Dicks was very intentional, along with a subhead that reads: So few of everyone else. The goal was to be inclusive. We wanted to make sure that men felt okay to stand up for this and that they didn’t feel like they were being called out, that they were being called in, Charles said. And we wanted other organizations to say, I want to be a part of that. Future of DEI For a duo who has put so much energy behind supporting diversity, it might come as a surprise that neither Lam nor Charles think the DEI acronymshort for diversity, equity, and inclusionis necessary to advance efforts. I dont think it needs to be an acronym, Lam told the audience. I think it just becomes a way of modeling a culture that is inclusive of everyone and it stops creating these sort-of lines in the sand of who it is. Part of the problem, Charles added, is the acronym has been weaponized as a term thats attacking meritocracy and it might be good to decouple the words from it. People, and certainly leaders and brands, do believe in diversitythey do believe in equity, and they do believe in inclusion. And by showcasing the impact diversity can have on a companys performance, the more it can become a status quoand something other companies want to emulate, the women said. We don’t even have a DEI department, it doesn’t exist at E.l.f. because it exists in every single employee, Lam said. It is the job of every single employee to live the truth of the company.
Category:
E-Commerce
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