Learning from the Virgin Megastore

In CAPS LOCK , Ruben Pater traces the evolution of branding from livestock to slavery to mass-produced goods. Today it has obviously gone lightyears further, grooming every part of an experience that may not even be associated with a product you can hold in your hands. He writes: “Even a well-designed brand for a museum still uses the same logic of... See more

I often think and write about the importance of “world building” in today’s mixed-media reality: Brands have more control than ever over where and how consumers experience their point of view, from digital feeds and properties to packaging design and retail merchandising. And with that comes many new opportunities to build emotional texture.

This is peak Lifestyle. Easier than ever to launch a brand. More goods than ever. Software-enabled, integrated supply chain driven business models. An explosion of online social media cultures. These elements have become omnipresent, splashed across our lives like the patterned splotches of a magic eye book. Stare long enough, and you begin to see ... See more

Story, narrative, entertainment, world-building, creative universes are all part the new brand management framework. All the world’s a stage. Ash NYC “invents” hotels that are “cinematic monuments.” Oysho, an Inditex brand, has something called “Oysho TV.” Red Bull and Telfar TV were there first. “We are very focused one creative storytelling acros... See more

In the old world of broadcast communication that Naomi Klein wrote about, promotion was limited to a few channels, so multinationals with massive advertising budgets had the power to sell a brand monoculture. Now every night, on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok, we scroll and see brands smushed up next to real people in the feed. Branding altogethe

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Rather than being a retail’s side gig, modern merch has become its main act. Merch has always been a high-margin moneymaker, so a subtle but all-encompassing transformation of retail’s operating principle into merch makes economic sense. Through the process of transubstantiation from a youth culture artifact to a killer business model merch has bee

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I have occasionally been asked why I’m obsessed with brands. The answer is that brands are things made out of belief. They are amorphous *meanings* that structure our relationships; they are already the same sort of thing that a religion or a culture is. With the cultural production service economy, and now with cryptocurrencies, all of the ingredi... See more

The next generation of brands will still start with the story, but the other moats (logistics, distribution, sponsorships, etc) wither from there. We’ll see the next generation of “DTC” (direct to consumer) brands migrate to traditional retail channels, join large cross-brand data co-ops, shift marketing dollars to community management, and generat... See more