This is the new backdrop for brand strategy. Radical individualism is out, social connection is in. Brand focus is not on the end customer, but on the communities they belong to. Just as personas made individual consumers visible, the new brand methodology makes visible consumer communities and their co-dependencies and influences. New focus of

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Digital has led to market fragmentation in nearly everything. Reduced opportunity costs have spawned a plethora of Direct to Consumer (DTC) brands which will continue for the foreseeable future. Small niche startups will continue to build followings and “tribes” in ways that couldn’t have been imagined in the pre-internet era.

Now-established players have learned that Instagram advertisements and influencer campaigns only scale to a point: they can net no more than a few hundred thousand of a brand’s “first best” customers. This has driven a shift toward physical retail and prompted founders to agonize over if and when to peddle their wares on Amazon, making direct to... See more