It turns out, our brains like it when we have to work a little for things. There are so many brands rushing to agentic commerce not thinking about the deficit that comes with being purchased not chosen. Like performance marketing before it, the folks who are talking exclusively about agentic legibility are missing the most important bit — what... See more
Distinctive assets trapping memory: When a brand becomes so tied to its historical codes that it can’t evolve. Think of Kodak’s yellow or Nokia’s ringtone - both still trigger instant recognition, but for categories that moved on without them. Recognition without relevance.
Depth driving growth more than penetration: In subscription or usage-based... See more
This isn’t to say the digital won’t remain, or even that it won’t remain the primary medium. Rather, I think there are going to be more efforts to make the digital experience more human, to shift our relationships with it. Some say AI threatens this, I say it only reinforces it: nobody, really, likes AI, and our general distaste for it is going to... See more
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who misses old school human curation. For me, it’s more about wanting a connection moreso than valuing the actual thing being shared. I think this trend is accelerating. With generative AI and the ever-present algorithm that has sucked itself into every facet of our life, a part of the response to it will result... See more
Cognitive psychology explains this even more accurately. The brain does not record events in order; it creates a web of connections that are triggered later by need or emotion. The brands that win are those that occupy more nodes in that web and are therefore easier to retrieve when a choice must be made. Byron Sharp obviously calls this mental... See more