Over the last couple of years, a lot has been written about the rise and fall of Digitally-Native Vertical Brands (DNVBs). These players vowed to eliminate the middleman and sell their products exclusively online, seizing an incredibly profitable arbitrage opportunity that revolved around cheap advertising and meager interest rates.

With the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) becoming effective on July 18, 2024, Digital Product Passports (DPPs) are now set to become a reality in the European Union within the next 2-3 years.

If you’re a Dune fan, you’ll probably be familiar with the Bene Gesserit’s agony box. If you’re not, here’s a primer: early in the story, a young Paul Atreides is forced to choose between death or sticking his hand into a mysterious box—a box which, as he quickly discovers, causes excruciating pain, but will at least allow him to live. It’s a powerful scene, and one of those rare cases in which the movie lives up to the book.

(Today, we’re starting with a bit of a detour. I promise we’re still going to talk about commerce eventually. I just need to set the scene before getting there.)

In the last few years, customer acquisition has become more challenging and expensive for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands due to App Tracking Transparency, increased competition, and inflationary pressure. With Chrome deprecating third-party cookies in late 2024/early 2025 and the resulting “signal loss,” marketers expect campaign performance to take another hit, driving Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) further up.

I am sending this to you on the fifth day of a hayfever case that’s not serious enough to keep me in bed, and yet serious enough to annoy me beyond measure. In any case, it did put me in a very reflective mood. So much so, in fact, that the thought I want to dissect today is more of a meta-analysis than a thing in and of itself.

When an idea is blatantly wrong or flawed, it’s easy to dismiss.

Having people who agree with you does not make you right.

The modern consumer is bombarded with brands they can choose from. As a result, consumers filter out most of the brands they see because the human mind simply cannot process all the information it’s exposed to, and it has to take shortcuts.

The true power of generative AI is not in the mass production of broadcast content, but in the ability to hyper-personalize individual assets and pieces of content on a 1:1 or near-1:1 basis.

Purpose is not irrelevant for brands, but it can’t just be lip service.

Experimentation guidelines allow you to quickly and safely tackle challenges and capitalize on opportunities, and get closer to your shared vision.