How to be truly rebellious
In 2022, there’s nothing more conformist than being revolutionary. I’ve written about this before, but I still think it bears repeating that it can be quite hard now to find brands who don’t present themselves as being in some way maverick, rebellious, and counter-cultural – even (or especially) amongst corporate giants. They all stand with […]
The polymath advantage: should we be specialists or generalists?
The debate between specialism and generalism, between depth and breadth, is quite fascinating. Generally speaking I’m inclined to think the average Western person lacks depth, at least in terms of their lifestyle. We flit from job to job, place to place, acquaintance to acquaintance, without ever truly becoming party of the fabric of something. Without […]
Meta, addiction, and the strategy of attention
Clearly, it’s hard to take Mark Zuckerberg seriously. This has always been the case, however it’s been particularly on display in the last couple of weeks following his awkward video announcement of Meta – the new name for Facebook’s holding company. I’m sure you’re already familiar with it, but in short the idea is for […]
Remapping the world: the rise of horizontal loyalty
It’s time for another macro-trend piece. As long time readers will know by now, these are my crude attempts to sketch some of the more subtle forces shaping the world around us. As strategy is all about adaptation to context, it follows that we must understand our context to think strategically – and that’s what […]
Cultural imprinting: how ads really work?
Ever notice how much better it is when your favourite song comes on the radio compared to when you listen to it on Spotify? It’s weird isn’t it. You’re driving along, radio humming away as background noise, and then you hear those first couple of beats and suddenly it’s volume up, windows down, hand beating […]
Armani, aspiration, and the decline of luxury
If we’re reductive about it, we might say there are really only two strategic levers a business can pull from a consumer perspective: Utilitarian Brand led When it comes to delivering value, these are basically the paths to do it. Utilitarian companies offer a genuinely useful and unique “function” – for instance, the supermarket Lidl, […]
Sugar, sex, and the supernormal
Following my piece a few months back on the phenomenon of concentration – the great invisible force shaping pretty much everything right now – I wanted to do another similar piece on a different macro-trend. The purpose of such pieces, which of course aren’t strategy how-to guides like some others, is to give you a […]
Go big or go home – why the mass market still matters
Apologies in advance to foreign readers for the very British cultural references that follow – no doubt you’ll be able to sub in your own equivalents and still get the gist. ___ When I was growing up, I vividly remember our family’s Saturday night viewing routine: Blind Date, Gladiators, and Birds of a Feather. An unbeatable triple combo of […]
The cautionary tale of Only Fans, and why it matters to your business
A couple of months back I wrote a piece about the trend of concentration – whereby technology is enabling attention and money to be pooled into fewer people and organisations. That piece was extremely broad in scope and considered the issue at a societal level, so here I want to take it down a knot […]
How conformity leads to conflict
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene Romeo & Juliet __ Human beings are copying machines. This is the central idea of “mimetic theory”, which was put forward by historian René Girard to explain the motivations of human beings, the evolution of culture, and ultimately the rise of […]