I’m a ritual guy. I love the little rituals in life.
When I sit on the terrace of a coffee shop doing absolutely nothing but being contemplative for over an hour, people always come up to me: "Are you ok? What are you doing? Nothing?"
So, so, strange that organically, when you do that, you become the "Disruptive Agent."
That is very funny.
Contemplating and sitting amongst humans is a journey of discovery.
I use friction as a flying carpet to take me wherever I wanted to go in that film I'm in.
Online, they destroys discovery because they want to extract.
How can we free ourselves from the consuming behavior they want us (customers) to embrace, to re-connect at a "human" level?
“Brands are about to win every transaction and lose every relationship.”
Performance marketing makes the mistake of thinking that having the product is the goal. It’s not. The goal is the hunt — the discovery, the consideration, the comparison of alternatives, the imagining of how this version of the product will, or won’t, fit into my life.
Shopping is modern foraging. We’ve been doing it since we ranged the Serengeti plains. But thanks to our (poorly distributed) prosperity, we’re no longer foraging just to sustain ourselves.
The shopping journey isn’t a friction cost on the way to a product.
We’re foraging to delight ourselves — and that changes everything. Because when survival is off the table, the search becomes about something deeper: how we define and express our values, how we experience our emotions, how we discover and join our tribes.
That will always have value to consumers, who won’t discover themselves in the digital vending machines they’re about to turn our online shopping experiences into.
Brands challenges — and opportunity for differentiation — are in providing a discover, decision and purchase experience that continues to cater to these deep human needs.
Because that’s what customers often really want, even more than the product.
Love this -- I hear this question all the time and I love your framing that it's the wrong question.
Nice! 🙌🏽
Very well said.
I’m a ritual guy. I love the little rituals in life.
When I sit on the terrace of a coffee shop doing absolutely nothing but being contemplative for over an hour, people always come up to me: "Are you ok? What are you doing? Nothing?"
So, so, strange that organically, when you do that, you become the "Disruptive Agent."
That is very funny.
Contemplating and sitting amongst humans is a journey of discovery.
I use friction as a flying carpet to take me wherever I wanted to go in that film I'm in.
Online, they destroys discovery because they want to extract.
How can we free ourselves from the consuming behavior they want us (customers) to embrace, to re-connect at a "human" level?
We are not 0 - 1 bits.
It's time we realized it
Super interesting insights (I also like Bush’s work on Serendipity!)
Looking forward to checking out your stack!
Love this. Can't wait to see what you write next!
“Brands are about to win every transaction and lose every relationship.”
Performance marketing makes the mistake of thinking that having the product is the goal. It’s not. The goal is the hunt — the discovery, the consideration, the comparison of alternatives, the imagining of how this version of the product will, or won’t, fit into my life.
Shopping is modern foraging. We’ve been doing it since we ranged the Serengeti plains. But thanks to our (poorly distributed) prosperity, we’re no longer foraging just to sustain ourselves.
The shopping journey isn’t a friction cost on the way to a product.
We’re foraging to delight ourselves — and that changes everything. Because when survival is off the table, the search becomes about something deeper: how we define and express our values, how we experience our emotions, how we discover and join our tribes.
That will always have value to consumers, who won’t discover themselves in the digital vending machines they’re about to turn our online shopping experiences into.
Brands challenges — and opportunity for differentiation — are in providing a discover, decision and purchase experience that continues to cater to these deep human needs.
Because that’s what customers often really want, even more than the product.
Love the foraging parallel. And violently agree on everything else.