My Daily Emails

The brand collaborations that explode online usually amplify something consumers already love. Walk through the snack aisle lately and you’ll see products that look like high-speed shopping cart crashes. Skippy peanut

The companies winning with AI aren’t bolting it on, but are already built for it. A recent set of predictions from Gartner points to something you probably don’t want to hear. AI

The new place where customers discover (and buy) products is a chat. Shopify had a HUGE week, but one update blows the others away. Your products can now be discovered

Most product language comes from inside the building, not from the folks buying it. And that hurts you. I see this constantly: A company walks me through their positioning. They

Some products win by subtracting features. The other day, my sister told me about a phone I had never heard of. Mudita. She discovered it through a YouTube video by

Most products fail because they tell instead of show. A client came to us a few years ago with a barbecue product and a polished, high-production video already produced. When

Longer daylight hours increase optimism, activity … and willingness to spend. The responses to my garage door email a couple days ago called out a big seasonal shift going on

The best product mashups multiply what people already love. A soda trend shows up online: People start mixing Sprite with iced tea. Not as a stunt, but because they love the combo.

Seasonal reactivation can begin triggering purchase intent way before a consumer shops. My garage door hasn’t opened much in several months. We park on the pad in winter. The patio

Whether a question improves performance depends less on creativity and more on the audience’s emotional state. A study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by Henrik Hagtvedt tested a small but powerful shift: framing

Crocs found new success by flipping a mocked product into a signal of confident self-awareness. Most status products work really hard to impress you. They signal refinement, craftsmanship, or heritage.

In crowded categories, story is a bigger deal than substance. Mac and cheese hasn’t changed much since I was a kid. Pasta + cheese powder = comfort. Then Goodles shows up. Flavors

Overlooked niches often hide among collectors, enthusiasts, and underserved buyers. One of the most interesting parts of marketing physical products is discovering who actually buys. Often not who you predicted.

The latest spicy food trend is all about heightened experience + fire. Walk through the snack aisle or fast-food menu lately and you’ll notice something happening. Everything is getting hotter:

What if removing part of a product makes it more attractive? I bought a power shovel recently. The kind that runs on a removable battery system shared across several yard

Food waste is partly a behavioral issue and partly an informational one. Here’s a thought. Walk through most kitchens and you’ll find the same kinda thing. Half-used electrolyte powder; a

The fastest way to destroy a good product is to slowly make it worse to squeeze out more profit. A short video from the Norwegian Consumer Council has been circulating widely this

Misusing vision as an excuse to skip validation is how Steve Jobs wannabes burn cash. “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Followed by: “It’s

Speed is the new shelf advantage. But the nimblest are not only the ones using it. Smurfit Westrock (one of the world’s largest packaging and paper companies with deep visibility

Claiming perfection the wrong way can come off as spin. It feels safe and confident to say “100%.” 100% juice.100% satisfaction.100% natural. It sounds so strong. Totally certain. Absolute. Right?

Korean culture has moved from screens and stages into grocery aisles, turning snacks into cultural artifacts rather than just food. I’ve been noticing something new in grocery stores. An entire

While the ritual stays, the permission we give ourselves changes in different ways. Two recent Big Cola moves tell the same story. Pepsi Prebiotic Cola takes the most traditional format in

The math on using refills is finally getting the play it deserves. Refill formats have been around forever. Concentrates. Tabs. Subscription pouches. Inkjet tanks. Stainless-steel Keurig pods. They were almost

When the person promoting the product is putting on “the grimace,” the market has a field day. In case you’ve been napping, McDonald’s launched its new Big Arch burger in the United States

When quality perception has a hiccup, that’s a tasty opportunity for the competition. There’s a mini-revolt afoot in the candy aisle. Fans of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, including a grandson

The most serious product decision can be where your learning happens. Swiss watch exports are softening, and the headlines are full of depressing “downturn” stories. Yet Audemars Piguet, Rolex, Hermès, and others are

Gen Z’s return to old devices signals a desire for involvement and a sense of control. A Toronto Star story, echoing another by Sherwood News, reports something that would have

Truth, used properly, compounds. My 11-year-old heard a slogan on TV the other day and immediately objected. “What a terrible tagline.” She was talking about Buckley’s Mixture and its long-running line: “It

IKEA’s viral baby monkey moment is a gift. And playing it well was a delicate art. You’ve likely heard about this or seen the images: a baby macaque named Punch

The big shift here isn’t price or e-commerce capability. It’s buyer psychology. The average home in the U.S. now costs north of half a million bucks. On Amazon, I just added

When stories reboot, products resonate again too. My kids are huge Harry Potter fans. We have watched every film together. They have read every book. My youngest finished the entire million-plus-word series

What brand name to use depends what you’re asking the name to carry. Reader Josie from San Diego wrote after my note on misspellings and asked a fair question. “With

Robot vacuums have climbed to a new level. Literally. What happens when a category clears a major hurdle? I wrote a while back that robot vacuums don’t work in my

Big, proprietary AI tools is not what makes this so good. The part YOU can snag is. Heineken has been finding cool, smart ways to use generative AI layers in

Counterintuitive research shows early registration prompts can increase sales, even when fewer people browse. This one might surprise you. Every brand owner wants to hook the customer.Every digital marketer warns

Being trendily weird can send signals that weaken trust. I have come up with plenty of unconventional spellings in naming work, for a number of real reasons. Sometimes you need

What we imagined robots would be doing by now, and why they aren’t. If you grew up watching sci-fi like I did, you probably expected humanoid robots to be everywhere

Artwork orientation shapes our expectation before words ever get processed. In a series of four experiments, plus an analysis of 256 Amazon product listings, researchers found that diagonal text orientation

Efficiency doesn’t tend to slow consumption. It usually accelerates it. Jevons Paradox is a 19th-century idea with very modern consequences. It was first described in the 1860s by Scottish economist William

The near future will reward products that can act, not simply analyze. I read a recent Kellanova piece predicting that digital transformation is shifting from modernization to reinvention. That framing matters even

Product launches feel monumental from the inside, yet are almost invisible from the outside. Launching a product is one of the most exciting things you can do. Building toward the

Success is dependent on whether the buyer feels recognized, reduced … or even abused. Researchers call it the Starbucks Effect. Across five experiments, people showed dramatically stronger preference for bakeries,

The right pairing expands the room, sometimes in a really big way. I wrote a while back about how Dr Pepper has, in many places, grown into one of the most popular

Effort and scarcity do not reduce value, they create it. Nearly every Valentine’s Day, I buy my wife chocolates from the same place. There are excellent, locally made options two

The fastest way to LOSE a yes is to ask one more question. A 2025 Journal of Consumer Research paper looked at something many teams assume is harmless: the “confirm or change”

Demand doesn’t have to ask permission from category boundaries. I avoid Doritos for one simple (but important) reason: I love ‘em TOO much. They are chemically engineered pleasure, and I know exactly

New research shows bold color in food and drink is shaping how people connect, share, and find comfort. A new report from GNT Group, covered by Quality Assurance Mag, highlights a subtle

In 2026, beauty buyers want proof at the cellular level and permission to be visibly expressive again. Big hair and all. An interesting, clear pattern is emerging in beauty right

Stated intent is emotional. Commitment is situational. Multiple consumer studies in 2025 showed the same weird gap: People would talk about cutting back, spending less, being practical. Then they bought

Contrast can be a powerful device. Valentine’s Day always triggers plenty of brand choreography. Applebee’s brings back its Date Night Pass.Sam’s Club sells a perfectly engineered steak-in-a-box. All competent. And totally expected.