Welcome to the Era of Emergent Brands

We're in a time of marketing malaise, driven by performance marketing and efficiency mindsets. Fortunately there are a few brands up to something interesting. Welcome to the era of Emergent Brands.

Brands are boring.

I’ve been feeling it for years. I chalked it up to myself being immersed in the world of branding at work. I’m too aware, I thought. I’m steeped in it. But let’s be real. It’s 2023 — most consumers are steeped in the world of branding.

Recently it struck me: the real reason nothing’s been standing out to me was, well, because nothing stood out.

The first great purpose-driven brands either matured into institutions or lost their way completely. In most cases, purpose simply regressed into another advertising message.

I thought maybe some of the D2C brands of the early 2010s would keep innovating. I loved Glossier. Warby Parker was cool. Casper seemed to be leveling up to a bigger idea around sleep. But in the end they all seemed to discover the same tired playbook — one of performance marketing and wholesale distribution.

I similarly held out hope for next-gen brands like Tesla and Impossible Foods. But their focus on product — at first strategic — never blurred, never drifted. Their brands were cool but there was no meaning behind them. Which left a space to be filled — in some cases by pretty chaotic figures.

Then Web3 swept in. It felt fresh. But it was also entirely grounded in the tech, and there wasn’t much in the way of brand. (And, unfortunately, the only person who seemed to “get it” is…likely headed to prison.)

Then I stumbled upon Early Majority. A friend shared them after seeing them on a design moodboard (gotta love agency life) and immediately I had to know more.

• What is this membership model?

• How are they doing so many unexpected partnerships?

• Is their audience really that all over the place?

• How is this solving real issues in the fashion industry?

• Is the gear absolutely killer?

• Why is the brand so f-ing messy?

And that was it: the starting point. I began to see a new kind of brand rising, one capable of leading the next wave of business. Early Majority — and its founder Joy Howard of Patagonia and Sonos fame — understands that the relationship between consumers and brands is truly broken. And she also sees that reconnecting with consumers is just step one. The real work is to develop deeper relationships that create more meaning, deliver more value, and unlock unseen advantages in an increasingly web3 world.

We’re calling these emerging brands (very cleverly) — Emergent Brands. They are always in motion and deeply human. They stand out both as brands and businesses. They (like all emergent things) are growing, changing, and shifting. And it’s not just new brands, we are seeing themes across existing brands today that lean into this emergent behavior.

They answer the questions marketers have today

(How can I meaningfully grow? How do I have a tech stack that doesn’t suck? How can I spend my dollars in useful places and not BS performance marketing?)

and the needs of today’s consumers

(What brands really know the fluid and varied me? Who is going to show me a new world that I want to join? Where are the brands that deliver on the promise of co-ownership?).

Over the next few posts, we’ll share more around the strategies of Emergent Brands, we’ll actually chat with some legendary brand builders, and we’ll outline a few more examples of Emergent Brands in action.