How Hoka sneakers went from obscurity to $1Bn in revenue — “Ugly.” “Weird.” “Clown shoe look.” These are some of the ways Redditors on a 2014 Reddit/running post describe Hoka, the sneaker brand that Ugg parent company Deckers bought for a reported $1.1M in 2012. Flash forward 10 years and Hoka generates over $1 billion in sales for Deckers. Last weekend…

Lessons from Fast Company’s Innovation Festival #FCFestival — Fast Company’s Innovation Festival featured two seemingly opposing panels. The first was a conversation among direct-to-consumer brands Warby Parker and Rent the Runway discussing how they are improving DTC commerce. Right after, in the same room, came, ‘RIP DTC? How startups are rethinking a waning model’ featuring brands who spoke…

TL;DR: Don’t make it about you. — I attended Hubspots’ Inbound Marketing conference this past week. Like most business conferences, the event drew attendees with networking opportunities, learning sessions and big-name speakers, along with a series of booths from sponsors. Most sponsors had some sort of gimmick to get you to come by their booth — Google…

Does brand need a rebrand? — When I see postings for Brand Director or Head of Brand roles, job descriptions often focus on the marketing channels that ‘brand’ teams tend to be responsible for: PR, organic social media, influencers, digital video — with the goal of building brand awareness and differentiation. …

The most interesting growth story in media isn’t Meta’s Threads. It’s right here on Medium. — Written media outlets have not had the best year in 2023: Washington Post, NPR, and Insider all announced layoffs. Vice had to be acquired out of bankruptcy. Buzzfeed shut down its Pulitzer-prize winning News Division and laid off 15% of staff after poor financial performance. Meta’s Twitter competitor Threads supposedly…

How the skincare brand is able out innovate billion-dollar brands — Olaplex Bond Building Treatment. SKII Facial Treatment Essence. Supergoop Suncreen. Every so often a beauty brand launches a product that becomes a cult favorite based on innovative results. What’s less common are companies with multiple new-to-the-world innovations. Innovation is hard. Doing it twice is harder. Nevertheless, cult-skincare brand Dr. Dennis…

What marketers can learn from dating advertisements — Dating has to be one of the most fun categories to do marketing for. Customers are emotionally invested, there is endless psychology to investigate, and the topic is actually interesting. It’s no wonder the category is filled with great campaigns. Hinge’s ‘Designed to be deleted’ captures attention with a bold…

And only one involves AI. Cannes takeways 2023 — Cannes Lions is an event to celebrate creativity in advertising. But, legendary researcher Les Binet presented research at this year’s festival that reveals that data punishes the most creative ideas. 😧 In more detail: Attribution models (tools that allows marketers to assign credit to different marketing channels) overweight bottom-of-funnel channels…

What celebrity brands can learn from the $100M+ brand — According to Bloomberg, more than 50 influencers and celebrities launched cosmetic, haircare, and skincare brands in the 3 years since March 2023. …