no. 25: hyperbole, fast, authentic and taste.

a year in review by on my mind as of late x brand baby!

this week i am chatting to a good friend and fellow substack-er

Caroline Albro

aka brand baby. we typically enjoy a coffee and catch up at least once a month in the city where we talk about the latest trends that are catching our eye, the ones that aren’t, and what we are most eager to see from a marketing perspective.

as the year comes to a close, i wanted to create a more interactive piece with brand baby — “a collab” — if you will. as you know, i am wary of an ill-placed collaboration, but i think this one is great.

i hope you enjoy this conversation between us! so with that, let’s dig in. today’s piece is lengthy so if you prefer to listen to our conversation, please do below!

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What were some of the trends that stood out to you in 2024?

Zoya: That is the million-dollar question. I think there are a couple that come to mind, I feel like this year we saw a lot of brands take to TikTok to build brands and not only build them, but, show the day in the life and the entire process of quitting their jobs to transitioning to building a brand. As a result of that we've seen so many of these “TikTok brands” like Hot Girl Pickles, which I know you talked to the founder of, one of them being Lil’ Sweet Treat, I also got to speak with Ellie, but there's just been this insurgence of taking to TikTok. And then also those brands seemingly doing really well as a result.

Caroline: One thing that came to mind for me is the resurgence of print magazines it kind of feels like it had its moment already, like this past summer and fall, but both from brands and also from like media publications. But we saw that I think J. Crew launched like a print catalog. But I think we just saw so many, like this desire to just go back to flipping through a magazine and actually like physically marking images or pulling inspiration and definitely relates to like the overall theme of nostalgia and desire to go back to like some of the things we did in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

Caroline: Did you see that too?

Zoya: Yes, 100% – J. Crew was really emblematic of that trend. It's funny because I feel like a lot of people were talking about a more nostalgic feel at the beginning of the year. Then we saw that come through, especially with GAP, obviously, everyone was talking about GAP this year. Still, those two brands were able, I was reading the Red Antler [State of Brand 2024 Report] that brands are perceived as more valuable or like heritage brands that have a history and legacy and are able to, I think, activate properly.

Caroline: I think that also relates to the popularity right now of IRL activations and pop-ups. I know we tried to go to the Poppi pop-up in Soho a few months ago and like the line was so long we could not get in. This desire to have more tangible physical experiences, whether that's through a print publication or an actual experience like in person. I think all of that is kind of connected…

Zoya: 100%. Not to point out the obvious, but post-COVID it's all kind of come to fruition and culmination this year, of like, that itch from like a consumer view of more physical, more tangible marketing and interaction and I feel like there was like a dearth of it, obviously, during the pandemic, and so now it's completely gone on the other end. I know you and I went to a couple and were kind of pop-up fiending, I guess.

Caroline: One thing is how dating apps are really out this year and I'm curious to see what happens in 2025. I think dating apps have found themselves in a really interesting place where people want to meet in person – that's the theme of today – just in person. I'm really curious to see how dating apps are going to respond to that and maybe try to launch more opportunities for in-person communities and events and ways to connect in real life. Then also through their messaging, maybe position themselves more as a supplement to meeting in real life?

Zoya: I think that [that the in-real-life trend] was evident in the consumer tech space, at least. I know I've written about this kind of ad nauseum at this point (so sorry to anyone that's like, oh my god zoya please stop talking about this). Partiful, Strava, Beli, all these apps that have been around, we're seeing the same trends also across the tech scene for Gen Z and it goes hand in hand with what we're seeing in real life.

Caroline: That's a great point – it's this intersection. Those apps represent this intersection of like digital and IRL. Like, you can go to a restaurant and have an amazing experience there and then record it on Beli for all your friends to see and follow along, which I love.

Zoya: We haven't touched on this yet, but AI marketing – the really trivial bland messaging. if you blindfolded me and put up five different AI ads for tech companies I wouldn't know the difference. So that's a trend I got really tired of seeing. It wasn't even a “trend” I guess it was more just figuring out the market and figuring out how to talk about it this year.

AI marketing that was more fresh was, for example, the Perplexity Super Bowl ad – I loved.

Caroline: Wait, can you remind me?

Zoya: It's so odd. It's like a science fiction movie and they don't mention Perplexity until the end. It's kind of A24-esque and meant to cause like drama around their brand, and you know, make you question like, “ooh, what is this software they're using?” but then it ends up being an ad for perplexity. So I think that [Perplexity] was able to differentiate pretty quickly off the bat, which I don't think many other consumer tech AI companies were able to do.

Caroline: Same. AI companies struggle to differentiate. I'm like, gosh, I don't know. Chat GPT is the leader, but not necessarily based on a brand that they've built, but more just consumer perception and the name being kind of the first in the game. One AI tool that I was introduced to, I think just like through word of mouth was Claude. Do you, do you ever use Claude?

Zoya: They're like the underdog and it's interesting. Anthropic… I don't know. I have thoughts on it. What do you think about it?

Caroline: More and more I've been noticing out of home for Claude. They have so many placements in airports specifically, I think in the San Francisco Airport. I don't know if this is what they're going for, but in my head I view them as a little bit more highbrow than ChatGPT or a bit more professional and like curated.

Zoya: It's interesting how they're all developing their own use cases, which Is it necessarily correlated to their brand. Claude has been putting out a bunch in New York, where I'm like, what does this even mean?

[Claude] is trying to make [themselves] more professional and make it more white-collar almost. Whereas Perplexity's going for a more fun and know-everything kind of Apple-esque a little bit. Whereas Open AI, I guess is objectively just the leader. I don't even know if they're doing… marketing, I don't think [ChatGPT] needs to be marketed, honestly.

Caroline: It does feel like they're leading the pack - we'll see how that changes in the coming years as these tools get more and more sophisticated.

Zoya: We've seen a lot of brands move away from traditionally being on Instagram or TikTok and getting creative with how they're using social media, do you think we'll see brands utilize more of less traditional platforms?

Caroline: Great question. TikTok – we will see what happens with TikTok. We were talking [earlier] about how TikTok is such an important business platform and there's so much money being made on TikTok about – are they really going to do away with it?

I think long-form content is going to become the name of the game here in the next year or two. We're seeing just way more investment in channels like YouTube, Spotify, long-form video, but then also written long-form content on Substack as well as other platforms, and leaning into email as a really useful, loyal channel. You have direct control over your subscriber base and you are putting content in their inboxes. They're not just like scrolling through a feed and happening to stumble upon you. (I do work at an email marketing company, if you couldn't tell.)

Zoya: I was going to say email is like slept on, like that's not the first thing that comes to my mind, but it's hugely important. Some I'm like, can you stop sending [me] emails? Like I'm hitting unsubscribe tomorrow.

Caroline: I think creating valuable content, right? So many brands use email for just like sales purposes, but we should actually be using email for content marketing and thought leadership purpose. That's where Substack can be a really valuable platform by having brand leaders start Substack publications. The CEO of Ghia, the nonalcoholic spirit brand, she has a Substack. Establishing a voice for your brand, whether that's a member of the leadership team working at the brand, whatever it might look like – we're really going to start seeing that. What do you think?

Zoya: 100% I subscribe to a couple – Lindsay Carter of Set Active and Diana Cohen of Crown Affair. Exactly what you said, it's all becoming an extension and kind of an “expected” extension [of brand]. You're expected to start getting more and more creative with how you show up for your followers and subscribers. I would not be surprised if more brands start coming to Substack.

Caroline: What's one word to encapsulate and sum up 2024?

Zoya: That's such a tough one. I love that I came up with it and I'm like, what is my answer? I originally said hyperbole – everything this year was just really exaggerated and just so drama this year, whether it be the pop-ups, I think it kind of goes with the IRL activations, just like, everything felt big, but also not at the same time.

But now I'm starting to think after our conversation, everything also just moved incredibly fast, like the hype cycles were moving so fast this year, it felt. I change my answer to fast?

Caroline: I’m just going to throw out there – authentic. I'm seeing a lot more voice and empathy and relatability behind brands than ever before and influencers. Even last week I wrote about how Nuuly responded in this case of a little bit of a crisis. I have been seeing a lot more audience interaction with brands on social and honesty about negative experiences that they've had with brands. I think brands are meeting them there and responding in really empathetic ways.

Zoya: Agreed. Also, this concept of taste. Everyone's learning that they have to become, I think, more differentiated. They have to show up in so many different ways, and they have been this year, but like, tastemaking is kind of at the forefront of all this, of like, who's able to curate really well? And describe what they do, but then also curate in that same vein? Everything we're seeing is: how do you curate experiences and curate [overall] how you show up in the experiences for people?

Caroline: So we have four words to sum up 2024: hyperbole, fast, authentic and taste. This was so much fun.

Zoya: I think that [the four words] all tell, though, a full story. This was so much fun! I am honored to be collaborating, if you will, with Brand Baby!

on my mind as of late (me) x brand baby (caroline)

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an activity if you have some down time over the break: i set a timer for 30 seconds. these were my notable moments i jotted down in a sketchbook:

• brat branding

• ai marketing

• perplexity superbowl ad

• so many popups - too many

• extending brand worlds from tiktok into other platforms

• gap comeback and jcrew comeback - huge

finally, here are some year-in-review reports i read:

• red antler state of brand report

• ai’s race to value: a conversation with abridge, anthropic, perplexity, and scale ai - “when we asked top ceos about the state of the ai market, one sentiment rang clear: “it’s still so early.””

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let me know what you thought of this edition — especially if you’d like to see more audio content available in the future!