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 section of Korean snacks. Bright packaging. Unfamiliar (to me) flavors. Some directly tied to the wildly popular “K-Pop Demon Hunters” movie. Others just new to the aisle. My kids are totally fascinated. Not just with the snacks, but with all things Korean. This is not randomness. South Korea has spent...
2 days ago • 1 min read
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 CPG and overlays a gut-health cue without messing up the ritual. It is still cola. Same visual architecture and same behavioral moment. But now with a functional justification layered on top. Diet Coke Cherry leans in the opposite direction. It brings back a fave legacy flavor under a zero-sugar banner....
3 days ago • 1 min read
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 always framed around sustainability, right? Less plastic, less waste and fewer stinky trucks on the road. Now something more directly achievable is driving adoption. Across home cleaning, coffee, and personal care, brands are expanding refill systems. Except now it’s in the name of...
4 days ago • 1 min read
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 this week. Two all-beef quarter-pound patties. Three slices of white cheddar. Lettuce, pickles, two types of onions, and a new tangy “Big Arch Sauce,” all on a sesame-poppy seed bun. It’s a lot to take in. Literally. At around 1,020 calories and roughly 8–9 bucks for the burger, it was positioned as the...
5 days ago • 1 min read
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 of the original inventor, have publicly criticized newer iterations of the dominant brand, pointing to a drier, chalkier filling. Whether that critique is universal (or even accurate) is beside the point. What matters is that enough consumers believe it. For whatever reason, there’s been no shortage of...
6 days ago • 1 min read
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 still expanding factories and pulling more of the work in-house. Wait, what? It looks totally irrational if you think manufacturing is purely a cost center. It makes perfect sense if you think manufacturing is your ability to compound and tightly control. A factory isn’t mere...
7 days ago • 1 min read
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 sounded pretty improbable a few years ago. Gen Z is buying iPods again. Not for irony or as hilarious costume props, but as everyday music players. At the same time, vinyl continues to move serious volume for younger buyers who aren’t necessarily audiophiles. My daughters recently pointed out a huge display of Taylor...
8 days ago • 2 min read
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 tastes awful. And it works.” The campaign dates back to the 1980s in Canada and hasn’t wavered since. From an eleven-year-old’s perspective, my daughter is right. Why would anyone advertise that their product tastes disgusting? Because the ad is not for her. When I was a kid, my mother...
9 days ago • 1 min read
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 at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan was rejected by his mother and struggled to bond with his troop. Zookeepers gave the little guy several comfort items. He chose one: IKEA’s Djungelskog plush orangutan. Photos of the lonely monkey hugging the stuffy immediately went viral. What followed was definitely not a campaign in the traditional...
10 days ago • 1 min read
