It’s not that LEGO “grew up.” Better: it learned how to package therapy, nostalgia, and display status, and sell it in a box. Trot through a toy aisle today and you’ll see strange things indeed. A LEGO bonsai tree. A bouquet of plastic flowers. Maybe a 9,000-piece model of the Titanic. None of these “toys” are designed for kids. They’re all made for big’uns. Seriously, the toy industry calls these buyers “kidults,” and they’ve managed to become one of the fastest-growing segments in toys. I’m...
1 day ago • 1 min read
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 butter inside a Milk Bar dessert pie. Or Pop Secret popcorn paired with Kraft cheese flavors. A few years ago these mashups might have felt weird or gimmicky. Now they regularly generate headlines, social chatter, and lo-oong lines of curious buyers. The obvious explanation is...
3 days ago • 1 min read
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 is set to blow up a $58 billion productivity software market. But not in the way many expect … The winners aren’t gonna be the companies that “add AI features.” Nope. They’ll be the ones whose products, data, and teams are already structured to work with it. Gartner is super blunt on this: AI will not compensate for...
4 days ago • 1 min read
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 and purchased directly inside AI chats, including ChatGPT. And that changes the shape of commerce . Instead of searching, clicking, comparing, and navigating a storefront, a customer can ask a question and move straight to a product. No tabs, no browsing journey. From conversation to checkout, just like that. (Like chat?)...
5 days ago • 1 min read
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 explain what customers value, how they describe the product, why they choose it. It sounds polished, confident and aligned. THEN we talk to actual customers. (And good thing we do.) Totally different words. Other priorities entirely. Sometimes a very different reason for buying. The gap is rarely small. It’s often...
6 days ago • 1 min read
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 a Finnish creator named Seve. At first glance it looks like an e-reader … which is basically the point. Mudita phones use a grayscale E-Ink display, the same paper-like screen technology used in e-readers like my daughter’s Kobo. The devices intentionally strip away most smartphone features to reduce distraction and eye strain....
7 days ago • 1 min read
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 we pushed that video out in ads, it looked great, but the damn thing didn’t convert. People just weren’t compelled to buy after seeing it. There was no budget to reshoot, so we worked with what we had: some simple but good-quality recipe clips. Real grill, actual food, stimulating sound. We took the best one (marinated...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Longer daylight hours increase optimism, activity … and willingness to spend. The responses to my garage door email a couple days ago flagged another seasonal shift going on that many brands overlook. The light changes us. More daylight does something real and measurable to your mood and energy. Even before temperatures fully cooperate, this extended evening light increases perceived time, possibility, and momentum. Consumers linger around longer. We squeeze in one more errand, and take the...
9 days ago • 1 min read
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. Then eventually, Sprite + Tea becomes an actual product on shelves in the U.S. and Canada. What started as a hack becomes a SKU. We’ve seen this pattern more and more. Trader Joe’s turns lasagna soup into a product after the idea circulates in recipe pages. Fast food chains package pop culture moments into menu...
10 days ago • 1 min read
