A product wins when it feels familiar enough to try and strange enough to remember. About a year ago, a colleague raved to me about the “delicious weirdness” of Jollibee. I smiled, filed it away, and moved on. Then I realized my small Canadian city already has four locations. The entire United States has around eighty. That is not an accident. The Atlantic recently captured what makes Jollibee work. On the surface it looks like American fast food. Bright lights. Big menus. Fried chicken and...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Oakley isn’t just making eyewear anymore … it’s building a platform for the future. I bought my first pair of Oakley Pilots in the ’80s, watching Greg LeMond win races like the Tour de France in his. Back in the day, Oakley was pure performance eyewear. They grew into prescription glasses and sunglasses (I’ve owned a few of those as well). Now they’re something else entirely. Oakley has been actively positioning itself as a technology company, after launching its Future 5 innovation lab and...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Nothing harms quality of life more quietly than untreated hearing loss … and stigma keeps too many people from getting help. I was reminded of that when I came across Nuance Audio’s hearing-aid glasses. They look like normal eyewear, but tiny speakers in the temple arms amplify sound in noisy environments. No buds. No behind-the-ear loops. No visual signal that says “hearing aid.” When you put on your glasses in the morning, you’re wearing the hearing aids. Image courtesy Nuance Audio And...
6 days ago • 1 min read
When a product feels too futuristic, people hesitate. They may love the idea, but can’t picture using it yet. A new study found that for highly novel products, future-focused or abstract messaging actually slows adoption. Not skepticism, but psychological distance! Buyers can’t imagine themselves in a futuristic story. It feels too far off. Could be too many years of waiting for those rocket boots, or Elon Musk’s full self-driving mode. But research shows we can’t seem to picture that the...
7 days ago • 1 min read
The science is clear: when your brand gets hit with an unfair insult, using it can make you look more confident … and boost your results. A June 2025 study from researchers at UW-Milwaukee, Hong Kong, and Duke found that brands who reuse irrelevant or unfair insults in their ads can lift click-through rates by as much as 27%. Wild, right? But why? Because confidence is magnetic.Denying an insult looks defensive (and guilty).Ignoring it looks passive (and also guilty). OWNING it looks bold....
8 days ago • 1 min read
I once watched Levi’s jeans being made by hand on a factory floor. Today the company is gearing up to run its global operations with an AI super-agent. Years ago I toured the old Levi’s factory near where I live now, and I can still picture it vividly in my mind. Huge stacks of denim being sliced clean through with industrial cutters. Rows of workers hand-stitching the famous arcuate seams. The famous jeans made right there, start to finish. That factory closed in 2004. So did every other...
9 days ago • 1 min read
The future of tangible products isn’t one-and-done. It’s ongoing. A new Juniper Research report projects the subscription-commerce market will pass US $700 billion, combining physical goods and services. At IFA 2025, hardware brands followed suit. Devices weren’t sold as finished objects but as platforms… modular, updatable, alive. And that’s where small product makers can win. Think of your core product as the entry point, not the end. Buy the base; subscribe to attachments, updates, or...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Buyers get excited when they picture outcomes. A 2024 Journal of Retailing study found that when products are categorized by benefits rather than attributes, people imagine themselves using them more vividly. That mental imagery directly increases perceived value and purchase intent. In I Need That, I call this the Coveted Condition: the customer’s desired future state. It’s the transformation your product enables long after the first use. So don’t lead with “3000 RPM motor.” Lead with “Saves...
11 days ago • 1 min read
More buyers are replacing what broke than upgrading what works. And that changes how you should position your product. Recent data from Hardware Retailing shows a shift in home-improvement and consumer durables: People aren’t shopping for themselves because they want nicer things right now. They’re shopping because something broke, is about to break, or can’t be repaired cheaply enough. That’s a fundamentally different buying psychology. Upgrade purchases invite comparison, hesitation … and...
12 days ago • 1 min read
