Why Obsessing Over Efficiency Is Killing Your Brand

Aesthetic nihilism, Justin Bieber's newest brand, unsh*ttifying CX, and brands that matter

Author

Pedro Porto Alegre
July 02, 2025

Welcome to Marketing Chronicles. A monthly dose of strategy and creativity for brands, agencies, and businesses — delivered on the second Wednesday of every month. If you like what you see and you’re not already a subscriber, join us for free.

Hello Marketing Chroniclers. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been sharing a few ad-hoc longer-form articles with you guys, so today we’re back to regular programming. Bite-sized, thought-provoking ideas to get you thinking about things differently.

Drop me a line on LinkedIn if anything stands out to you!

Enjoy 🧠

CULTURAL UNDERCURRENT/

Aesthetic Nihilism

It's no secret that the youth are drowning in debt. But the downstream effects of this are manifesting themselves in fascinating ways.

For starters, a recent Equifax report showed that YoY Q2 2024, individuals aged 26–35 experienced a 21.6% rise in missed credit payments, with a delinquency rate of 1.99%.

Trends like "Hopeless Core" - which are videos of young people sharing "demotivational" thoughts highlighting the absurdity of the "life coaches" who often preach that through discipline and hard-work, everything will be ok - are flooding TikTok and Instagram.

Not to mention all of the ADHD memes which aim to highlight the difficulties that people diagnosed with it go through on a daily basis, but with a humorous tone (did you know: ADHD medication prescriptions rose 8% from 2020 to 2021).

This has created a communal space for the youth to lament and laugh at how backwards life feels for them right now. And so we're seeing people caring less and "going all in" more, with the expectation that since everyone around them is in trouble, then as a group we will all be in trouble together.

Which is why we're also seeing younger generations prioritizing experiences and quality of life over traditional milestones like home ownership or retirement savings, especially when such goals feel increasingly out of reach.

Brands are obviously well aware of this, and are deploying things like "buy now, pay later" schemes left right and centre (aka "hot dog debt" at Costco). Disguised as financial relief, these BNPL schemes further indebt a generation who has lost all hope about their financial future.

And to finish painting this picture, we're seeing increased distrust in institutions, who they feel have failed them in many fronts and are giving their future away to the machines.

This rise in distrust in institutions (i.e.: government, media, corporations, etc.) feels very similar to the 1970s "stagflation" years - which eventually gave rise to punk rock and gritty realism in cinema.

Looking ahead, this combination of financial disillusionment, distrust in institutions, tech overlordship, and shared lament is manifesting itself in a new form of "YOLO", which is a modern take on nihilism. People are asking themselves: "why plan for the future if the future that society is leading us down looks so bleak?"

It’s a reimagined form of youth rebellion. One that’s leading to brands like Liquid Death, Sydney Sweeney’s bath water, and “rock shoes” to feel so appealing to many. The absurdity of it all conveys empathy in an unique way.

This underlying cultural shift is what I’ve been calling "aesthetic nihilism". How else have you seen this manifest itself in culture as of late?

CELEBRITY PRODUCTS/

Why Celebrities Are Launching Brands

Justin Bieber is about to launch his apparel brand, Skylrk. And though it's still gate-kept behind a password wall, its social account has already amassed more than half a million followers. These types of celebrity-led brands are popping up everywhere, but for them to work there are a few cardinal rules that, if you're a marketer, shouldn't come as a surprise.

For starters, what gives these brands a leg up over their competitors is that fact that these celebrities operate like media channels themselves - with exceptional reach while having highly engaged audiences.

This type of credibility is great to drive trial, which is every innovation's biggest barrier to overcome in its early days.

But why do so many celebrities see an opportunity in this space? HBR wrote a great article about this a while back, and they broke down why its so tempting to jump on the bandwagon:

  1. Authenticity: consumers are seeking more of it, and celebs can easily offer that.

  2. Direct line of communication: social media has shortened the distance between celebs and fans.

  3. DTC: the rise of e-comm has unlocked faster development and distribution of new products.

  4. Owned media: because celebs pay zero dollars for talking to their millions of followers, achieving reach at minimal marketing spend gives them a massive costing advantage.

But what makes so many of these flop is when the product has no connection to an adjacent area of expertise of the celebrity. Here are some successful examples:

  • Kim K --> known for her body image (Skims underwear)

  • Dr. Dre --> known for his producing skills (Beats headphones)

  • Hailey Bieber --> known for her modelling career (Rhode make up)

But further "jumps" can be made, when done so authentically:

  • Alex Cooper x Unwell hydration --> tapping into Gen Z's life struggles, "best enjoyed unwell"

  • Mr. Beast x Feastables --> 100% fair trade cocoa chocolate bars building upon Mr. Beast's previous philanthropic endeavours

Celebrities see this space as far more appealing than endorsements and influencer deals, because they get to have full creative control and monetary equity into the product they're selling.

It's a fascinating emerging area of branding that isn't necessarily innovative from a marketing standpoint (all empirical laws of marketing can be observed here), but that is further segmenting product innovation into digital subcultures as testing grounds before astronomical valuations and exits down the line.

As for Justin Bieber - an apparel line makes total sense. Adjacent to his successful musical career, he's been known for his "streetwear core" style, which will likely come through in his new Skylrk brand.

What celebrity-led brands have caught your attention lately?

CANNES INSIGHTS/

Unsh*ttifying CX

I'm still thinking about Yael Cesarkas and Brent Mitchell's talk from Cannes. What a brilliant perspective on CX and why it should matter for brand marketers.

The talk was called "Unsh*ttifying CX: Connecting Funnels and Feelings", and they made the case as to why CX should also belong with the brand marketer - not only with the CRM and UX/UI folks.

But today, out of the Core 7 CX disciplines (customer satisfaction, service & support, product features, product experience, pricing & payment, retail layout & design, and web & app design) brand marketers report to only mage 25% of them (web/app and customer satisfaction, for the most part).

This is an insane statistic because we spend so much time thinking, debating and developing brand guidelines, but we are forgetting to keep the promises we make on our PowerPoint decks.

And when brand marketers remove themselves from this "follow through", while the brand is being designed for feelings, the experience is being designed for efficiency. Or how the speakers call it: brand remains an academic exercise.

Such a well-delivered presentation in a time where AI and data are smoothing out any and all friction from the brand experience in the name of efficiency.

The final slide below should be framed and put above every brand marketer's desk 👏

Excerpt from Yael Cesarkas and Brent Mitchell's talk from Cannes.

AWARENESS ADVANTAGE/

Is Your Brand Worthy Of Attention?

Earned media is the Hail Marry of marketing campaigns. Not in the sense that it can't be "manufactured", but because it can absolutely change the game for any brand. However, it is very difficult for "irrelevant brands" to reap the benefits of such a tactic.

Years ago, Cheetos dropped a giant statue of a hand covered in Cheetle Dust holding a Cheeto outside of a small town called Cheadle, just outside of Calgary. Looking at the piece, it likely wasn't overly expensive to manufacture, and once you got the permits to have it on someone's land for a few weeks, you're off to the races.

The campaign went on the generate BILLIONS of impressions - and I suspect it had a very positive impact on the business.

The campaign got picked up by all the American talk shows and generated so much buzz that the concept of Cheetle Dust got imprinted in the minds of consumers across North America.

But could this have happened with another lesser-known brand? I doubt it. And I have some data to back up this hypothesis.

Tracksuit and TikTok have recently released a report proving (once again) that awareness is a major catalyst for advertising efficiency.

Meaning, the more people know who your brand is, the harder your advertising will work for you. Just take a look at the graph above.

Brands with 40% awareness see 1.5x more conversions than low awareness brands. Brands with 60% awareness, see even higher performance, at around 2.9x.

So, if Bob's Chips had put up a giant statue outside of Chiptown, nobody would care. Maybe a few folks would pose for a photo, but it wouldn't be newsworthy.

Cheetos, on the other hand, demands attention because everyone knows the brand. It's worthy of conversation (and eventual purchase!).

This is further proof that there is a clear "awareness advantage" in the market that brands must be laser-focused on building in order to outperform their competition.

For the full study, download the report for free here.

INSPIRATION/

Even An Asshole Can Save A Life

Foundation commercials typically pull on our heartstrings.

The abandoned dog needing a home, the cancer patient fighting for their lives, the child needing food on the table.

These are such noble causes that so many agencies will offer their services free of charge to help raise money for foundations that their teams care about.

But this commercial from Donate Life America was quite distinctive in comparison to what we’re used to seeing.

It showed the “world’s biggest asshole” going about his life, causing havoc and being disrespectful to others, until the day he suddenly dies of a brain aneurysm.

And people learn he was an organ donor.

And several lives are saved because of it.

It is truly a memorable ad that approaches cause marketing from an unique angle.

BRAIN FOOD/

Strategist’s Delight (What’s On)

QUOTE/

Don’t Delegate Decisions To Research

“I like data because data helps me prove to the naysayers that creativity does drive better results. The problem I have is when people do research to cover their asses, to use it as an insurance, or just to prove something to their bosses. It’s very easy to do research that gives you the results that you want — anyone who’s worked in marketing for longer than 2 years will know how to do that quite well. Instead, do research to learn and make things better — it’s more important what you do with the data than to just follow it blindly. If we were to do everything that the research is telling me to do, I’d be better off replacing the marketing team with a research team — it would save me a lot of money, right? But no, we have a marketing team to get the research, think, and make a decision. We don’t delegate the decisions to research.”

Fernando Machado

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Pedro Porto Alegre is a seasoned marketing strategist with in-depth experience building brand and communications strategies for top-tier B2C and B2B organizations across Canada. His repertoire extends from crafting and executing integrated multi-media brand marketing campaigns to the commercialization of performance-driven innovations for multimillion-dollar and nascent brands alike.