SHELF No. 05
Positioning, distinctive assets, and brand-building thinking.
OK COOL Filed
OK COOL's sixth annual global trend report, built on a survey of 2,900+ respondents, arguing that algorithmic over-optimisation is flattening culture — and what brands must do to fight back.
PREVIOUSLY FILED
Zoe Scaman Sent
Ask how much of your business only works because people don't shop around.
BRXND Dispatch Sent
“The best hedge against the uncertainty of agentic commerce is a brand that shoppers actively seek out or tell their agents to seek out.”
Ed Cotton Sent
Companies are entering an unusual period in which capability is expanding faster than the strategic discipline required to govern it.
Rebrief Magazine Filed
The shop page for Rebrief Magazine, a Canadian print journal of advertising covering essays, fiction, visual experiments, and interviews, with Issue 01 dropping August 6, 2026.
What's Anu (Substack) Filed
“...failed to drive brand growth or brand health amongst its target customer base.”
BRXND Dispatch Sent
“Today, a brand is far less what it says about itself, and far more about what a wide ecosystem of third parties, both human and non-human, can find, trust, rank, recommend, and sell.”
The Sociology of Business Filed
“In trying to modernize for new audiences, brands are losing their identities. But luxury is the opposite of rushing. Romance is the opposite of convenience.”
United Talent Agency Filed
“For brands, this is the defining tension of 2026. Culture, in all its multitude, is everywhere. Yet it cannot be harnessed through reach alone, or even momentum.”
Josh Nelson Filed
Gmail gets 11× more time than X (Twitter) (16.38% vs. 1.22%) and 12× more time than Reddit (16.38% vs. 1.33%).
The New Yorker Sent
“The preferences and tendencies and aesthetics are deeply baked into its machinery.”
Concept Bureau (Substack) Sent
“Bridesmaids for hire, death doulas, breakup doulas, life coaches, community managers, rent-a-mourners, findom, dating coaches, spiritual coaches, retreats for every life threshold, estrangement therapy, witches who’ll cast a spell for you...”
LinkedIn Sent
First Round Review Sent
“You have to do things that are hard to replicate via AI alone. Show up in person. Be personal in your storytelling. Make physical things.”
Deep Reads by Jon Itkin Sent
If the leader is capable of leaning in, fully examining decisions, and making them with conviction, positioning work goes well.
B2B Marketing Sent
“a continued shift toward emotionally engaging, audience-first campaigns”
Joe Burns Sent
Organisations tend to drift, by human bias and default, towards Pointies at the top and Softies underneath.
Concept Bureau Sent
“We cannot make new things when our spaces are cluttered with infinite half-dead brands, platforms, trends, jokes, technologies, ideas and memories that steal endless little fragments of our attention.”
Tracksuit Sent
97% of the world's most entertaining brands posted revenue growth, with over two-thirds having double digit gains.
System1 Group Sent
New research reveals how to make entertaining and effective ads for TikTok, based on testing with TikTok users
One Thing Newsletter Sent
“I expect we'll see a shift in emphasis from taste to character, in which the premium is placed on contradiction over cohesion and the specificity of one's interests over generalized cultural fluency.”
The Ankler Sent
“Two-thirds of Gen Zs spend more time with fan-created content than with the official titles”
OMG Transform Sent
“Some AI environments can drive positive brand outcomes, while others introduce real brand risk”
LinkedIn Sent
A post challenging the fear of being too niche in your professional positioning
Substack Sent
“The gap between these two kinds of brand is about to become unbridgeable. And most of the industry hasn't even noticed it's opening.”
Patricia Mou Sent
“I’ve striven to take the vow of guardianship and fellow friend.”
Rob Salmon Sent
“Events and experiences are no longer a nice-to-have in your marketing mix. They’re actually one of the fastest-growing budget lines for B2B brands.”
Russell Clayton Sent
“Constraint operates not as a restriction but as a shaping force.”
Shannon Almeida Sent
“They’re not asking “will customers still love this in 10 years?”, they’re asking “can we show enough growth to flip this?”
Lindsay Kaplan Sent
“Has the trend cycle moved so quickly that the heat of a hot brand now collapses almost as fast as it forms?”
Anthology Partners Filed
Optimize for getting humans to share and enjoy your work.
Strat Scraps Sent
36 tools organized by ad collections, copywriting, design, research, and audience
STRAT_SCRAPS Sent
A curated collection of strategy frameworks, creative provocations, and planning tools — compiled from years of practice in brand strategy and advertising.
State of Brand Sent
“The brands that publish will be found. The brands that do not will be described by someone else, or not described at all.”
George Hammond Sent
The more we have, the less it means.
The State of Brand Sent
“Corporate America is converging on a single voice. The brands that opt out will own the next decade.”