#190Rebrief Magazine — Store
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.
Brand strategy
Positioning, distinctive assets, and brand-building thinking.
31 records updated
#190
#190The Verdict on Sydney Sweeney's Great Jeans, One Year Later
“...failed to drive brand growth or brand health amongst its target customer base.”
The New Brand Folklore
“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.”
#188In Defense of Brand Myth
“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.”
#188UTA Culture Canon
“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.”
Claude's Design Aesthetic Is Taking Over the Internet
“The preferences and tendencies and aesthetics are deeply baked into its machinery.”
Warm Collar Labor: The economy is getting touchy-feely
“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...”
"AI-Powered" Isn't a Position
“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.”
Positioning is deciding
If the leader is capable of leaning in, fully examining decisions, and making them with conviction, positioning work goes well.
Why Emotion and Storytelling Win In 2026
“a continued shift toward emotionally engaging, audience-first campaigns”
Bed of Nails
Organisations tend to drift, by human bias and default, towards Pointies at the top and Softies underneath.
Death is our missing technology
“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.”
Entertain or Die 3.0
97% of the world's most entertaining brands posted revenue growth, with over two-thirds having double digit gains.
The Long and the Short (form) of It
New research reveals how to make entertaining and effective ads for TikTok, based on testing with TikTok users
The Dead End of Good Taste
“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.”
Mario and the New Fandom Flywheel
“Two-thirds of Gen Zs spend more time with fan-created content than with the official titles”
Zefr and OM Media Trials Release First-of-Its-Kind Study on Brand Impact of Ad Adjacency to AI-Generated Content
“Some AI environments can drive positive brand outcomes, while others introduce real brand risk”
Y R U Scared of Being Too Niche
A post challenging the fear of being too niche in your professional positioning
The Brand That Thinks
“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.”
20 Learnings on Building Community
“I’ve striven to take the vow of guardianship and fellow friend.”
Events as an anti slop play
“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.”
Your Brand is Not for Everyone
“Constraint operates not as a restriction but as a shaping force.”
The Five Pillars of Brand Distinctiveness
“Guarding against undifferentiated slop.”
Why Does Every Cool Brand Eventually Become Boring?
“They’re not asking “will customers still love this in 10 years?”, they’re asking “can we show enough growth to flip this?”
The era of post-modern brand longevity
“Has the trend cycle moved so quickly that the heat of a hot brand now collapses almost as fast as it forms?”
More links
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Strat Scraps Ad Toolbox
Strat Scraps
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#189
36 tools organized by ad collections, copywriting, design, research, and audience
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The Strategy & Planning Scrapbook
STRAT_SCRAPS
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#182
A curated collection of strategy frameworks, creative provocations, and planning tools — compiled from years of practice in brand strategy and advertising.
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The AI Search Manifesto: Why Every Company Needs to Become a Publisher or Disappear From the Conversation
State of Brand
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#181
“The brands that publish will be found. The brands that do not will be described by someone else, or not described at all.”
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The Age of Curation
George Hammond
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#181
The more we have, the less it means.
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The Great Flattening: Corporate AI Language and Brand Voice Opportunity
The State of Brand
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#178
“Corporate America is converging on a single voice. The brands that opt out will own the next decade.”