When does a word become so ubiquitous it loses all meaning? Brian's sudden aversion to "culture" sparks a meandering exploration into the semiotics of commerce, just as Poppy's influencer vending machine saga becomes an unlikely metaphor for marketing's existential crisis. PLUS, we revisit a key moment from NRF 2025.

• [13:30] The Poppi fallout: After being slammed by fans around the globe for an influencer activation, Poppi juggles image repair.
• [23:00] Poppi vs. Olipop: Controversy doubles the audience.
• [29:00] Super Bowl LIX: This year’s game was an underwhelming canvas for Kendrick’s victory and Poppi’s brief downfall.
• [35:00] One of the most impactful ads this year was creator-made, by a Doritos fan.
• [46:00] Big creative is more accessible now than ever, as displayed by big brands like Liquid Death using small but mighty budgets.
• [51:00] On this week’s After Dark episode, we unpack Kanye West’s breakdown and public rage against Ye and Shopify.
• “If you want to get attention, start a war.” – Brian
• “In the last few years, the NFL has become more participatory.” – Brian

• Order your copy of LORE by Future Commerce
• Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death on Future Commerce
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Phillip and Brian look into tomorrow’s creator economy, shaped by the role of AI-driven agents in commerce and attention as currency. While rising generations invisibly develop instincts for algorithmic curation, Mr. Beast’s Feastables collect dust in your local Walgreens. PLUS: We bring you along to our NRF panel discussion alongside our friends from BigCommerce.

• Mr. Beast on Colin and Samir: His too many failed sidequests reveal a bigger picture about the viability of creator-led trends in the long term.
• The future of creator-driven consumer trends is agent-driven.
• Gen Alpha is a surveillance generation, and attention as currency is instinctual.
• Commerce is not just a transaction layer but an infrastructure that connects different facets of the digital world, and is the backbone for emerging tech trends.
• [00:07:40] “If the future of the attention economy is agentic…Do creators have some role to play in agent attention?” – Phillip
• [00:08:35] “The creator economy is a form of patronage.” – Phillip
• [00:11:35] “Gen Alpha is a surveillance generation…my children know instinctively that they’re constantly being surveilled. They give negative attention signals to things they don’t like.” – Phillip
• [00:21:10] “There’s going to continue to be bots in the world, and we are going to hate them.” – Brian
• [00:18:00] “The problem with running AI as effectively an API with a brain of its own is that it becomes completely impossible to diagnose when things go wrong. And that’s going to drive people crazy.” – Brian
• [00:22:00] “There's going to be entire categories that emerge just for creators to try to find alpha and arbitrage in the system.” – Phillip

• Mr. Beast, Walt Disney, and the Promise of Payoff
• @Anuatluru on X
• Kiri Masters on Agentic Shopping
• Insiders #184: Coexist: Avoiding Agentic Ghettos

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Head of Content James Mulvey joins the show to discuss Motion’s latest creative trends report, which analyzed over $100M+ in ad spend across platforms to extract top creative insights. Listen now to catch the highlights and learn how breakthrough ads are getting faster, funnier, and uglier.

Read Motion’s 2025 Creative Trends Report at Motionapp.com/creative-trends.

• Motion curated a report of the seven top creative trends to keep up with in 2025, finding that ads are getting funnier, running longer, and embracing low-fi aesthetics.
• 71% of advertisers plan to increase their use of AI in the coming year.
• 68% of advertisers plan to increase their use of UGC in the coming year.
• POV storytelling is on the rise – from entertainment to advertising.
• [00:15:10] “Authenticity and humor can be very difficult to marry.” – Brian
• [00:15:15] “–Especially if you’re not funny.” – James
• [00:21:30] “Popular media drives creator notions.” – Phillip
• [00:33:50] “The native platform experts are absorbing the source code, and then they're bringing that into the creative team…we all doomscroll to try to stay relevant, but it’d be awesome to have someone who’s job is to do this.” – James

• Check out the Motion Creative Trends Report
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Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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This week, we’re live-reacting to battles across culture. It’s DeepSeek vs. OpenAI, Millennials vs. Gen X, and Starbucks vs. Sharpies (Sharpies won). PLUS: The Flappy Bird effect drives an aftermarket of devices with TikTok access, yuppie culture booms, and Waymo strikes again.

• DeepSeek’s Disruption – A powerful, cheap, open-source AI from China that is sending shockwaves through the industry, challenging Nvidia’s dominance and raising economic concerns.
• The Death of Loss Leaders? – AI optimization could make it easier for consumers to game retail pricing, forcing businesses to rethink discounts and marketing tactics.
• Tech Arms Race – The U.S.-China AI competition is accelerating, with implications for policy, economy, and innovation.
• The Generational Cycle – Are Millennials the new Boomers? Phillip and Brian discuss how attitudes shift over time.
• TikTok Bans and Black Markets – The aftermarket for phones with TikTok pre-installed mirrors the Flappy Bird phenomenon.
• “If someone was able to optimize their life so that friction was removed, it would break the system.” – Phillip
• “This is ground zero of something huge. The AI game just changed overnight.” – Phillip
• “The best defense is to flood the zone. The moment you try to contain something, you lose control.” – Brian
• “The return of yuppies proves that history doesn’t just repeat itself—it evolves.” – Phillip
• “Technology enabled back.” – Brian

• In-show mention: The Cruel Kids Table, New York Magazine
• In-show mention: TimesNowNews: Phones with TikTok Pre-Installed Selling for $25,000
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This episode of Future Commerce is brought to you by Future Commerce Plus and our sponsors Omnisend and MotionApp.

“There is nothing but micro trends these days. Sometimes, things bubble up, and they capture the imagination of pop culture…but then they last for a really short time. In that environment, how do you really set yourself up to influence culture?”

In this week’s episode, Ana Andjelic graces our show with breakthrough advice from her latest book, Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture. Discover the secrets of updating heritage brands, keys to transporting customers into imaginative worlds, and how to amplify microtrends to position your brand within cornerstone cultural narratives.

• Reverse-Engineering Hits: The concept of "hit-making" is about creating micro-trends and amplifying them through culture to align with the zeitgeist and resonate with a brand’s audience.
• Capturing Connection: Modern brands are focusing on attention and engagement as measures of success, recognizing that loyalty stems from deeper interactions beyond purchases.
• Brands as Cultural Contributors: Successful brands become part of a larger cultural narrative, contributing to concepts like happiness (Coca-Cola) or creativity (Apple).
• [00:6:34] - “As human beings, we never make decisions in isolation. We are always influenced by what we read, see, listen to, and each other. So in a sense, all of those interactions are narratives or they're fibers of the narrative.” - Ana
• [00:29:27] - “You have to be both sensitive to the zeitgeist and cultures, but also stay true to that innovativeness of those brands because all those founders did create something that didn't exist before.” - Ana
• [00:31:01] - “There's actually a transforming, so taking one form and putting it into a new context, which is how myth begins. It's actually at the moment of transformation.” - Brian
• [00:35:00] - “There is time and place for everything. Performance marketing works really well with brand marketing, but demand is created by brand marketing. Demand is harvested by performance marketing.” - Ana

• Buy Hitmakers on Amazon
• Subcribe to Ana’s Substack for access to the Hitmakers podcast and more
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We're covering the first 100 Days of the New Commerce Department: what trade and tariff policies are up Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's sleeve? PLUS: We dig into TikTok's dizzying fake-out, Doji's mystifying deepfake try-on tech, and the long-awaited launch of the 2025 Future Commerce Annual Journal, LORE.

• Preorder LORE
• Explore Doji: Doji App
• Watch the Head and Shoulders video from Veritasium we geeked out about

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