A decade or so ago, brands shifted from increasing value of their products through utility, competitive comparison, and creative advertising to endowing products they made with aesthetic, sustainability credentials, a story of artisanship and provenance, and/or a community in order to give their products identity and singularity. (Virgil Abloh made

The reality for many brands today is that the needs and wants of customers—who are constructing new, diverse, and more personally meaningful lifestyles—simply don't align with the narrative that brands have labored to build. For rising numbers of those customers, brand heritage and story have become at best irrelevant, and at worst an active barrie

corporate social responsibility or environmental qualities might be useful for secondary purposes. These attributes should be limited to no more than 20% of the list.