We’re back and ready to get down to it. In this edition we go through some of the best brand campaigns of ‘24, talk personal planning for the new year (with a master doc to help you), and talk about luxury as marketing.

Hope everyone has a great start to the year!

Oren

The Best Brand Campaigns of 2024, Explained

Ashwinn, Jordan Rogers and I sat down live with Hubspot to break down our favorite campaigns of the year across a dozen categories. If you’re looking for some great inspo for your brand planning this year, it’s a fun watch that’s jam packed with value.

Personal Planning

In the spirit of trying new things, my first (free) Notion template is here! Below I share a complete template for conducting a personal branding (or rebrand) exercise. As a creator or creative professional, if you’re thinking about improving how you’re perceived online, or organizing your personal brand to run more like a business, we made a complete exercise to go through, with an extensive template to get you started (and a 20m walkthough video).

Rebrand yourself in 2025 template on Notion

Cut30 Starts Tuesday

Our short form bootcamp is about to kick off the first 30 day training of the year!

Here’s a few recent wins from the last session, our 7 day challenge in December and some grads to show the breadth of content people learn how to make, and follow-through on posting and improving during Cut30.

Alex came out the gate strong with 20k views on TikTok with his first video of Cut30 Session-11 on a brand new account, then his third video cracked a million, breaking down the realities of barrel sauna use. He’s stayed on the grind since the program ended in December and cracked 1000 followers.

Sarah dropped life lessons, and multiple series concepts to tell the story of building her new brand

Aleo Shop got a win with their highest performing TikTok ever - breaking out of the 400 view jail with their first Cut30 video.

Then Sarah C took the conversation to LinkedIn to talk about DTC marketing.

Justo got some traction on Youtube shorts with fitness content (in Spanish).

And Shannon dropped some excellent behind the scenes content of her photography

Carne Shabu went a lil unhinged with this TikTok (and got some serious views as a reward)

Grady from our 7 Day Challenge went viral on IG and TIkTok by executing our “yapper” format perfectly, and Yasmina had solid performance on a brand-focused yap as well.

If you’re ready to make the plunge on short form video for you or your brand in the new year…

cut30.co

Luxury As Positioning

Last week on Instagram I asked the question… is furniture brand RH “luxury”?

There's an interesting paradox happening at Restoration Hardware (RH). While they sell predominantly middle-market furniture manufactured in China, their brand positioning screams ultra-luxury through an impressive collection of high-end assets:

• A fleet of charter jets and a Mediterranean yacht

• A $2,000/night NYC hotel complete with caviar bar

• 73 acres of historic English estate

• $100M+ of Aspen real estate

• Dozens of "galleries" (their upscale retail-restaurant hybrids) each doing $10M+ in revenue

• Massive investment in premium print catalogs

• Zero social media presence (which some argue creates mystique, while others say it's to dodge customer service)

The strategy is clear: surround moderately-priced products with the trappings of extreme luxury to justify significant markups. RH wants consumers to associate their $3,000 Chinese-made sofa with their five-star hotel experience or yacht sighting in Portofino.

But here's the million-dollar question: Does this "luxury by association" strategy actually elevate how consumers perceive RH's core products? Or does it create cognitive dissonance when the Instagram-worthy showroom experience meets the reality of middle-of-the-road design and quality?

RH is making a bold bet that by investing heavily in the luxury ecosystem around their products, they can transform consumer perception of their entire brand. But perhaps the best part, is these assets generate income and are just that, assets, on their balance sheet that are worth their own weight as an investment.

One of the most interesting brand positions of our time.

From our Bookmarks

CPG Pricing tool from one of the founders of Midday Squares

A try-on fashion app that actually looks compelling

Midjourney ingredients

Vogue Taiwan editorial

That’s all for this week, appreciate you reading.

Hyper Reports

Check out our market reports. We spend many hours researching markets, categories, and brands & products within the consumer space so you don’t have to.

• The guide to making great Merchandise — HERE — a guide to finding and producing your own merch

• Reports on Running, Golf, and Tennis — HERE — a guide to each sport, the market opportunities, and how to launch your own brand

Inquiries? Shoot us a note here: [email protected]

We’d love to chat!

Oren & Clayton ❤️ you