The Ecommerce Playbook for 2026: Strategy, Trends, and Lessons from 2025

0:00What's the single biggest change you expect in e-commerce in 2026? Oh, there's this real flash in the pan moment at the start of the year where there is a true motivation that actually doesn't really feed past the point of January. The mistake that most brands that maybe use Q5 as an opportunity is they go to...

0:24I guess welcome back everybody to another episode of D2C Diaries after a brief two-week hiatus. I bet that felt long. I bet that felt long for all of our regulars. It looked like a holiday from maybe the outside, but there's been a lot going on behind the scenes, isn't there? Yeah, we've done a lot. Obviously, we had Black Friday, which I want to touch on. We had our all-hands day, so we got 85 people in London for a day on Black Friday. And then we decided to cram two Christmas parties back-to-back in two different cities within seven days after that. so there's a lot felt very drained when it when it came to the end of that two-week period but it was very exciting wasn't it yeah i think uh scheduling um some scheduling optimization needed next year because we had the black friday social which is on black friday we brought all four of our agencies together in one room which was super exciting um you then had the sore one on the following thursday in leeds in leeds and then came back to london for the hamby one on the and interviews in person yeah it was a lot it was a lot but it was great it was exciting it's always exciting to get people in in in a room together at that scale intimidating in some ways but um i think yeah it was really good and obviously had a massive black friday so i wanted to start there yeah to recap some of the numbers um so yeah november as an agency we spent nearly 40 million dollars on on meta which was up 185 percent on last year which is pretty pretty meaty year-on-year growth how many ads did we make god over the period um at least 4 000 over over november but i think obviously a lot of that black friday creative had started in in October as well so probably closer to like 6 ,000 yeah I feel like we could do a whole episode on like what drove success over Black Friday but I really think it's a lot of like a lot of the fundamental basics so strong offer that's very simple the brands that had done the hard work for the year so like done a lot of demand generation had built a lot of awareness and weren't trying to fix that problem too close to the period, then obviously just the right approach to creative.

2:48Yeah. The one thing I saw is, yeah, there was a lot almost of confusion of, I guess, changing offer quite frequently. So like really knowing your offers before the period and avoiding changing things too much is important. Yeah. I think you need to use the prior three quarters to test and learn from that perspective. And it's easy when you're really close to e-commerce and you're spending all of your time online to think that your offer is simple. Not remembering that, especially if you sell to older consumers, that many of them find it difficult to use the internet. Never mind understand a three-tiered discount at four different price points that unlock these benefits.

3:32It's like simple works. I think we just saw that again. But yeah, it was huge. got some data from Meta the day before Black Friday I think we're going to tip$100 million on them spend this year in the UK which for this market is big it's a lot of volume excited to see where we get to next year yeah we can do I'm banking it for probably around August next year but I've got a whole document about creative learnings and best performers and stuff that really works during the period but I just feel like if we do that now it's just one not going to be relevant to anyone but two, it will be forgotten by the time we actually get around to next Black Friday.

4:15Yeah, I think one thing is just cohorting out those consumers who bought over this period and doing a bit of an analysis. Now you've got Christmas period is a good time to do that, right? How did they differ from the rest of the year? I feel like no one thinks about that enough and then leaves it until September and then scrambles to think about how our messaging should look. so yeah we can do a bigger episode come back in august 2026 for that one um christmas is coming right yeah have you done your shopping pretty much there i think a few last minute bits to get on the makes me nervous um somehow bought a dog in was about four days of deciding to actually getting a dog mental mental don't blame me blame live um but yeah i think the decision had been made on saturday and went to visit the dog yesterday and i ended up putting a deposit down mental okay well let's have him on yeah we need a new mascot so we do we do lenny is he lenny yeah yeah i wanted to call him chad uh for for chad scale but uh wow i can see you with the chihuahua you know it's fits fits with your image it wouldn't have been my choice i wanted a rottweiler she wanted a chihuahua so obviously the way that it worked was we got a chihuahua with rottweiler colors uh which wouldn't have been my choice but you're so compromising yeah um it makes me nervous that you've done your christmas shopping because i've got a you've done any of it i've done minor bits I've got pretty much the whole of it to do more strategic this year got a fair amount during Black Friday I'm just going to get Surrey toothbrushes for everyone it's the same bet isn't it it's like yes there's a V2 out you're all getting a Surrey toothbrush you all got one last year but there's there's the upgrade hell of an upgrade yeah I wanted to use this episode to talk heart reflective part forward looking so going to look back at 2025 25 um it's been a crazy year for us it's been an exciting year for for the brat for our brands and want to want to do a bit of a reflective episode there but prior to doing that i wanted to drive into some tactics um in relation to q5 we've done a ktr head of ahead of performance creative put together a really strong and exciting a training session for our creative strategy team a few weeks back.

6:52And I think any brand owners or operators that haven't switched off and are still spending time with us just before Christmas, firstly, what are you doing? Secondly, hopefully we can give you some insights to take forward and execute to maximize Q5. I'm going to let Lucas talk tactics, but I'm just going to frame what it is. So Q5 is like the, I almost think like Meta came up with this term but it's like it's the most important quarter that isn't a quarter um so it's the period between christmas and i think like the the end of the first full week of jan it kind of runs for that period um it's when there's that really clear mindset shift in consumers who have prior to christmas been shopping for others and have been in that gifting mindset and um from black friday onwards have spent most of their income on gifts, other people, and have been thinking in that way.

7:54We see almost immediately after Christmas, Boxing Day, but definitely the 27th of December onwards, just like a complete shift in demand and consumer patterns. Obviously, we've got health and wellness, which we do a lot of work in, that starts to boom. But you've also got these mindsets around new habits, back to shopping for themselves, personal care, wellness, like I've mentioned. New year, new me. New year, new me, which I think, and gift cards, people getting gift cards and income for Christmas. So you've got that change in mindset and then you've also got this ecosystem where a lot of these enterprise brands, so think Unilevers, think P &G, dramatically reduce spend through that period.

8:39so they pull back on budgets and that presents an opportunity right if you're able to execute well i think that period from boxing day to jan 1st can provide a platform for just a huge start to jan and can really give you momentum coming out of that period in a way that those who don't take it seriously don't benefit from so from like a creative perspective how are you thinking about about that as a as a period yeah i think obviously we need to there's a big shift in consumer behaviors and how we speak to people and i think there's there's this real flash in the pan moment at the start of the year where there is a true motivation that actually doesn't really feed past the point of january which is why it's so important i mean i saw a statistic which is something like 80 % of New Year's resolutions end by like the 22nd of Jan or something like something crazy like that.

9:36I've never got past the teens on dry January. A great example. So you kind of have this short period of time where you can really tap into I guess you know both the motivations but also the pain points that have come from the period of Christmas where naturally we are unhealthier during that period where we can really speak to these individuals. But I think where a lot of the time people, brands fall short is they either go very seasonal with hype at every stage of the funnel or they default to kind of that very default evergreen messaging. And I think that's why it's important that we kind of layer that seasonal context into more of a funnel-based framework.

10:19So I guess if we're looking at that from like a top to bottom of funnel perspective, from top of funnel naturally we're going you know we we need to be going very problem solution first and it's almost that problem solution reset from maybe some of the the poor habits that we have picked up earlier in the year or over the christmas period say um and it's almost like leaning into that reset mindset right so what's not working from that previous period how they're actually truly feeling post-holiday, what their life could look like this year if they made that change as well. So, you know, it's that idea of like post-holiday reset, you know, problem solution driven frameworks that are outlining that current routine or that change of routine.

11:09And I think, you know, the way that we do that best at the top of the funnel with that problem solution first mindset is really tapping into like some of those core human desires, which I think is not something we do so much with. So with Top of Funnel, you need to be thinking more from the perspective of like, you know, one human desires like survival or extension of life. So this is where wellness brands can really lean into some of those core motivators and common resolutions around improving physical or mental, you know, health and how that kind of helps improve their life. There's also So comfortable living is another one.

11:47So improving finances as well and how that can attribute to core human desires where, you know, cost efficiency potentially falls under that bracket as well. Or a push on, say, January sales and how you can lean into some of that disposable income that you've made over the period. And another one is like connection to loved ones. So 22 % actually of resolutions aim to improve or increase time spent with family. So I think whether you're, depending on what your product is, is, uh, is there to solve a problem for, how can we really lean into those core human desires? And I think the main one is, is always going to be survival or extension of life and, and how that kind of taps into things like, you know, confidence, how, how, how can we agitate failed solutions or the way that we felt in December versus January.

12:37So, you know, leaning into things like almost like still bloated from December. Here are three fixes I swear by. If your routine is still chaos, start here. Here's the one reset that I'm making this year that is going to make a true impact of my life. so there are some of the things that we need to be thinking about from a top of funnel perspective and I think the mistake that most brands that maybe use Q5 as an opportunity is they go to bottom of funnel again so it's like that January urgency of sales whereas really like this is an opportunity for us to double down not only on bottom of funnel but top of funnel because as you said CPMs are going to be better there's more opportunity for that incrementality and to really tap into some of those problems that people are considering.

13:28Yeah, that sets you up for the rest of Jan when you've done that work, you've spent that money at a better CPM towards these personas that maybe were harder to reach in normal times. I think it's about being really introspective on that consumer mindset and how that maybe differs from the rest of the year at the end of December, start of Jan. I just think it's a big opportunity. Yeah, exactly. And then like, you know, so for me, I'm still probably putting at least 50 % towards problem and unaware creatives. The way that I would recommend doing this, because the problem that again with Q5 is like it only has a certain shelf life.

14:11so if you're you know you want to work smarter not harder with your creative so for even though we are positioning creative in a way that it will tap into q5 messaging we are creating hook variations that mean that that creative can live a longer shelf life if there's performance there um so that's something that to consider as well when we're we're driving different variations of those concepts so they can live outside of just that period but then also like if we're going 50 towards that top of funnel i'm still looking at like 20 to 30 within that middle of funnel section where we're doing more trust building and objection handling which i think is important within health and wellness because this is where they're all coming in to to compete with one another so showing those real transformations i thought this would work but it didn't and here's what I used instead.

15:07Really tapping into those objections that people are maybe bringing to the surface more through the ad comments, through the reviews and things like that. Yeah, I think there's loads of creative ways to do entertaining messaging that's not too problem-led, that works from Upper Funnel. So here's one New Year's resolution that stuck last year, and then here's all the benefits that I got from it. I also think I saw a few brands last year doing really strong concepts around it started with a so-and-so bought this gift for me yeah and then go and it's I think that's naturally appeals to a slightly broader audience from like a hook and a messaging perspective and then it's just about can you do the storytelling and art um can you move that curiosity loop to your product yeah exactly so yeah I think there's loads of opportunity and then from a bottom I think bottom of funnel during this period like you have to be quite you have to attack messaging in a slightly different way so you know you've got offers like january reset offers limited launch bundles kickstart your year right don't wait till february starting now and it's rather than just saying say 20 off it's you know tying that into the motivators of this new year new me so like save 20 on your new morning routine or save 20 on desire to support desired outcome.

16:31So we need to adapt the messaging in the way that we're positioning those offers during that period as well. Yeah, and I think it's the same with new products, like new product launches. You can engineer a position around that. But yeah, I think brands just, you want to take advantage of that period. I think it's low cost, loads of ways to tap into new personas and loads of ways to set yourself up for... Exactly. The funnel doesn't need to change. It's just the context of how you're using that funnel. We're leaning more towards outcome-driven frameworks as well, which obviously will align more to wellness.

17:12Perfect. Jumping into a bit of a reflective piece, I wanted to just arc back to January and what was actually happening in Jan. I always think it's interesting. You go through a full year and you're like, we obviously did this at the Black Friday. you kind of reflect and you see how much has changed, how much you've achieved. I was just pulling together a few top line things from D2C that was happening in January 2025, just to recap. So TikTok was getting banned, which I think definitely didn't happen in the end. Now everyone's using shop and it's booming. I think it's going to do 70 billion this year in the US.

17:53everyone was calling Apple Apple in a fraud thought they were all engineering their results to take too much credit Sora 1 had just launched which do you remember when that first video came out of showing an output from Sora 1 that blew everyone's mind and if you think how far it's come since that point and how I guess in hindsight bad had Sora 1 was in comparison to where we are with like VO 3.5, Sora 2, et cetera. It's pretty mad. Yeah, it's mental in one year. DeepSeek launched, which I actually forgot about that. It was a thing. But everyone got very scared of China for a bit when that came out.

18:40We rebuilt our org in Jan to focus on created-led growth off the back of Andromeda, which feels crazy to see where we're at now in terms of output. and we recorded our 16 episode of the podcast. I think now we're on like mid-70s. Yeah, 100 soon come. Yeah, not far off that 100 episode. So I think there's been a lot that's happened in that period. I wanted to touch on like lessons or learnings. What do you think your biggest learnings, plural, have been this year? It's something we've spoken about a bit, but I guess from like a team development perspective, candor is definitely a massive one. And I think that's, you know, being able to give honest, empathetic feedback little and often.

19:31So like this idea of going from waiting to give someone feedback until their next review or giving that feedback to the manager who gives it to that individual directly and it creating this spider web of confusion where that person isn't able to action that feedback instantaneously. simultaneously um making that change to like if i'm ever on a call whether i is my direct report or not if i see something i will speak to them straight away after that call to give that feedback little and often rather than what a lot of organizations do they'll wait till these big review dates to give feedback that they could have given much sooner and that person could have been improving in that area much sooner and by making that change and by going into those whether it's interactions calls like reviewing work uh with that intention of giving feedback little and often i've just seen the team grow and improve so much more and not i don't mean me just giving that feedback but us creating a culture where that is okay upwards downwards sideways i think has really helped increase improve standards but mean that people can react much quicker and optimize themselves much better.

20:46Yeah, I hadn't actually written down anything from like a management people perspective, but I think that's where we as a business have become so much, that's where we've made the most progress, I think, if we look at the last 12 months in terms of how we approach it, how we professionalize it, how we, what, getting clearer on what our culture and people approach to people looks like. I also think when looking at like e-commerce businesses, every business is a people business fundamentally. I think just agencies, the constraint in agencies becomes people a lot earlier than it does in an e-com brands journey.

21:26Some brands, we know a few, you can get to like nearly nine figures without having to really have people figured out to like really dialed in basically. but I think it's also when I look at the brands that we work with that have amazing products that have hit plateaus at certain points it's almost always because they've not become good enough at people operations which is quite boring relative to the more sexy things of growth, marketing content, retention, product I think that's something that everybody who's in a brand role I think it's just a really good thing to try and become better at as you go into 2026.

22:12Definitely something that we are continuing to do. We're not resting on our laurels there. But yeah, definitely had to have been a big driver. Well, it's that. I forgot who said it, but there was a quote I heard on a podcast the other day. It was like, if you're the most valuable part of your business, then your business has no value. and it's it just if that makes sense because it's it essentially is saying that the if you are if you are hold too much weight and value within your organization then there's not enough time and attention being spent on the people within your business being the value creation mechanism was that that was my first million wasn't it yeah it was i think it was i think it was the um I've also listened to that podcast which is why I was thinking yeah I think it's 100 % true and I think it's a hard skill to learn I think we've talked about it a few other episodes but there's a lot of amazing content online around people, management, growth and it's part introspective and really sitting down and thinking about what you want your organisation to look feel sound and be i feel like your culture your organization is your culture that is introspective you can define that but then it's also part um external like going and learning and being very intentional in developing those skills yeah definitely i would say on a personal level as well like a start of the year last year i was i was too reactive and getting into very busy work and as a result didn't have time for focusing on what really mattered, prioritization, bigger objectives.

23:58And I think I have become much better at being able, well, I didn't do any forward planning for a start. So now without fail, on a Sunday or Friday afternoon, I will plan my whole next week. Because I think if you go into the next week and you haven't planned how you're going to be spending your time and what you're going to be prioritizing your time on, And you're essentially borrowing use time from later in that week. So that has been a big shift for me actually sitting down and bucketing. So I've got a system that I use on Notion where I'd bucket things into different priorities. So management, innovation, product and training, team and training.

24:43So I will essentially build out my objectives or my priorities into that system with a nice framework, impact, confidence and ease, and then also give it a priority rating. And then from that, I will essentially, and this isn't anything revolutionary. I know a lot of people that do this already, but I will then time block my calendar the next week from highest priority to lowest. and obviously you're not necessarily going to get through everything on that list even in the next week. But by doing that, it means that you become more obsessed with prioritizing your time and not allowing other things to slip into that time, which has been massive for me and improved my output and impact as a result of that.

25:31So yeah, that was like a big thing for me that helped being a founder or entrepreneur. Yeah, I've just been redesigning my approach to that for next year. Because it's hard as well. It's hard to when you've gone, I think when you've come from building a business and you've been very operational on the tools, doing the work, it feels less tangible to work on things that have a longer payback period. And I mean payback almost from like a dopamogenic perspective. It's like it feels good to be in an ad account and have an impact on clients, but thinking about strategy for the next two years is more important, but the reward circuit and system there is very different.

26:18I think it's a different way of operating, and it's quite a hard shift to go through. You have to be very intentional with it, like you said. There was an interesting thing that Leila Homozi said, and it's almost like there's always going to be fires that need to be put out. it's like brand you have to label those fires either a forest fire which is like it has it is a priority now or it's going to fuck the whole business or a bin fire which is like it's contained yes that's that there's a fire there but it's not going to destroy the business and you actually it's okay to sometimes leave fires burning because there are other things that you need to prioritize 100 % I think that also pays into biggest learnings we've talked about focus and doing less better I don't want to hash that again but I think it's important I think it's been trying to pull that more forward into again for next year saying no more often and subtract rather than add for like Jan looking at next year that's a big thing for me is not looking at more, looking at less and how that translates into business and personal because I think that will massively help both.

27:33I think that's something we've done very well. I encourage everyone to have a look at. Yeah, another one, final one, that I think it has really caused disruption previously in our business. Obviously, as you know, when you're scaling and things are going well, things do break and you need to rebuild systems, processes. I think there's a quote where almost every 15 people, you have to almost rebuild the entire system or way of working. We've definitely had that, and I think we've approached process optimization and rollout in the wrong way. It made me realize that if every person that is impacted by process change, it's going to change the way that they work day to day disrupt their workflow so it's really important that you get true buy-in before changing a process and we've done that wrong in the past and again Alex Hormozzi says something of like document demonstrate duplicate so before you change anything document it demonstrate it to the team and then get them to to demonstrate it to you when you can then give feedback but almost what comes before that is actually getting them bought into the why of what we're trying to change to help them and ensure that they come through that along on that journey with you and as a result of that you're gonna there's gonna be a much smoother transitional period to uh to to kind of rolling out a new process and the one i think about which was just an absolute disaster um just because we just did it so suddenly was moving from motion to lens yeah it was a disaster we got there in the end and it was a it was a long-term beneficial but yeah that's where we learned the lesson i'm glad we learned the lesson on that because it's materially still quite a small process in the grand scheme of process yeah um but it was good to it was good to learn that lesson i remembered what i couldn't remember earlier i think one thing that has been like abundantly be clear to me this year is also is like how important urgency is how important injecting urgency into a business is as a founder and it's a balance because you don't want to you want you want to challenge people on on timelines but in the right way because a lot of the time you can get things done in in a lot short you can get more done in in the time you have if you make things a priority and I think that's something that is see some businesses just operating just to such a like a in a way that that just in a completely opposite of that like just takes so long to make decisions and I think one of the things that's really helped us is just that ability to have high conviction about about a few a few small a few big high conviction about a few a few a small number of big decisions and then go very quick on making them happen i think you that's one thing i think you're just really good at is like you you will always question how long something needs to take and why it's that it's that it's that question isn't it hypothetically how do we do this in half the time but i think it's a good mental model right it's a really the answer can be like it's impossible yeah if it's impossible it's impossible but it's like can we spend more money can we pull more people in can we do something fundamentally different to achieve the same outcome it's a good thing to think through yeah and it's like you never normally question that you never question okay but how if we had to get this done in half the time how would we actually do that because usually it's it's more attainable than you think it is yeah i think that's i think i was speaking to matt kelly about products and he said the same it's like you look at the cycle to launch new products in DTC and it takes so long it's like I just it fundamentally is it doesn't need to take that long like if you there's ways to make things move faster I think that's just something to want to keep that it's really hard to that we tried to codify our strategy what is our strategy as a business and I think the world that we operate in in DTC is the ability to pivot and be adaptable and move quickly when we need to yeah it's hard to retain that as you become bigger and bigger it's yeah something we need to be intentional with moving on to awards it's the Deeds Diaries Awards I didn't know that was coming as you can probably tell uh yeah we're doing a we're gonna do what we went to do this last year but then we just realized it was February and kind of missed the boat but we'd like to do a bit of an awards uh going through a few different categories uh both coming with different uh our winners i guess for for each of these categories and breaking down those reasons um going into some more personal based stuff like favorite books podcasts but then also going into some dc specific uh categories as well so should we get kicked off with the uh the first one yeah let's start with let's start with the two personal ones because i think it's an interesting topic but best book do you want to go first uh yeah I can do and I think this is this is this is probably quite a cliche but it took me until this year to read uh this book but I just thought from like a I love tangible books that I can just uh execute on straight away and like I'm at every opportunity making notes on my phone about like hey how can i apply that to my life and that book was seven habits of highly effective people it's a good read it's also a meaty book it's big it takes a while to get through it's got some got some girth to it um yeah i think i've i read that probably like five years ago i should probably revisit it because i also think the way i applied it then would be fundamentally different to how i apply it now yeah i do think some books are a reread as well that's a reread atomic habits i always think it's a reread um is it album uh navelle almanac that's a real i don't know that's a reread yeah anyway strong strong recommendation mine was poor charlie's almanac i've started that another meaty one yeah that's another good one um stripe press the stripe have like a publishing arm called stripe press and they're just putting out banger after banger uh they put out a really good AI book but Charlie's Almanac is Charlie Munger all of his speeches in a book incredible thinker um amazing read everyone should everyone should give that a go what would you say not to put you on the spot but is your like biggest takeaway that you you have already or will be applying to your life from that book because I know it's there's a lot of mental models frameworks works.

34:27Two things. One, the big thing he pushes is this multidisciplinary approach to analytics. So that's how he analyzes the world. He doesn't look at, you're taught in schools to put things in boxes. You're either physics, you're an economist, you're a psychologist. His mental model for assessing investment opportunities is like picking certain theories or mental models from each of those fields and analyzing whatever it is he's trying to analyze through that lens i think that's just a really contrarian and powerful approach to thinking it's a lot more complete um i think it challenges a lot of like your beliefs so try to apply more of that and try to become more rounded in terms of um content because you again you put like if the last few years I've spent a lot of time consuming DTC content, DTC content.

35:24Now I'm trying to spend more time on agency growth, but then even beyond business, it's like, it's good to have that more well-rounded perspective. So that, and then I also just think he's an amazing oral communicator. He's an amazing storyteller. And I think storytelling is something that I want to become better at because I think it's a really important part of marketing and leading um but it's not really a muscle that I've flexed or built yeah that's one thing I've learned this year just the power of storytelling and communication yeah because we view it through the lens of marketing but as you say it's it's such it's such a an important weapon almost to use in every part of your life whether that's relationship building as you say leadership and motivating others um it's so powerful and so important yeah and i think um i think it's really yeah i just think it can build a more of a narrative around whatever it is you're doing yeah i just think it's great i think it's a good skill so that's a big thing cool best best podcast do you want to go first for this one yeah i'll go first i know you liked this one as well so maybe i stole it from you but brad jacobs on the david senna is it senna yeah um he the pot he only launched his podcast he's probably only done about 10 to 12 episodes i actually think every episode he's done is a is an absolute banger he's done dyson brad jacobs um mike michael ovitz who's uh has a really good book as well but brad jacobs basically buys billion dollar companies and makes and more valuable which is and again i just found some of his approaches to people thinking about business i find him like really he makes really complex things really simple it's really easy to listen to and he's got loads of really good anecdotes loads of context um so i just i found it yeah really really interesting and enjoyable listen yeah it was it was a great listen again very actionable um yeah podcast and he's just like it seems like a nice guy very normal yeah yeah for someone who's like helped build like double digit billion dollar companies yeah i think that's mental like buying a billion dollar company and having conviction of making it like three to five times more valuable is just crazy and a lot of what he talks about is quite simple it's like it's it's like incentives pricing management and and yeah it's just really really good yeah exactly um mine would actually be and to be fair that brad jacobs one was up there for sure but the vingardy diary of a ceo episode who's a communication and public speaking expert we've actually just bought his course for the team um and i think you know it just opened my eyes to actually how uh you think communication and and uh storytelling is is something that either just comes naturally to you or not but like he's a great example of someone who is almost strategized the layers required to become a great communicator and and how you can use that to to influence others how you can use that to build trust um and i just thought it was incredibly actionable and something that I learned a lot from personally.

38:51He breaks down the different layers, essentially, of communication and how you can improve the melody, rhythm, tonality, pause, mood. These are all things that almost relate to music, and I love how he created this correlation from how we speak as humans and almost how we play instruments, which is really, really interesting. So I would definitely give that a listen if you haven't. yeah I think it's that I think communication is another layer of personal brand really and you think a personal brand only in a context of like being a founder and building a personal brand but I think everybody has a personal brand in a way I think Andrew Huberman does a really good another really good podcast on communication I think it's a big focus for us into next year helping the team and upskilling the team on some of those softer skills um some like especially in a client facing role like how you present how you communicate on calls is really important um and i also think it's something that a lot of the younger generations struggle with the covid generations because they've not had to do it they're not had to build those relationships yeah really interesting cool next one the new kid on the block award so this is a newer brand that has really created disruption in the DTC space this year and I think there is only really one answer isn't there there is we've done a podcast about them we've done a lead magnet about them Dan from Heights mentions them on the next episode it is I am eight I am eight pause for dramatic effect there and it wasn't expected to come back to me to be honest we'll put the lead magnet down below have a look at the other episode if you haven't but IM8's growth execution has just been incredible right you look at their guy on Twitter maybe I can find the thread and put it up here that shows their financial journey from they've executed the playbook perfectly both from a marketing perspective but also from a P &L perspective they've gone from huge burn rate to profitable yeah and the valuation has just gone crazy off the back of that um we've actually got the founder coming on in general danny really excited to have him on the on the pod and we can dive deep into that journey i think on on that episode so we'll go too much further for now dtc dominator of the year it's quite a powerful title that isn't it what brand has been everywhere all the time so beyond just like the linkedin and twitter like what brand has occupied a lot of um mind share i guess uh what would your ones be there i feel like road is an obvious one um i think just not and i think not i'm looking at this not only from the perspective of how well they've executed from a marketing perspective but I think even from like a product innovation perspective as well they've almost created these cultural shifts um in the way that people use products like even down to uh the lip balm phone case phone case and just the how genius a product like that is patented something like that and how something like that create almost created this ripple effect and um share a voice within kind of women that are millennials and gen z's and how they've almost as a result driven the marketing through organic uh by sharing that i think it's just yeah it's it's a great brand and just the growth and the valuation now of it is it's an absolute beast and and obviously a unicorn yeah i think the greatest compliment not that it needs compliments from me I'm not in a position to give it a compliment is that I actually have seen loads of the products and know what they are I'm so far away from the consumer and I've seen so much of their marketing and content I just think they've executed really well I think that product example is powerful because it's thinking of products from a social content lens which I think is really different I'm sure we'll see more of that into next year I just think as well it's like from a the amount we've all been on the tube and just seen the case and the lip balm it just markets itself doesn't it, it's just eye catching the two for me well actually I put three down which is cheating but I put Dr.

43:31Squatch and Wild because I feel like Dr. Squatch is always everywhere we're going to mention him again in a few questions time but the obviously got a huge exit Wild obviously got a huge exit as well and I just feel like obviously kudos to them to get into that point the end goal that so many chase and I also put hims and hers because I feel like they're like health and wellness feels like the fastest growing category and they are like the top of that and their valuation the the the brands the the journey they've been on has been crazy um and i feel like they've really uh gone from gone from what looked to be a pretty challenging situation so just crazy growth this year so yeah three but those will be my three yeah i think this year especially dr squatch have really broken into the uk market as well i mean they were known but i think very big in the US weren't they but I think it's um you know it's it's it's just become a massive global brand now which is pretty wild for like a bar of soda essentially yeah it's crazy most used D2C products this year personally personally yeah so yeah what have you loved and used the most I don't know if it's cheating because obviously you have to use this product every single day twice a day but the siri toothbrush i do think that is cheating well yeah i it's hard i i'd say a product that not throughout the whole year but in terms of like a functional beverage that i actually just love because it was something that i really wanted to like but didn't and now it's made it accessible and something that i can enjoy every day is is matcha fuel so i just think like their matcha was something I never enjoyed but I did a lot of research into the benefits of matcha and wanted to find other ways to consume caffeine outside of just coffee essentially and I just think it's a it's a great product that I really really love and the second one is Act London I think it's it's one of the best products I've ever used for solving the problem exactly what it says on the tin from a from a problem solution perspective which is obviously like a balm that you apply to your armpits instead of a deodorant yeah i think they're they're booming right now and they're they're like a one to watch for next year as well i think they're just going to explode in terms of growth in 2026 i hadn't think about i hadn't thought about the beverages you know and you know i'm a beverage man and i've become a trying to get a beverage fridge for black friday side when it like got shut down big time you love dash water dash dash is top of the list that in In terms of product I've consumed the most, I'm on that 48 can subscription every month.

46:2748? Sometimes I'll have like four or five a day. I haven't found anything that says that's bad for you yet, but maybe it is. Someone maybe could educate me in the comments. Dashwater, quite kind of like a Neutronic every now and then as well. But in terms of like Act as well, I use that. In terms of like daily consumption, really been enjoying Bionic. the custom supplement brand where you can send in bloods and you can get it customized to those bloods told loads of people about it feel like it feel like it's doing something maybe it's placebo who knows um so i think yeah those those would be mine i think those those those that i've mentioned nice yeah bionic is a super interesting brand isn't it i think um yeah just the the the bespoke nature of the product and how, I mean, one thing that I learned through, we did a bit of work with Bionic and through, I guess, the research is that so many products that you are, sorry, so many supplements that you consume, you don't necessarily need and are just wasted or the absorption is terrible.

47:36So it actually isn't having the impact that you think it's going to have. And I think that's what, that's the problem that it solves, right? Yeah, it's really tough to dry scoop though. It's really not enjoyable. Kind of like it's patented, isn't it? But it's almost like grains of sand. Yeah, and it just doesn't really dissolve. So it's like you drink it and it's not that enjoyable to drink. And I'd rather just get it out of the way. But then four scoops is a lot. Yeah, so I think a latecomer actually, which I didn't put on here, but have been eating a lot of it over the last few months, is Surreal Granola.

48:10Not a cereal man. I'm not really a cereal man. I'm a granola fan though. Your breakfast man? Yeah, yeah. I like my Greek yogurt. Oh, yeah. I remember this. Bit of Grinola on the top. Yeah, so that's a latecomer for me. Nice. Moving on. Most viral DTC campaign. Do you want to go first? I can do. I think it's Dr. Squatch again for me. Sydney Sweeney, I feel like that went mega viral. I feel like she's had a big year in terms of viral moments. She's going to get another mention shortly. um but yeah that i feel like that went went everywhere um and yeah kind of just blew up what were yours i for me from a purely execution and strategy perspective it's the hex clad super bowl ad um which i just think is is a great episode that on marketing operators where they talk through the whole strategy but i just think the way they had executed it very differently to like your standard tvc um brand first super bowl commercial was was truly really really interesting so they'd almost found that intersection between brand and direct response which was which i thought that they uh executed really really well so i think you know their goals were like from a obviously brand equity perspective if you're going to spend eight mil ten mil on a super bowl ad that's going to be a big part of it.

49:43But from a performance marketing perspective, driving real site traffic conversions and revenue, and also cultural participation and how they created this cultural wave through the campaign that kind of broke into Omnichannel and organic TikTok and other areas I thought was super interesting. So essentially it was titled the Unidentified Frying Object. I bet they were happy when they came on that one in the creative room. But it was a Gordon Ramsay, was a 60-second spot. And it was around this idea of this new kind of crazy out-of-space frying pan, essentially, that was discovered in Area 51. but I thought it was really interesting how they got some advice from some brand agencies that said that really told them to keep the ad under wraps like most most of the time you don't know what the Super Bowl ads are going to be and it's become a bit of a thing hasn't it to see what these big iconic you know moments are but they went against that and they did like a real ramp up um um like to build that momentum ahead of the commercial itself coming out um and one thing that they did that I just loved is like they were teaming up with and they really hit like a cultural moment organically on TikTok where there was this big cultural trend where there were TikTokers like this GeoGuessr guy who would essentially you would you would give them a location a random location in the world on Google Maps and they'll be able to tell you within like 10 seconds where it is just based on what they can see within the screen and there was a picture put up of Gordon Ramsay sat on a plane and it was actually you could only see slightly out of the window but you would never know it was there it was at area 51 where they were filming this commercial and they approached geo guesser and asked him to analyze where gordon ramsay was and work out where he was he did a video on it obviously he's got a big social following and it created this wave of just why is gordon ramsay area 51 that really helps build the hype and this cohesive narrative before it actually reach the super bowl commercial so yeah just thought it was like super interesting how they they created this like omni-channel campaign um from from what should have been just a brand tvc ad that's the that was the first d2c super bowl commercial i think it was yeah um in terms of brands that were d2c native and went super bowl there was one more um we've had this conversation I think Dollar Shave Club oh yeah be interesting to see this Super Bowl I forget it comes quite around it comes around quick in the year doesn't it Super Bowl I always forget it's early on just before Wrestlemania I always remember that from the feed of kids not that I watch wrestling now the the it's just sorry I lost my train of thought yeah be interesting to see if any other big big brands make that make the plunge and spend millions of pounds on it and execute it to that level which was very strong.

52:59A couple of vulnerable mentions do you want to go with the David Protein? Yeah, so the David Protein one which I thought was cool, which was obviously they created they created COD They didn't really create it, they just put up, they didn't Yes, that is true, they didn't manufacture COD but for a protein bar which it was all about this play on like you know the the only thing that has more protein than our protein bar is is literally a piece of cod and they sold and shipped cod uh which was branded in david protein which i just thought was like a real marketing a really great yeah guerrilla marketing campaign and then i think you put you know it down pure sports watermelon stone um i'm assuming you meant with the fuel you mean with the fuel pump and i think whenever they show up for a brand activation they do it right excited to see what they managed to do in 2026 because i'm sure it'll be as innovative as ever and i love the way what pure sport do really well is they don't just do these big activations um in physical settings they they tie it together with storytelling and how they get to the point of the activation like there's a journey that they have to take to get to that point and it's like that character it's that classic story arc of like there was a barrier or there was you know they are the protagonist and they've got a villain that they need to overcome to get to that point and they kind of really push that through uh through that their organic content and do a really good job of it and i know can't remember the ins and outs of it but there was uh you know they needed thousands of or hundreds of watermelons they couldn't get them and it kind of was this big story about kind of getting to that point so yeah i thought it was they do that really really well as a brand 100 % most controversial moment do you want to go first?

54:51I went with Sydney Sweeney's great jeans ad again talk us through that then in the context there god she got done basically did an ad for American Eagles about jeans saying she has great jeans and then everybody jumped on saying that was incorrect politically I think I just know it went mad viral and reached TV levels of mainstream. I don't know if that's a DTC brand, though, so maybe that's a rubbish answer. You did steal the one I would have put. The Liquid Death founder, which we've spoken about on this podcast before. Just your head loss. When you actually, like, just unnecessary level of head loss.

55:41Especially from the brand account, which it's like, you know, You've seen that happen from maybe like a personal profile before, but to be driving that from the brand account and just taking over was absolutely crazy to just see this unfold. 100%. I think it's just, yeah, hopefully we see less of that next year. Cautious at times. So we're going to get on to predictions. Looking forward, just to make it, all of the award winners keep a look out in the post for your awards congrats yeah congratulations we'll be sending them out none of them could make it here today unfortunately yeah prediction so what's what's the single biggest change you expect in e-commerce 2026 you go first there that's myself my own question um the two big ones for me is i think there'll be a lot more acquisitions um i feel like we're coming out of that and we've seen a few this year but we're coming back into an era where I think there's less anxiety around buying consumer brands.