Navigating Brand Identities

How many comments have you seen on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube over the last few years that read: “Give the marketing team a raise!” It’s easy to boil everything a brand does down to simple marketing tactics, but how does one formulate a cohesive strategy — with a mix of product, content, social media, events, PR, collaborations, and more — and create a cultural hit? This week, Alyssa is joined by Ana Andjelic, a global brand executive, founder of The Sociology of Business newsletter on Substack, and author of Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, to dive deep into the world of brand marketing and understanding how to tap into a cultural moment. Tune in to hear Ana’s insights about mass culture versus niche culture and how they move at different speeds; whether it’s possible to build a brand in 2025 without a fandom or community behind it; what happens when you use “authenticity” as a shortcut to culture; why brands must avoid being prisoners of the past and living in the archive; how to diversify the ways you’re present in culture; the dangers of trying to grow too fast; whether product plus PR can equal a brand; why there are so many marketing content creators on TikTok, Substack, and YouTube now; unpacking ‘brat’ as a marketing case study; why sometimes it just comes down to throwing a really good party/showing people a good time; and a discussion about the marketing highs and lows from today’s most buzzed-about brands, including Telfar, Vans, Skims, Rhode, Prada, Miu Miu, Erewhon, and Loewe.

This episode was recorded in the podcast studio at The SQ @ 205 Hudson.