Year-End Highlights: Lessons From Our Deepest Dialogues

Dec 26, 2025

The Future Commerce team dives into a year filled with thought-provoking discussions. Haunted dolls become performance art in a unique take on Spooky Commerce. The concept of idealism faces challenges under capitalism's efficiency demands. Dami Lee's insights on architecture and culture spark innovative thinking. Rory Sutherland's critique highlights marketing's deeper values beyond mere metrics. The hosts reflect on how technology reshapes humanity, questioning the narratives that drive our society.

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ANECDOTE

Haunted Doll Delivery Sparked Spooky Commerce

Sarah received a haunted doll named Jolene as part of the Spooky Commerce series and later discarded it.
The stunt showed the team's commitment to experiential content and raised production stakes for Halloween coverage.

INSIGHT

Rhizome Lens Reveals Urban Synergy

Dami Lee framed cities and ideas as rhizomes: decentralized structures that grow horizontally and form emergent nodes.
Viewing Kowloon as a rhizome revealed organic economic synergies and community-driven urban connections.

ANECDOTE

Deep Talk With Kunle On Idealism Vs Scale

Phillip met Kunle Campbell at K:LDN and recorded a rapid deep conversation about wellness, purpose, and idealism.
Kunle described how idealistic businesses often must compromise to scale in a capitalist system.

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The Future Commerce team reflects on their favorite podcast moments from a year of extraordinary conversations. From haunted dolls and architectural rhizomes to debates about capitalism and idealism, these episodes challenged conventional wisdom about how brands influence culture and why efficiency alone won't save us. (Feat. Rory Sutherland, Dami Lee, Andrew McLuhan, Nick Susi, Kunle Campbell, Ana Andjelic.)

Our Year In Cultural Commerce

Key takeaways:

VISIONS 2025 brought together Dami Lee, Andrew Huang, and more creative pioneers to explore the future of culture through the lens of commerce and its effects on humans
Spooky Commerce pushed our limits: Jolene the doll elevated spooky season to performance art
Idealism struggles to scale under capitalism's efficiency demands
Heritage isn't always precious—sometimes it needs critical interrogation
Technology transforms humanity whether we contemplate it or not
Marketing success occurs beyond the attribution window we measure
Rory Sutherland’s conversation was our most-downloaded episode of 2025, for good reason.
"It's really hard to be idealistic in a capitalist society or period." — Brian Lange [00:13:12]
"We're not measuring other forms of what makes things successful. Are we just letting technologists, efficiency ops and finance run the world? I don't think it leads to the greatest outcome where we're all happiest." — Phillip Jackson on Rory Sutherland's marketing critique [00:36:13]

In-Show Mentions:

Listen to Dami Lee’s VISIONS presentation on architecture, the structure of our lives, rhizomes, and more.
Listen to Kunle Campbell’s conversation with Phillip at K:LDN on capitalism vs. idealism and meaning.
Listen to Ana Andjelic’s episode on the throughline that connects brand culture to operations, merchandise, on-the-ground events, and more.
Listen to Andrew McLuhan’s 2-hour feature unpacking his grandfather Marshall McLuhan’s predictions and insights on media, technology, and what technological development will do to our future.
Listen to Nick Susi’s Halloween special on the true story behind the War of the Worlds mania (and the media war that drove it).
Listen to Rory Sutherland’s episode on the fat tail of marketing and what cultural shifts marketers of tomorrow should be preparing for.

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