Don't sell more, become more valuable

Debrief from the first and second Unlocks by Collins

Welcome to the Sociology of Business. In my last analysis, Labubu is a meme stock, I unpacked fast-moving, meme stock-mimicking, fashion trends. If you are on the Substack, join the chat. With one of the paid subscription options, join Paid Membership Chat, and with the free subscription, join The General Chat on The Sociology of Business WhatsApp group.

Photo Credit: Monica Martini

The other week, Lee Maschmeyer, the CEO and co-founder of Collins, and all-around formidable character, and I had a test-run intimate fireside chat at the Crane Club in New York, followed by a much less intimate chat at Collins House in Cannes. Both were great evenings. You should come to the next one, and in the meantime, keep an eye out to the Season Two of Hitmakers, where Lee will be my co-host. (For those who missed Season One, you can listen to it here and here).

Lee and I both focused on the power of portfolios: Lee’s thesis is that companies need a portfolio of values they create: economic, cultural, social, environmental. His approach is that CEO’s are Chief Investment Officers, who select a portfolio of value investments and make sure that they do not over index on one type of value (e.g. economic) versus others (e.g. cultural, symbolic, or social).

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My friend Ben Stark is a talented artist who recently opened his studio for visits. If you are in San Francisco, stop by. If you are not, go to his website. I am obsessed with this large pieces. They don’t make art like this anymore.

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My thesis revolves around the portfolios of cultural products that companies make that the cultural programming that connects these products. My approach is that, in addition to the products and services they make, companies need to create a number of cultural products to de-risk their performance in ambiguous markets, where no one knows what is going to work. A portfolio of cultural products ensures that a brand participates in market and in culture in a number of different ways, and that some of those ways are going to work. The more cultural products there are, the bigger chances that some of them will become hits.

In Cannes, I focused on the examples of Labubu and Loewe tomato, as successes that seem sudden, but are actually an outcome of a combination of cultural zeitgeist, consumer behavior, social mood, and economic trends.

On surface, it seems like Labubu was propelled to fame by Lisa - a celebrity - making it hard to distinguish its success from traditional celebrity marketing. Lisa may have had been a match that lit Labubu popularity, but similarly like with a forrest fire, the conditions needed to be there - dryness of the shrubbery, density of the forrest, direction of the wind, etc. In this case, we are dealing with lipstick effect (aspirational consumers not being able to afford expensive handbags so at least they can have a bag charms like the rich), rise in popularity of toys among adults, randomness of Labubu collection, scarcity, TikTok content, and celebrity.

Lee focused on closeness between measurability of technology and finance, and how the combination of the two transformed advertising creativity (whoever is the closest to sale, wins). Lee’s approach is that finance and creativity have a lot more in common than it is obvious, and that value portfolios make creativity more risk-friendly and risk-averse.

The way that cultural industries, like entertainment, fashion, music, art, literature, or design, reduced risk in the past is by conglomeration. Hollywood has been vertically integrated since its inception, where movie studios owned both movie theaters and