The Pattern Brief

In 2025, Brits bought 558,050 new gray cars. They bought 12 purple ones. Andrew Tindall, who wrote that stat up for The Drum, uses it to make a point about advertising. Gray hides the dirt, holds its value, nobody laughs at you for driving it. Every choice that gets you to gray makes sense on its own. Add enough of them up and 70%+ of new cars are gray, black, or silver. Global ad campaigns go the same way, he argues, and he spent a year with Publicis London and Effie proving it. A good...

Fans Follow Players, Not Teams I heard someone say people now engage with politics the way they engage with the NBA. Not by rooting for the home team. By following their favorite player. If you love LeBron, you follow LeBron. Cleveland, Miami, LA, doesn’t matter. I can’t stop thinking about it, because it’s not just politics. It’s how people build identity now. And it explains why some of the most powerful “brands” right now aren’t brands at all. Geography used to be a shortcut For decades,...

Time isn't neutral in branding. It's a force multiplier for bad brands, and a drain on everyone trying to hold them accountable. I've been watching the predictable arc of scandal recovery. Andrew Cuomo resigns over sexual harassment then runs for NYC mayor. Diddy faces serious charges but will likely be "on the red carpet" if he beats the case. The same formula works for brands. Wells Fargo creates millions of fake accounts, Facebook enables election interference, Uber builds toxic culture....

A friend said this about NYC billionaires threatening to leave, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. "They're not afraid he won. They're afraid he'll call their bluff." Because this isn’t just about taxes.It’s about 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿, 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿.Rich people always threaten to leave New York when taxes go up.But they don’t leave. Why?Because 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲.They need access. They need community.They need to be seen.Fox News could operate out of Florida.But they pay Manhattan...

In part 1, I wrote what Zohran Mamdani's win in New York means to me. The crab bucket mentality. The maintenance problem. The toothpaste argument. But in this post I want to talk about why I'm seeing those exact same patterns play within how brands play. Because the way we think about political competition is identical to how most brands think about market competition. And it's killing both. The Launch Addiction Here's what happens in most companies: Team spends months on a launch. Product,...

Mamdani post win "Living in America is being so afraid that someone else will get something for free that you make life equally miserable for everyone." I've been thinking about this line since Zohran Mamdani won last night. We've built a culture where we'd rather all suffer together than risk someone getting ahead without "earning" it. Better to sink the boat than let someone bail water they didn't personally carry. Mamdani's win felt like the first real crack in that logic in years. The...

Welcome to The Pattern Brief! Hey, I'm Ish. Between Minds is me and Janice Chow, a brand studio for early-stage founders who refuse to sound generated. Here's what we keep seeing: AI made it free to sound competent, so every startup does. Agents. Copilots. Faster, smarter, AI-powered. When everyone sounds the same, investors, customers and great hires stop being able to tell you apart. The Pattern Brief is where I write about why some brands stick and others blur together. Expect: • The...