We can all learn something from emerging brands – those who are finding new ways to connect with culture and people, regardless of their size or category. While established brands often get caught in layers of complexity, forward-thinking brands are showing us that success comes from cultural resonance, creative disruption, and rapid adaptation. These lessons are becoming increasingly crucial as digital platforms evolve and consumer expectations shift.

Emerging Brands See Community As Essential 

Culture-defining brands have mastered the art of community building by understanding that in today’s digital landscape, consumers aren’t only buying products – they’re buying into values, inspiration and cultural movements. Some categories and brands are far more able to do this authentically and entertainingly, because they sit in industries that allow for creativity and aspirational content. That said, I’d challenge brands within categories where this might not feel as natural to also think about how they can apply these lessons to gain a competitive advantage. 

There’s a brand I’m loving at the moment which is Jacquemus. They’ve built a great brand voice in social, through a content strategy that has grown their community and brand, no doubt helping the doubling of revenue they saw between 2021 and 2023. They’ve pushed the norms of traditional luxury fashion marketing by creating a cultural footprint that resonates with modern audiences. Their social media approach balances luxury positioning with playful creativity and cultural relevance – from their viral CGI marketing posts of massive handbags, to their standout collaborations and campaigns with Nike. Jaquemes make their brand voice clear; where luxury meets cultural voltage. They position themselves intelligently at the cross-road of fashion and entertainment, for more than just the luxury consumer. 

Their marketing team creates content that captures the zeitgeist of luxury fashion, while maintaining cultural relevance and staying ahead of trends that don’t always necessarily traditionally sit within their category. They’ve mastered reactive and consistent marketing, responding to culture with content that feels both elevated, recognisable and accessible. For instance, the promotion of their new London store included a social post that, whilst maintaining a tone of luxury, felt highly accessible, including a competition to win a Bisou Chain bag, a content technique we tend to see more common in less prestigious brands.  

This is just one example of how emerging brands are creating new rules within the environments they engage in. Jacquemus creates an ecosystem where luxury fashion becomes part of an accessible cultural conversation, community and sharing. Their success shows how brands can find creative ways to be universally relevant, while maintaining aspirational appeal.

Modern Marketing Opportunity: Brands in traditionally “serious” or functional categories have a chance to set themselves apart from their competitor set and category. While a luxury fashion brand like Jacquemus has natural advantages in creating engaging content, there’s space for any brand to stand out by thoughtfully adopting more contemporary approaches to digital presence. 

Emerging Brands Think About Content Holistically

In the AI Era, content strategy needs a fresh approach. The rise of generative AI and visual search has transformed how consumers discover and engage with brands. They’re no longer following a linear path – instead, they’re gathering information across multiple touchpoints, from TikTok tutorials to ChatGPT recommendations, before making decisions about brands.

This shift means brands need to think holistically about their content. SEO insights should inform social strategy and vice versa. Teams need the agility to react quickly to trends, with streamlined approval processes that don’t slow down content creation. Most importantly, SEO, Paid Search, and Social teams need to work together closely, sharing insights and creating cohesive stories that resonate across all channels.

This approach helps ensure your brand stays visible and relevant throughout the consumer’s journey, regardless of where they encounter you. It’s not necessarily about being everywhere – it’s about being meaningful where you do show up.

Emerging Brands Maintain Agility 

For less agile corporations, it can take over 6 months to launch a campaign. By the time it goes live, cultural moments might have passed, platform algorithms could have changed and trends may no longer be popular. Agile brands, on the other hand, can launch, learn, and pivot in the time it takes bigger organisations to schedule their first planning meeting.

This isn’t just about being quick – it’s also about being smart with failures. When an agile brand tests something and it doesn’t work, they haven’t wasted months of planning and massive budgets. They’ve gained valuable insights they can immediately apply to their next attempt, but even better than this, when they’ve tested and it does work, they can scale quickly. It is fair to acknowledge however, that larger and more established brands are likely to be more subject to scrutiny and negatively received campaigns, picked up in PR and potentially harming brand image. For larger brands, it’s a balance between reacting quickly and reducing sign off times, whilst maintaining confidence in brand safety. Brands should aspire to find new processes that help improve the time between content creation and launch. It’s likely as we move more and more into an era of using AI, that AI can help support content validation and receptiveness around brand guidelines, tone of voice and consumer expectation. 

Duolingo is a great example of how a brand can maintain and build a strong brand voice and position in culture through reactivity, testing, and ultimately taking a few risks. Whilst they’ve now grown into a billion-dollar public company, it’s evident that they’ve found ways to stay agile and relevant, keeping them at the forefront of entertainment. Most notable is their social media transformation which began when a 23-year-old graduate, Zaria Parvez, spotted their mascot in the office and thought “There’s something we could use here.” Starting simply by having their owl mascot comment on other people’s TikTok videos, they built engagement through quick, reactive content. These comments became “like the new push notification for Duolingo” as their owl started popping up everywhere – quite frankly borderline harassing people (with humour) to complete their daily learning! 

From these humorous but humble beginnings, they scaled their mascot’s presence through real-time reactions to cultural moments, trending conversations, and playful user interactions. The strategy was so successful that by 2022, their mascot Duo was invited to VidCon as a featured creator rather than a brand representative, drawing bigger crowds than many established influencers.

This informed and continuously tested approach eventually led to their 2024 Super Bowl debut. Instead of hiring an external agency, they kept everything in-house and used social listening to identify what resonated most with their community. The result? A cheeky ad featuring their now-famous mascot, supported by coordinated push notifications to millions of users. As their original social media manager noted, “Dream big, but iterate small… it’s a consequence of us taking small risks and pushing it just a little bit at a time.”

Duolingo’s success showcases that modern brand building isn’t always about massive budgets or complex strategies. It’s about having the right structures and mindset in place to move quickly, test ideas, and scale what works. Their journey from experimental TikTok comments to Super Bowl success shows how small, iterative steps can lead to major brand moments.

Key Considerations for Brands

Break Down Silos: Modern marketing means being well integrated. Create content calendars that unite paid and organic distribution from the start, and establish regular touchpoints between teams to share insights and adjust strategies rapidly. Quick decision-making becomes possible when teams work as one unit rather than separate functions.

Lead with Community: Use your community to guide your strategy. Test content organically to understand what resonates before scaling with paid media. Create feedback loops that let you adapt in real-time based on community engagement. The best insights often come from these early interactions with your most engaged audiences.

Test and Learn: Monitor both commercial and cultural metrics in real-time. Be ready to scale what works and pivot quickly from what doesn’t. Most importantly, document everything you learn – successful brands turn these insights into institutional knowledge that shapes future campaigns.

The Modern Brand Method 

Success in today’s marketing landscape isn’t always about budget size or being everywhere at once. It’s about building an integrated approach that connects with culture and maintains relationships with your community, as well as learns from them. As consumer attention fragments and algorithms evolve, competitive advantage comes from moving quickly, testing intelligently, and staying true to your brand’s identity while remaining culturally relevant.