THE CO-AUTHORED BRAND

Coach continues to appeal to Gen Z with two new initiatives. First up is &Coach, a new content series created with Gen Z communities, creators and cultural figures including Charli xcx, activist Malala Yousafzai, WNBA star Paige Bueckers, NASCAR driver Toni Breidinger, singer PinkPantheress, actor Avantika and South Korean girl group KiiiKiii. The content will be delivered on dedicated TikTok and Instagram accounts, with new ambassadors and community participation options to be added. It expands on themes like self-expression and identity that were part of Coach’s Spring 2026 book-focused Explore Your Story campaign, extending them into new cultural spaces.

Last – and by no means least – this week saw Coach announce a global cultural partnership with Spotify that will focus on experiential marketing activations for Gen Z, both on-platform and IRL. When viewed together, these activations show that Coach is taking a more holistic approach to connecting with Gen Z across culture, music, sport and activism.

  OUR TAKE

The luxury industry spent the last decade chasing Gen Z with passion-point strategies. While the logic was sound — Gen Z are passionate, community-oriented and typically spend where their interests live — it assumed those interests stay separate. And they don’t! According to Mastercard’s 2026 Next Growth Generation report, 65% of global Gen Z think of themselves as creators building their own personal brand, assembling an identity from music, sport, activism, fashion and more at once. Showing up in one place and hoping for a halo effect is no longer enough.

The brands that have worked this out are building around the spaces where identity actually forms. Luxury’s move into literary culture is one example: Miu Miu’s literary club and Jil Sander’s Reference Library at Milan Design Week show that, for many luxury brands, cultural credibility is the new currency. But most of these initiatives tap experts and institutions for authority, and the consumer mostly remains passive, attending and absorbing but not always contributing or building. Coach is trying something more participatory and, given that the brand spent much of the 2010s in the bargain bin, it had good reason to try something different. 

Coach CMO Joon Silverstein is a former cultural anthropologist who still visits the homes of women aged 18-30 with the goal of understanding who they’re trying to become. “A lot of brands mistake data for real insight,” she told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. “You don’t learn about people or culture by reading research reports or by studying them afar.”

That thinking helped to shape Explore Your Story which included book bag charms developed by Penguin Random House and featured titles chosen by Gen Z customers. &Coach applies the same logic more broadly: Charli and co. aren’t there to lend cultural credibility. They represent the non-categorical way younger consumers build identity. The Spotify partnership builds on the same idea: music isn’t the passion point, connection is.

Coach sales hit US$2.14 billion in Q2 2026 (up 25% YoY) and the brand continues to gain traction with younger consumers (Gen Z represented roughly one-third of new consumers globally during the quarter). By 2030, Gen Z is projected to represent 25% of global luxury spending, up from 4% before the pandemic. As Silverstein explained at the Spotify launch, the brands that win won’t just be the ones that reach people; they’re the ones that bring people together.

Other brands are testing the same shift. In China, Salomon invited emerging designers to reinterpret its archive, then put the results to a public vote at its Shanghai concept store, with the winner getting a long-term collaboration. The archive remains Salomon’s, but consumers get a say in what gets made from it. See also the Vaseline Originals line that turned viral beauty hacks — many developed by early content creators who never got credit — into commercially available products. 

What Coach, Salomon and Vaseline have in common is a willingness to make the brand less of a finished story and more of a world consumers can build inside. For Coach, that means moving across multiple passion points and betting that Gen Z consumers want brands to make room for every part of their identity. For a brand without much signature aesthetic to protect, that may be an advantage. What does that mean for brands still betting on a single story?

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

The 2026 World Cup really is for the fans—and we actually mean all the fans, not just the soccer ones. From the cinematic universes created by mainstays Nike and Adidas that weld together soccer stars and pop culture icons, to the concertification of sporting events with the first-ever World Cup half-time show, it’s easier and more satisfying than ever to enjoy the ride via shared rituals and passion points—and they might not even involve caring about the actual matches.

  OUR TAKE

Brands have always participated in the World Cup to court the true-blue soccer and sports fans, and it was a halo effect if the ‘normies’ happened to engage as well. The event has always been a party that brought together people with communal and high-energy fanfare—it was fun and low stakes to pop into the pub with your friends to watch a game. Even the soundtrack permeated mainstream consciousness (Ricky Martin’s The Cup of Life for 1998, Shakira’s Waka Waka for 2010) by being great pop songs and sheer omnipresence. 

Fashion and music are still anchors of the event, but the catchment area for brands is now bigger. Consumers now feast from a huge spectrum of fandoms and interests, many of which cross-pollinate and rub shoulders. Brands, in order to meet consumers where they are most engaged, now need to be cognizant and thoughtful of this multi-hyphenism. For brands engaging with soccer and the World Cup, maximum cultural impact means touching many different types of consumers and sustaining their attention post-event.

It’s a no-brainer to leverage the biggest bands on earth for this. The reveal announcement for the half-time show had Coldplay’s Chris Martin, characters from Sesame Street and The Muppets (not a coincidence that these are some of the biggest kids’ IPs in the world) FaceTiming BTS. An entire 18-track official album was created, with artists from BLACKPINK’s LISA to content creators such as IShowSpeed. Masked J-pop singer Ado has a soccer jersey collaboration with Adidas and music video that channels peak storytelling from sports anime. 

It almost feels like the World Cup is playing catch-up to the sports event + concert combination, which brings in the music-slash-live-events crowd, as exemplified by the Super Bowl and F1.

Soccer jerseys are one thing; fashion and luxury brands now look to be always-on. This means a longer pipeline and lifecycle of culturally rich moments—it’s one thing to imagine yourself dressed as a soccer player on-pitch, but the off-pitch ‘civilian’ possibilities are endless. Loewe and Spain’s national soccer teams’ new partnership is for off-pitch and travel wardrobes, and spans World Cups up ‘til 2030. PEACEMINUSONE, Nike, and the Korea Football Association have a streetwear collection that is said to reference blokecore (British football culture), but really embodies the most culturally resonant thing—G-DRAGON’s weird, wonderful mind. Even WAGs (wives and girlfriends—another British term popularized by soccer) are analyzed from a fashion lens and are often content creators and reality stars in themselves, with the male athletes as background dressing.

Cameos and Easter eggs, beloved for the IYKYK cache, have even spun off into multiple storylines that evoke some of the hottest topics online. The GOATs’ Goodbye, Nike’s feature-within-a-feature from Rip the Script, tapped into the intrigue and speculation around the stars’ retirement plans, which culminated in Serena Williams rounding out the cast. Ted Lasso is literally everywhere—in the Nike commercial, as well as Burberry’s “A Good Sport” campaign. The performance by JI Blue is a winking nod to fandom, as the singers and songwriter are bona fide soccer fans who also happen to be idols and musicians (members of boybands JO1 and INI, and legendary J-pop artist Taku Takahashi of m-flo).

Toy and video game companies are also taking the chance to tap into the broader culture of play. Video games such as Electronic Arts’ EA Sports FC and Konami’s eFootball are long-running soccer game IPs that include World Cup skins. LEGO’s soccer-themed playsets and Singapore pop-up aim to bring in both young and older audiences. Roblox has an official tie-up with FIFA for World Cup-themed games. Roblox creators are also adding their own (non-FIFA affiliated) World Cup and soccer spin to their games—user-generated content that will live beyond the tournament in forever games.

Given the way consumers and brands now interact, this World Cup season feels both broad and hyperlocal, with a tail that will extend to years after. Whatever activation or collaboration that emerges, the moments that have true staying power are the ones that feel most authentic—like distinct pieces of culture. When the quick solution is to market towards just the one passion point, how will you evolve the cultural playbook and stand out?

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

 ESCAPING THE CLIPPING MINES

Is anything you see online real anymore? From the excitement surrounding Justin Bieber’s performance at Coachella to the backlash against Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle commercial, there is evidence that a significant part of the discourse was inorganic and manufactured.

Synthetic hype isn’t just limited to chatter about pop stars and Hollywood actors. That Reddit thread about sunscreen brands? The debate around the latest bestsellers on BookTok? A good deal of it may actually be covert advertising, versus actual discussion in a healthy community. If everything online is dismissed and distrusted as marketing slop, it becomes harder and harder for brands to build quality connections with consumers.

  OUR TAKE

Clipping has upended social media. This refers to the now seemingly ubiquitous practice of hiring third parties to turn your content into bite-sized pieces that are then posted and shared by a network of accounts (that often turn out to be created for the sole purpose of content distribution). “Narrative campaigns” form the next step—artificial comments and opinions are planted to resemble authentic consumer banter.

The previous high-water marks of digital marketing, maximum views and engagement, can now be so juiced that brands are trying to step away from -maxxing in order to differentiate themselves. “Going viral” is no longer the end all be all, as brands think about how to build long-term relevance, credibility, and genuine loyalty.

One avenue that brands are investing in is long-form content, especially via YouTube. Passive scrolling and the trend-base algorithm exacerbate digital fatigue, reportedly felt by 58% of Gen Zs and 54% of Millennials in Deloitte Global’s recent Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Long-form allows brands to communicate with more nuance, and take advantage of a longer effectiveness tail where brand integrations have a longer shelf life instead of disappearing after 24-hours.

Even the quality of SponCon can hit different, as long-form content allows for more room for storytelling.  Creators can speak with genuine appreciation for a brand or product in a longer video essay without being immediately dismissed. YouTube has tools that identify creators organically mentioning brands, improving the match-making with advertiser needs.

Brands are also expanding what they do offline. As it becomes harder to distinguish between a flesh-and-blood netizen versus a bot account, people look to IRL events to build emotional connection, and authentic fandoms. As we previously covered on Culture Wire, brands recognize the power of community-building in these spaces, where consumers are choosing to invest their time, dollars and social ties. Literary salons by fashion houses such as Miu Miu offer the opportunity to signal shared identity and interests with real people. Prime Video announced Obsessed Fest, a convention centered around its new slate of streaming content based on Young Adult IPs.

Online, anything is now table-stakes or just plain homogenous. As the attention economy continues to evolve, brands need to be more creative than ever and truly think end-to-end to build lasting power with consumers.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

HEADLINE ACT

Filipino pop is having a festival moment. Weeks after BINI made history as the first Filipino act to perform at Coachella—and drew the kind of online attention that’s usually reserved for much higher-billed acts—SB19 are gearing up to perform at Lollapalooza. Novelty bookings these are not: BINI’s 2026 world tour includes stops in the US, Europe, and Asia, while SB19 reached 1B Spotify streams at the start of the year. 

BINI and SB19 are perhaps the highest-profile examples of a broader shift: across Southeast Asia, local-language artists, homegrown formats, and culturally specific stories are rapidly gaining ground. This isn’t one ‘wave’ replacing another, rather the emergence of multiple local scenes with increasingly engaged audiences. 

While previous SEA exports like NIKI and Rich Brian saw international success singing and rapping in English, these newer acts are finding global audiences while performing in their own languages. There’s still a place for global culture, but SEA consumers are becoming more confident that what’s made close to home belongs on the biggest stages.

OUR TAKE

Interest in local acts is intertwined with the evolution of K-pop. As the genre’s focus has shifted towards global audiences—think English-language releases, multinational line-ups and international training systems—it’s become both a global template and less of a geographically fixed category. But this has also allowed for the idol infrastructure to be adopted and remixed across SEA, as the all-Indonesian girl group NO:NA reveals. Although trained in an idol pipeline, they’re distinctly ‘local’, with gamelan, Balinese cymbals, and music videos set in rice terraces.

Meanwhile, the systems around these emerging local acts are also being built locally, through a mix of government funding, major-label investment, industry bodies, and international competition formats. Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency is in year three of Music Exchange, a program that’s seen 95 artists participate in 64 international festivals. In Vietnam, Sony Music took a 49% stake in YeaH1 Group’s music production unit to build a ‘direct pipeline’ for V-pop to reach international charts. And this November, Bangkok will host the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia .

Of course, consumer interest in local acts predates export programs or investment, but now the scale is almost impossible to ignore. OPM’s share of Spotify’s Philippine daily Top 50 rose from 44% in 2023 to 63% in 2026 (note that we’ve been tracking this since budots crashed brat summer in 2024). Meanwhile in Thailand, daily music charts are a mix of K-pop and T-pop and Thai hip-hop, with Jeff Satur (the second most-streamed Thai act on Spotify globally) touring arenas across Asia and Latin America. Homegrown Malaysian acts like K-Clique are building a dedicated regional fanbase. And while Singapore remains an outlier, with K-pop, Western pop, and Mandopop still dominant, interest in local stories is surfacing in other formats.

Single x 35, a manga set in Singapore, recently went viral with fans praising the depiction of MRT commutes, bidding wars for in-demand apartments (brutal), and career stagnation. It sits alongside other webcomics like Woke Salaryman and Indonesia’s Tahilalats as an example of homegrown IP built on everyday anxieties and humor that—crucially—don’t need to be explained to the audience. Brands are starting to get it, too. Airbnb’s partnership with MILLI turned the Thai rapper into a cultural translator who guides travelers through Bangkok’s creative neighborhoods. Using an artist as an access point into a place and a culture works because MILLI’s credibility with that audience is earned.

For years, the safe bet for brands in SEA was to borrow cultural credibility from global acts. More recently, attention has shifted closer to home, but a partnership with BTS, BLACKPINK, or similar was still a bet on the biggest name in the room. Now, with local talent seeing chart success (at home and abroad), those ‘safe’ choices are starting to look less like the smart ones.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

“THAT’S ALL.”

The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens this week and promises all the fan-favorites of the 2006 blockbuster and more—more Miranda-isms, more New York City, and definitely more fashion. Ahead of the movie opening, brand collaborations have multiplied, from Samsung mobile phones to L’Oreal Paris makeup. One would expect all these brands’ ads to play in the movie theater right before the lights dim, but the curious thing is—these brands might not even be in the movie.

OUR TAKE

Brands using movies to create cultural cache isn’t new but it is clear that brand marketing in movies has evolved from product placements to become an extended form of content and engagement. The latest slate of brand and movie marketing don’t just feature actors holding up products, but hero storytelling and feel like bite-sized extensions of the movie brought IRL. 2023’s Barbie broke the floodgates for this, with experiences such as AirBnB’s bookable Barbie’s Dreamhouse placing consumers right in the middle of the story.

Much of the more interesting marketing content tied to The Devil Wears Prada 2 goes beyond just product placement within the movie. Brands are now accessing more creative avenues to convey their message and integrate in people’s lives. Immersive storytelling and IYKYK nods to deep cuts can create stand-alone featurettes and open up other enticing parts of the world of the movie.

For behind-the-scenes footage of Runway magazine, look at the campaign from beauty brand Lancôme where actors Pauline Chalamet and Caleb Hearon reprise their movie roles to tackle a classic ‘impossible’ Miranda task. Coca-Cola brand Smartwater’s mini-game makes players search for the right shade of blue—a throwback to Miranda’s cerulean monologue in the first movie. Starbucks, which does physically appear in both movies, launched a real-life secret menu with the characters’ go-to orders and even brought back actor Adrian Grenier where he meta-comments on his hated character, Nate.

To partner with movies, brands now don’t have to be limited to the actual run-time of the movie, but can create these “pocket universes” that still feel true to the story and give audiences space within the world.

One example is not even a promotion for a movie, but accesses the legacy and shared moments of a decades-long cinematic collaboration between two veteran actors. To promote the Shogun Burger, McDonald’s Hong Kong created an entire music video with home-grown artists Louis Koo and Jessica Hsuan, channeling scenes from the multiple movies where they’ve played love interests. The campaign also included an Instagram Live session with the artists and collective trading cards riffing on their romantic scenes from movies.

At a time when demand for IRL experiences is heightened and cultural status comes from being in-the-know, brands have a real opportunity to leverage movies for their iconic scenes, characters or IYKYK moments to build their own cultural capital within the movie hype cycle. This is especially so for films with a rich history (easy for sequels, remakes and  franchises, which seem to be the norm in Hollywood today) where core fans are eager for more content and experiences to get closer to the movie-world, and it doesn’t hurt that cinema attendance is on the rise with Gen Zs, especially in APAC.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

FANDOM MEANS BUSINESS

On flights from Manila to Seoul last week, Philippine Airlines offered some euphoria to BTS fans by offering banners to any passenger who could prove ARMY credentials. The thoughtful gesture was a hit on social media, with some calling for other airlines to follow suit. For those that missed out, Incheon International Airport provided consolation in the form of farewell messages on departure boards in the days following BTS’s comeback concert. 

That concert – held in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square – drew over 75,000 people from Korea and beyond, with 1 in 4 flying in from abroad to witness the event. The largest share of overseas fans came from Thailand, followed by Vietnam. BTS’s return from mandatory military service is, of course, big news for the record label but local Seoul businesses benefitted too: a traditional liquor maker tripled production for a highball brand endorsed by member Jin. Restaurants in Gwanghwamun hired temporary staff who speak Spanish, Uzbek, Burmese, and Japanese. And BTS-themed tours are doing brisk business nationwide. 

On the surface, these are examples of brands catering to BTS fans. But there’s an underlying shift here and it’s the idea that fandom doesn’t just drive culture. It also drives demand.

OUR TAKE

Long-term readers will know about the concept of the Culture Wallet, and how consumers spend around the passion points that express who they are and where they belong. For BTS fans, that means concert tickets, albums, merch, hotels, themed looks or accessories. Practical and emotional investments that allow them to be part of the moment.

But the Culture Wallet doesn’t stop there. When fan spending scales and concentrates, it results in a second wave of economic activity that ripples far beyond the artist. For example, Asian airlines are adjusting schedules and flight paths in response to K-Pop touring cycles (some carriers are adding temporary flights timed to concert dates). 

And according to data from tour sponsor Visa, foreign travel to South Korea surged more than 25% in the week of the concert, with travel spending up around 20% from an average week. (Side-note that Visa’s role goes beyond sponsorship, with the brand giving cardholders direct ticket access and running on-site merch booths across APAC tour stops). The Korea Culture & Tourism Institute estimates that one BTS concert can generate up to ₩1.2 trillion (around US$815 million) across retail,  hospitality, staffing and local commerce. These demand spikes should be anticipated in the same way as other major seasonal or event-led surges.

Another thing that makes this moment different is not just the spending, but the structure of fandom itself. In the past, fandom was often dismissed as irrational excess or a closed loop of repeat purchases. Today, it functions more like a live participation network: continuous, global and always-on. Fan-to-fan connection can be just as important as fan-to-artist devotion. The main event — in this case, the concert — is one part of the appeal. The evolving lore matters too, as does collecting proof and mementos that they were there. 

For many superfans, cultural devotion is both personal and communal. The real value doesn’t sit only in the concert itself. It comes from everything that’s around it: the travel, the community fans meet, the side-quests, the visible signals of belonging and, of course, the commerce that forms around all of that.  

For marketers, the opportunity is more than a one-off partnership or a themed product drop. Recent data from Live Nation found that 97% of fans want brands to play a bigger role in live entertainment and when brands are involved the effects are positive: a 75% uplift in brand consideration, while 80% leave liking the brand more. Fans don’t just tolerate brands’ presence at live events – they are inviting them into the space. And that means that the brands that see success here will be the ones that see past the ‘main event’ and build for everything that fans do around it. 

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

PARTY IN THE U.S.A

The recent release of Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special on Disney+ has sparked much fanfare, from watch parties in bars to fervent introspection from Gen Z and Millenial fans of the Disney Channel tween sitcom (2006-2011). The series follows a classic double-life: regular kid Miley Stewart is actually pop sensation Hannah Montana but still deals with school-time shenanigans. Child actress Miley Cyrus eventually became a bona fide pop star, and the anniversary special is part concert, part reminiscence of the series’ impact on pop culture and fandom.

OUR TAKE

Brands have tried to harness nostalgia in many ways. Past products are re-released constantly, with messaging invoking the good ol’ days. When done haphazardly, brands run the risk of being seen as only capable of rehashing previous greats, with no capacity for creativity and innovation. Every brand has some level of heritage and history, but how might one utilize the past without being burdened by it?

We believe the key is deep understanding of what makes the brand tick and smart story-telling. The Barbie movie surprised audiences with its combination of tongue-in-cheek humor and the modernisation of Barbie’s image to authentically reflect the multifaceted nature of womanhood. Easter egg moments were also fun nods to old fandoms, as viewers could point out their favorite discontinued toy character depicted on screen. We’ll be watching to see how the Masters of the Universe film and the hotly awaited Harry Potter HBO Max series will fair.

It’s important to use these throwback moments with thought to feel fresh. The CHANEL 25 Handbag Campaign is a short film-esque commercial directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, featuring actress Margot Robbie (again!) set to Kylie Minogue’s beloved track “Come Into My World” (also in time for the 25th anniversary of the song). The film follows Robbie’s character going through a day in her life, and doesn’t beat audiences over the head with the fact that it actually recreates the old music video – a true IYKYK moment.

The way your brand uses nostalgia is about how you speak to consumers. It’s a question of brand longevity and whether your story can be seen as evergreen — can you resonate with both existing and new fans?

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

A WORLD OF STORIES

In the last Culture Wire, we briefly talked about book merch—logoed T-shirts and caps that signal niche literary interests, letting readers wear the story. This week, we found something that goes even further.

The Boyfriend Book Box reframes each $497 subscription as a ‘gift’ from the male lead in a dark romance, filled with items designed to bring the character to life. More than 20,000 people are already on the waitlist.

Fans don’t just want to consume stories; they increasingly want to inhabit them. In China, romance narratives are moving off the page and into real life. In a fast-growing offshoot of the murder-mystery roleplay format jubensha, players spend hours acting out tragic love stories alongside paid ‘love companions’. The wider industry now spans roughly 168,000 companies, with 72,000 founded in 2025 alone—up 16% year-on-year.

And remember Love and Deepspace? New updates allow characters to call players by name, creating a more personal experience. Some players are even extending character relationships into ChatGPT and DeepSeek. At the far end of the storytelling spectrum, character.ai users are building companions from scratch.

OUR TAKE

To frame this cultural shift as pure escapism misses the point.

Fictional worlds don’t just entertain—they’re where people go to feel understood, explore connection, and experience emotions everyday life doesn’t always deliver. Some Love and Deepspace players say the game fulfills emotional needs they didn’t even realize were unmet.

Back to books. In Indonesia, where the Reading Interest Index jumped from 66.77 to 72.44 in a single year, BookTok is helping revive reading and turn it into a social identity marker. More than half of readers (62.5%) now discover books through social media.

As reading becomes social, spaces are evolving. Jakarta’s Gramedia Jalma bookstore is designed as a third space blending bookstore, coworking space, and café. Singapore’s National Library Board just launched Chapters, a collectible card game that turns 30 years of library history into a playable narrative.

We’ve previously explored how people are pushing back on frictionless consumption in search of meaning. Narrative is what ties it all together. BookTok, bookstore third spaces, and AI companions may look different, but they point to the same shift: in an uncertain world, people want stories they can enter, extend, and shape—not just watch or read.

Referencing literary culture is easy. Building a narrative people want to step into is harder but far more valuable for brands in the long-term.

In China, Mixue turned sales receipts into serialized fiction, sparking a viral craze. Alipay Alipay partnered with novelist Liu Zhenyun to create a Convenience Store Literature Corner, where everyday people co-create stories. Dr. Seuss reframed reading itself as travel with a faux travel agency where every ‘booking’ leads to a book.

The opportunity for brands is clear: move beyond storytelling, and build worlds people can participate in. Because if anything is clear from BookTok to AI companions, it’s that the demand for stories people can live inside is only accelerating. 

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

WHERE’S EVERYBODY GOING?

“Revenge travel” has now become TRAVEL (all caps, no cap), as Klook’s Travel Pulse 2026 illustrates just how primed people are to take trips this year. 88% of Millennial and Gen Z travelers plan to maintain or up spends, with those in Asia Pacific 50% more likely to spend more, compared to their European and US counterparts. 

At this scale, the popular image is of mainland Chinese tourists propping up overseas luxury shopping. But that would only be one facet of the 2026 Traveler. Klook’s study shows that it’s actually Singaporeans who index most highly on travel, even outspending the rest of Asia Pacific on long-leisure trips. Singaporeans are choosing experiences over just hauls, with a high willingness to spend on specific interests such as outdoor activities and theme parks.

OUR TAKE

We’ve previously mentioned how consumers utilize their Culture Wallet—spending in service of their passion points to reinforce identity. Gen Z now faces economic turmoil and societal structural changes that Boomers and Gen X didn’t have to deal with, where big-ticket “I’ve made it” items (e.g., hefty mortgages) are out of consideration. What is still possible, and where Gen Z consumers are checking off the boxes, is smaller-scale luxury in the shape of hobbies and interests to self-actualize and signal identity. 

This can often be beauty or clothing, which is categorized generically (and unfairly!) as non-essentials. Looking at the spending habits of Indonesian Gen Z, the largest in SEA and a market maker—they prioritize lifestyle spending (beauty and personal care come first) over essentials. They’re not just chasing one feel-good moment either. They’re actually closely examining which brands align with their personal values before purchasing. 

As the Culture Wallet is so closely tied to expressions of identity, young people make statements about their individuality and personal brands viscerally through small items, such as DIY charm-encrusted combs that are heavily personalized. Affordability remains important, but the size of a consumer’s Culture Wallet isn’t always directly tied to their bank account. Time and effort spent are also flexes, illustrated by how the 2026 Traveler is heavily reliant on trawling social content and AI tools to craft max-ROI itineraries. There is a clear appeal to signal IYKYK, as seen in the surge in popularity of smaller off-the-beaten-path cities. 

Once derided as the lowest common denominator of signalling identity, even the logo-emblazed t-shirt is now being considered with thought and nuance, in the form of merch to showcase a love of reading, small-batch bookstores, and an enthusiastic community. At the end of the day, consumers want to reflect their passion points and POVs out to the world in an authentic way. If brands show that they get this mindset, people will definitely respond.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!

NEW YEAR, NEW APP

Move over, WeChat. This Lunar New Year, some of China’s biggest tech companies turned a cultural tradition into an install prompt, tying red envelope campaigns directly to their AI apps. Alibaba’s Qwen chatbot offered bubble tea at ¥0.01 as part of a ¥3 billion ($431 million) campaign, processing over 10 million orders within nine hours of launch (yes, it was chaotic for the delivery drivers). Tencent’s Yuanbao AI assistant ran a ¥1 billion red envelope promotion with users invited to share links with contacts to win cash prizes; meanwhile Baidu’s Wenxin AI followed with its own ¥500 million push.

Converting curiosity into engagement was also Duolingo’s play at the Super Bowl. The brand launched Bad Bunny 101 ahead of the rapper’s historic halftime show, encouraging fans to learn Spanish phrases from his songs. After 140 million people tuned in to the performance, Duolingo saw a 35% week-on-week jump in Spanish-language learners.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of brands inserting themselves into cultural moments. But there is a gap between using shared moments as a user acquisition funnel and actually earning a place inside those moments. Ramadan is the next test case, with global brands increasingly turning to local artist collaborations, commissioning poets, illustrators and street artists to shape the creative direction from the outset, rather than just endorse a finished product. 

OUR TAKE

Tying red envelopes directly to AI tools to seed adoption at scale paid off: Qwen processed 120 million orders in six days and surged to the top of China’s App Store, while Yuanbao unseated ByteDance’s Doubao. WeChat dominated China’s app ecosystem for years. Now, these AI companies are using the country’s biggest cultural moment to come for WeChat’s crown – and not just among early adopters. Nearly half of Qwen’s orders came from county-level and rural areas, while 1.56 million people aged 60+ made their first-ever online purchase through the app. Now the bigger question is, can that engagement outlast the moment?  

As we’ve previously explored, rituals (such as red envelopes) and seasons help people anchor themselves in uncertain times. But that means that the stakes for brands entering those spaces are considerably higher. Ramadan – the major cultural event for 25% of the world’s population – is a case in point. In both Indonesia and Malaysia, heartfelt family storytelling ranks as the strongest marker of authentic Ramadan advertising, above discounts, influencer campaigns, and celebrity endorsements. 

Ferragamo’s Threads of Light with Emirati poet Fatima AlJarman and Lacoste’s collaboration with Indonesian illustrator Yfana Khadija Amelz (who designed the brand’s full local Ramadan campaign) are examples of brands trying to meet that bar. But this is about more than partnerships with local talent, it’s about when they’re brought in. Inviting an artist to approve a finished brief isn’t enough – when they’re involved from the start, the finished campaign gains a credibility that can’t be faked. 

Brands have always inserted themselves into cultural moments. What’s changed is consumers, who are better able to spot tokenism and quicker to reject it. The seniors using AI chatbots to make purchases, the consumers who put storytelling above discounts and the surge in Spanish learners post-SuperBowl are all part of the same story: familiar moments and traditions can lower the barrier to unfamiliar brands or technologies. Of course, that all depends on the brand earning a place in the moment, rather than just showing up for it.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!