making the future human #9 - september 2024
september 2024 at dcdx
edition #9 tl;dr - advisory, flukes, new client news, upcoming releases, & your honest thoughts!
Welcome to the 344 new members since August! this is our monthly recap where we give you a look inside the happenings of dcdx from our founder, Andrew. enjoy!
reflections on september ‘24
After a busy summer of (personal) travel, September launched right into more busy (professional) travel - if you’ll be at Advertising Week in NYC and want to say hey, give me a shout! Nice to see friends this past week at Brandweek in Phoenix as well…although the 106 temps were not so nice 😅.
As September wrapped up, we also began the recruitment for our new Growth Advisory Board, a group of ~experienced~ professionals who we’ll be working with to help accelerate our growth. From c-suites at fortune 100s to seasoned agency growth veterans, the interest never ceases to amaze (well mostly shock) me. Yet it is not the interest in what we do that creates those pinch-me moments, but in why and how we do what we do. From our vision to our values, our company beliefs yielded just as many remarks as did our work, a reminder of the power - particularly in the recruiting process - of leading with why. We’ll be announcing our new growth advisory board in the coming weeks as we finish the vetting process, stay tuned :)
Lastly, I recently got hooked on a book called Fluke, a read on chance, chaos, and how seemingly minor choices (like where to honeymoon) can have significant - or even catastrophic - consequences. Another reminder of the importance of our core value within the dcdx seven titled “unreasonable intentionality”. It also sent me into a rabbit hole of quantum entanglement, so if you ever really want to nerd out on this stuff drop me a line…if you could not tell by our name dcdx, this is my jam (no matter how little of it I genuinely understand).
new client news 🗞️
Pumped to see some outcomes of our work out in the world…take a look!
Suntory brings Japan’s top vodka seltzer to the US with a quirky campaign (AdAge)
Working with Johannes Leonardo, we tested creative concepts for -196 with young audiences through both traditional and non-traditional research formats. The findings helped create guardrails, identify key standout elements, and refine the creative. Big kudos to the JL team for the unusual and engaging output!!
Exclusive: Simon Rebrands and Revamps E-commerce Site With Large Sale-priced Assortment (WWD)
We were fortunate enough to partner with the previously-named Shop Premium Outlets team to help them rebrand and relaunch their massive e-commerce presence to be the newly Gen Z-focused ShopSimon, from a custom research project diving deep into Gen Z’s online shopping behaviors to ongoing curated Gen Z sounding boards helping them test and refine messaging, potential names & more, our work with SPO was a favorite project of ours (and our research participants) from earlier this year. Always rewarding to see these come to life. Also low key some incredible deals on there, already have a new backpack & some shoes on the way…
our research in September 🧪
Less Connected for More Connection
We investigated why Gen Z is vanishing from Instagram, why 66% of Gen Z wish their online presence was more private, and what privacy even means.
How new data on user-generated content shows the tides of influencer dynamics shifting…and where they may be headed next.
Gen Z’s Top 50 Beauty Brands Report Q3 2024
An analysis of 50 beauty brands by their Brand Magnetism®, ranking them #1-#50 and with rich new industry learnings on how the category has changed.
upcoming releases
In the coming weeks, we will release the newest edition of our popular research series: From Digital Natives to Digital Captives Part III: The Great Awakening.
Also coming in the next month, our Annual Gen Z’s Top 25 Most Magnetic Brands 2024 report. One of our three annual big hitters, you won’t want to miss this.
a final note…
With the launch of our latest report, our Q3 2024 Gen Z’s Top 50 Beauty Brands also came our first report since the launch of our new membership in July, meaning for the first time we had both a free and a premium version of the report, accessible either through a one-off purchase or included in the membership.
As we work to continue experimenting with new ways of working, we’re always open to feedback on this new model - so thank you to those who already openly shared your thoughts!
As you may have noticed in the latest beauty report, our goal is to continue offering the same level of quality through our free reports, while adding significant depth, insight, and clarity of implication/application in our premium reports or membership.
Thank you to those who chose to purchase one-off or join our research membership - certainly helped to validate our approach to these reports.
As always, appreciate the read and the time you continue to share with us at dcdx :)
Onwards to October!
-AR