There was a time when “shopping” meant fluorescent lights of the mall and soft pretzels and a warbled cover of Lana del Rey echoing through the Hot Topic speakers. Now it means TikTok girls with perfectly symmetrical faces making you fall in love with a peptide lip tint for $34. Tomorrow it will mean whispering to an AI about your skin tone at 2am.

And somewhere in that hyper-speed cultural soup – amid the collapse of luxury (reshaped by resale and global access), the birth of micro-narratives, the death of brand loyalty, the resurgence of secondhand, and the godless church of Amazon and Temu – commerce became more about identity than objects. More about longing than logistics.

In this rapidly evolving landscape, the partners that matter are the ones who can navigate uncertainty — not just with agility, but with critical thinking, cultural awareness, and a deep respect for brand.

That’s why I’m thrilled to officially share that I’ve joined Verbal+Visual as an Executive Creative Advisor.

I’ve known and worked with the V+V team for years, and they continue to strike me as one of the most thoughtful, forward-facing agencies in the space – one that doesn’t just sell to brands, but co-creates with them. Their Commerce+ model is a productized approach to solving both emotional resonance and technical enablement, with radical transparency baked in.

What excites me most is that they’re not trying to be everything to everyone. They’re selective, strategic, and unapologetically obsessed with the next era of commerce – from AI-enabled shopping experiences to reimagining what brand loyalty even means.

So what will this next chapter look like?