We’re In This Together
Every food ad sells togetherness. Few products are designed for it. No. 04 of The Joy Dividend in Practice applies Connection & Purpose to food and beverage.
2026: research & perspectives.
43 articles from Schieber Research. Explore the original analysis, with its original publication dates.
Peptide Trends 2026: Search, Skin Care & GLP-1
US peptide trends in 2026 across consumer searches, skin care, GLP-1 and injectable interest. Read the research preview or buy the full $1,250 report.
Functional drinks: what's moving
62 drink formats, 15 functional needs and four shifts across search, social and sales. Download the free preview and explore the $1,250 report.
I Didn’t Expect That
Surprise works as a system, not a stunt. No. 03 of The Joy Dividend in Practice applies Surprise & Delight to food and beverage product development.
Fitness: what's moving
Five shifts in fitness across search, social and sales. Read the free preview and explore the $1,250 Fitness Category Snapshot.
The truth about research in AI
AI changed who can do research. The bigger opportunity is changing how research works.
Blush Trends 2026: Powder, Anti-Blush & Layering
US blush trends in 2026, from powder and muted anti-blush shades to cream-and-powder layering. Original search, social and Amazon research for beauty brands.
Magnesium for sleep. What comes next?
Glycinate, glycine and nighttime body care: three directions explored through social, search and sales. Read online; subscribe free to download.
Play With Your Food
Play is what the food invites you to do. No. 02 of The Joy Dividend in Practice applies Playful Design to food and beverage product development.
Everything In Its Right Place
Stress-free product development for food & beverage, from the shelf to the empty package.
Beyond the Plate: How GLP-1s Are Reshaping Beauty, Fitness, Travel and the Wardrobe
The most important GLP-1 story may not be what people stop eating. It may be what happens after the body changes.
Make Them Work For It
Think about something you worked hard to make. A meal.
The Parasocial Dividend: Creators as Makers or Breakers of Joy
The people inside a product can create extraordinary joy and loyalty. They can also break something no corporate statement can fully repair.
The Standard Was Not Set in Your Category
Customers do not maintain separate expectations for every industry. The company resetting their standards may never appear in your competitive set.
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina
We Design Beginnings. Nobody Designs the End.
Load-Bearing Friction: What Are We Really Saving Time For?
Last week I took a taxi, and the driver — an older man — started talking to me about joy. “I used to love going to the bank,” he said.
A Non-Working Cat
This week I don't want to talk about the science of joy, or even about branding. I want to talk about the joy of feeling seen.
Community Is Worth the Friction. The Watch Party Proves It.
The couch in New Jersey had the better view. Higher definition, no transfers, no fare, a clean replay of every call.
How I Met Your (Scrub) Daddy
I knew something was up when my son, of all people, recommended a dish sponge to me. He was maybe thirteen at the time and had never once volunteered an opinion about cleaning supplies.
Sephora's Online Store Is Calm. That's the Problem.
Most brands measure what their customers did. Repeat purchase, basket size, conversion, NPS.
Optimizing for Joy
The over-optimization backlash is not a retreat from progress. It is a shift toward designing brands, products and experiences around the emotional outcomes that compound.
You're Gonna Lose That Girl
Marketers know retention beats acquisition. They just keep dating new people.
Power to the People: A Three-Year Postscript
Three years ago I argued in a Cambridge handbook that brand-side NFTs would fail. They did.
The Brand That Beat Amazon by Handing Customers the Calculator
Best Buy’s turnaround shows why brands should remove the customer’s core anxiety before investing in delight: calm first, joy second.
Joyforaging Is the New Doomscrolling
Somewhere in the last two years, a quiet swap happened. The same person who used to open Twitter in line at the coffee shop is now opening NYT's Connections.
Maxxing. For Grandma
Gen Z just invented a new word for living like your grandmother. They're calling it nonnamaxxing — nonna, the Italian word for grandma, plus the "-maxxing" suffix born in the darkest corners of internet hustle culture.
Sparking Joy in Retail: What the Best New Stores Know That Most Don't
You can buy anything on your phone. Literally anything.
The Most Valuable Real Estate in Business Is the Space You Only See After the Purchase
My sister called me after reading the Joy Dividend book, to discuss ice cream of all things. Specifically, the funny little messages her favorite brand hides inside the wrapper — the ones you only see after you've already bought the product, already opened it,
CAGNY 2026: CPG Trends
The Provocativeness Gap: 7 Strategic Shifts from CAGNY 2026 CAGNY 2026 Analysis The Provocativeness Gap How well do you really know today’s consumer? 7 surprising insights from CAGNY 2026 that should change how you build brands.…
Joy and Jobs-To-Be-Done
Every evening, the same question lands on my kitchen table: "What's for dinner?" It sounds simple. It is anything but.
Long Lines Are Inevitable. Stress Is a Design Choice.
Sometimes, you don't mind a line at all. A new restaurant with a crowd out the door? You're more intrigued, not less.
Rebranding: What If You Kept the Thing That Made You Different?
Jaguar registered 49 cars across all of Europe in April 2025. Forty-nine.
When Friction Becomes the Feature (And Why Convenience Was Never the Villain)
About a month ago, I wrote about the good kind of stress — the neuroscience of why hard things stick, why IKEA furniture you assemble yourself feels more valuable than identical pre-built pieces, and why Trader Joe’s legendary parking…
When Convenience Killed Quality
There’s a question I’ve been sitting with lately: When did we collectively decide that “good enough, but effortless” beats “excellent, but requires something of you”? Because if you look at how consumers actually behave — not what they…
Joy Shared is Joy Multiplied: The ROI Of Collective Experiences
I was one of those 1.1 million people. On New Year’s Eve 2025, I sat in a packed theater watching the Stranger Things finale. I was clapping during the big reveals, gasping at the scary parts, and shouting at the screen during the final…
Make Them Laugh, Make Them Cry (But Make Sure They Remember You)
What This Sunday’s $7M Super Bowl Ads Reveal About Your Brand Every February, brands now spend around $7–8 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Most treat it as a gamble. Smart strategists treat it as the world’s largest live experiment…
Trigger Alert: Stop Walking on Eggshells. (Or Don't.)
How the brands winning Gen Z loyalty treat emotional triggers as design inputs — not landmines. Here’s something most marketers know but rarely say out loud: the same campaign that makes one customer feel seen will make another feel…
The Curation Correction: How Brands Turn Overload into Calm
For two decades, most business advice about the paradox of choice has pointed in one direction: offer less. The famous jam study showed 24 varieties = 3% conversion, 6 varieties = 30% conversion. The lesson seemed clear. Trader Joe’s…
When Joy Needs Reclaiming: Fitness Brands Confront What They Built
The thing that’s supposed to make us feel better has been making people feel worse. Fitness is one of the most reliable mood-regulation tools we have. The research is unambiguous: movement lifts mental state, reduces anxiety, generates…
When Better Features Stop Winning, Feelings Take Over
CES 2026 and the Rise of Joyful Design Here’s the shift CES 2026 made impossible to ignore: when products stop competing on features, they start competing on feelings. I’ve seen this pattern play out across industries for 25 years. When…
Choose Your Own Adventure: Why Personalization Finally Stopped Guessing and Started Listening
Remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? Turn to page 42 if you want to explore the cave. Turn to page 87 if you run away. See content credentials I’ve been thinking about those books because of my ongoing war with streaming…
The Good Kind of Stress: Why the Best Memories Come from the Hardest Hunts
If the memory of that first cassette resonates, you were born before 1996. Do you remember your first one? Not the one your parents bought you—the one you discovered. The one you saved for, hunted through record bins to find, brought…
Why your customers are scheduling playdates (and paying for it)
Something interesting is happening in cities across the country – and the world. On Wednesday nights, strangers are meeting for dinner. Thousands of adults are waking up at 6 AM to dance sober before work. People are gathering in…
