Does Disruption Still Exist?

Disruption commerce has received many roses over the course of the last decade, but in its maturity, these offerings are losing their luster. With buzzy promos and enticing incentives waning as profitability goals loom, new D2C brands’ principles are facing challenges as they grow in the industries they swore to disrupt.

Beyond this sticker shock phenomenon, signals from our Disruptive Brands Come of Age Culture Briefing, show the breadth of disruption plays by brands. Brendan Shaughnessy, Strategy Director at sparks & honey shared that “as we talk about the viability of the financial models and whether these things are operating in good faith or not, there’s a lot of things that are going to be challenged in these business models that we need to keep an eye out for.” 

In the death of, what journalist Kevin Roos calls, the “Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy,” consumers are scratching their heads at the rising costs of those indulgent services to which they’ve grown accustomed. The incentives to drive consumer adoption were the magic key to quick disruption. But as rubber meets the road in profitability, disruption is getting costlier in more ways than one and leaving consumers in search of what’s next.

Watch the Full Culture Briefing below:

Watch live Culture Briefings every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 12 pm ET on the sparks & honey LinkedIn page.