Gymshark's Swole Supremacy Goes IRL
Welcome to Friday, futurists.
“You can just do things” has been the Gen Z mantra online for a minute, and now digital retailers like Gymshark are taking this literally by launching stores as “community hubs." Friend of the pod Daisy Alioto predicted earlier this year that “agency” would be the industry buzzword of 2025. If “agency” is 2025’s buzzword, “community” was 2018’s.
So what makes a community experience so captivating that it garners a 1,000-person-long line? And how does a brand establish a base of such loyal customers that they’re willing to wait in said line for 12 hours just to get inside?
Alicia Esposito's latest deep dive for Future Commerce Insiders examines the new Gymshark Onyx Pop-Up in NYC. The cult brand transformed Cooper Classic Cars in the West Village into a sleek superhero lair for only the biggest and buffest. Using a powerful combination of “accidental” leaks and dynamic online discourse through Reddit, the brand was able to drive not just store traffic and buzz but also online sales.
However, this is more than just a store analysis. It’s a strategic conversation with Mitch Healey, Gymshark’s Global Retail and Events Director. It’s also an exploration of how Gymshark has tapped into self-congruity theory to maintain relevance and drive loyalty when the category has seen significant bifurcation. The self-congruity theory explains how brand preferences, impulse purchases, and even brand loyalty are influenced by how a consumer’s self-concept aligns with a brand’s image and identity.
We have heard time and again that consumers want to shop with brands that “align with their values.” But self-congruity reflects something much more profound. When consumers have a clear idea of who they are, and perhaps more importantly, who they want to be, they are more likely to buy from a brand that offers products and services that either match or enhance that image.
In a category built upon personal development and “conditioning,” Gymshark has turned the idea of health and wellness into a community mandate. As a result, it has become a calling card present in the Onyx Pop-Up and beyond.
Lars Ulrich's Worst Nightmare. Nothing says 'disruptive innovation' like resurrecting a brand that peaked during the Clinton administration to sell AI chatbots.
Infinite Reality is rebranding as Napster Corporation and has announced the release of Napster AI, which will serve as the hub for all its AI products and services. The first in that portfolio is Napster Spaces, a generative web and agentic AI video chat service that uses “embodied AI agents” to create web pages.
The service scans pages, products and site FAQs to convert them into “an immersive destination that channels a brand’s spirit.” Spooky. Visitors are then greeted by branded AI agents that can act as digital concierges, sales reps, or support guides that can have live video-based conversations with them. The underlying tech is powered by Touchcast, which Infinite Reality is acquiring for $500 million.
Infinite Reality acquired Napster in March for $207 million in a play to turn the brand into a “metaverse space” for music. At the time, the company planned to create 3D spaces for fans to have listening parties or for musicians to host virtual concerts and sell virtual merch.
Now, the story is getting far grander. (And dare we say, a bit more abstract?) Infinite Reality’s Co-Founder and CEO John Acunto noted that with Napster’s “legacy of innovation and challenger spirit,” the move reflects Infinite Reality’s shift towards being a full-stack platform that will “share the next generation of AI-powered digital experiences across commerce, media, and entertainment.”
Robo DJ, Play My Song. Spotify is trying to replace beloved disc jockeys and intricately curated playlists by updating its AI-powered DJ (And it’s called… DJ. Groundbreaking.)
DJ not only curates songs based on our musical tastes but now responds to our voice commands in real time. It now responds to a broader range of commands, from the simple (“Play Elton John”) to the more nuanced (“Surprise me with some indie bands I’ve never heard before”).
According to Spotify, DJ listener engagement has nearly doubled over the past year. Premium users in more than 60 markets can now tap into DJ to combine any combination of genre, mood, artist, or activity-related request, so they can discover new artists and rediscover some of their forgotten favorites, which will likely drive up that engagement time even further.
Hinge Turns BookTok Into an Actual Book (How Novel). Pun intended. Hinge recently launched the second installment of No Ordinary Love, a summer-long campaign designed to both elevate budding literary voices and share real love stories that began on the app. Contemporary writers were paired with five Hinge couples to retell key moments in their relationships, from meet-cute to happily ever after.
At the center of the campaign is a five-part weekly series on Substack, which will then be printed as a limited-edition hardcover book produced by creative and community agency Dazed Studio. The book will be sold at select in-person book clubs in New York and London starting next month, but the campaign will last all summer through ongoing collaborations with BookTok creators and Substack writers.
Our Take: Brands are increasingly turning to Substack as a vehicle to tell more complex stories around their businesses and products. After School founder, youth trends expert, and VISIONS speaker Casey Lewis recently helped American Eagle Outfitters launch its Substack, Off the Cuff, while Gen Z brands like Rare Beauty have tapped into the platform to share “inside looks” at their products, people, and operations.
This budding trend illustrates the fact that brands are content creators and content creators are brands. But the more interesting story is centered on Hinge’s decision to release a hardcover book—a physical token that can only be found in real, intimate spaces. The decision speaks to Gen Z’s growing “bookish culture” and their gravitation towards physical media and more analog, even tactile, experiences. You can learn more about how “Digital Amnesia” is shaping the future of media on the Future Commerce podcast.
Premium H2O? Full Surveillance Capitalism! The average traveler spends about 40 minutes browsing in airport stores before take-off. Nestlé is trying to cash in on this high dwell time (and extreme boredom) by partnering with WHSmith North America Media Network on a full-blown airport takeover campaign.
A key component of the campaign includes splashing Essentia branding in 10 airport stores through WHS Media’s in-store digital screen network, in-store audio, front-of-store pop-up displays, floor decals, and other creative placements. “Retail media” has gotten all the air time, but a more apt term may be “commerce media” since it broadens the advertising pool to include travel (like United Airlines, Uber, and Lyft) and hospitality brands (like Marriott). McKinsey anticipates that this expanded sector’s total media revenue will represent more than $1.3 trillion in value by 2026.
This larger commerce media ecosystem opens up a lot of ad inventory to brands; just look at the number of touches available in a single store. In the new era of retail, every screen and every surface can become a monetizable advertising touchpoint. But as Mike Mallazzo wrote in Tabula Rasa, retail media (and therefore commerce media) has overall failed to effectively engage and educate consumers in the middle of the funnel using meaningful and high-quality content. We believe that’s starting to change. In fact, we discussed the full-funnel potential in-depth during a recent webinar. You can catch it on-demand here.
All About the Vibes. Anthropic has collaborated with legendary producer and creative guru Rick Rubin on The Way of Code, an 81-chapter digital opus with art that users can modify using Claude. The work itself is pure Rick Rubin—thought-provoking and elegant. And the supporting imagery brings the perfect blend of abstract art and soothing effects, which visitors are prompted to tinker with. It is a turnkey process, making vibe coding feel tangible and accessible for anyone. When you see the coding in action, and the final product display on your screen, you feel like you’ve not only accomplished something but become part of something much bigger.
Equal parts educational, inspirational, and aspirational, the Vibe Coders officially have their time in the mainstream spotlight thanks to The Way of Code.
Your Diploma, Brought to You by Our Robot Overlords. A now-viral video is showing how PACE University used AI name readers to ensure students’ names were accurately pronounced during a graduation ceremony. A post on X shared one student’s walk-through of the tech, which includes students submitting the phonetic spelling of their names and the system automatically generating an audio preview. After graduates walk their path to the stage, they scan their phones to activate the AI name readers.
Some note that the AI tool is an effective way to ensure all students’ names are said correctly. “Nothing is worse than someone butchering your name while you’re walking across the stage,” one person commented on Instagram. Others liken it to an experience someone now has in a tech-powered grocery store: Robotic, procedural, and cold.
It goes to show we have no qualms about outsourcing even the most treasured moments to bots. Major life moments and milestones are now automated. Sure, consistency and efficiency are great, but that doesn’t mean they can provide true, meaningful value. (The CEO of Klarna could tell you that.)
Some call it inclusive innovation. Others call it the death of human dignity.
We call it Friday.
🔮Want more analysis on what agentic AI means for the future of commerce? Future Commerce believes that with humans now sharing commerce channels with non-human participants, we need a unified theory of commerce that serves both humans and AI gracefully. Otherwise, we risk creating “Agentic Ghettos,” or segregated experiences that echo the mistakes of the “m-dot” mobile commerce era. Read more here.
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