Norms

My brother Joshua Katz loves to talk about hemorrhoids. But when his butt-care company got a beautiful The Wall Street Journal feature, it forced some uncomfortable questions: What is the use of brand community today? And how has our attention economy changed the way we think about purpose and loyalty? I wrote an article about why our old playbook is failing, when “community” is more than consumption, and what it takes for a brand to build a movement that survives the algorithm. __________ Here's a little excerpt: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal don’t push product as well as a Tik Tok influencer. Impressions don’t change standing with Target, with Amazon, or with investors. And you would be hard-pressed to say that the one-way broadcast of a legacy outlet contributed anything to the community Josh is trying to grow. The old playbook: brand purpose → community → loyalty, just doesn’t work the same way anymore. Our platforms don’t really reward “purpose.” They reward views, time-on-content, and the ability to feed an endless appetite of media consumption. A year ago we talked about followers and engagement as signals of community. Today, those same metrics are just signals to the machine: should this be pumped further or not? A small independent brand has to carry this tension: The behaviors that actually cultivate community—good storytelling, space for connection and vulnerability, invitations to engage—are barely legible to the algorithms. Ten years ago, the Wall Street Journal would have been the mountaintop: external validation that the strategy, the hard work, the details—all of it—“worked.” But today it might just be an ego stroke. Read the whole article below and check out Norms!

My brother Adam Katz wrote about the uncomfortable questions that came up when Norms got a Wall Street Journal feature. Specifically: what's the point of brand community when the algorithm rewards views over trust? I don't have a good answer yet. But if you're building something that requires people to care (not just click), you're probably grappling with the same thing. Worth a read.

"Let's talk about hemorrhoids." I walked into the Norms NYC pop-up with Mindy A. Spire and Catherine Cole last week and immediately knew I was witnessing something bigger than clever branding. Three-quarters of the population deals with hemorrhoids. Yet the category has lived in the shadows of shame, relegated to clinical packaging and whispered pharmacy runs. Joshua Katz looked at that massive gap between reality and conversation and built an entire brand around closing it. The pop-up was bright, approachable, even playful. Because—unlike when I started my career and consumers didn't want to joke around about ailments—today's consumers seem to prefer their medical solutions without clinical coldness and historical shame. This shift follows a clear pattern. Periods moved from euphemism to empowerment. Menopause went from silent suffering to cultural movement. Sexual wellness transformed from taboo to mainstream. Norms is applying that same cultural permission structure to hemorrhoids—and the timing couldn't be more right. During our conversation with the knowledgable "Devin The Social Guy" (also: pop-up-manager-hemorrhoids-expert), he shared that they're already thinking about the world beyond hemorroids, and I couldn't help but think what else could use some normalization—or Normification, as it were: Athlete's foot? Cold sores? Yeast infections? All those conditions we deal with privately, buy awkwardly, and never actually discuss despite their commonality. The expansion potential is enormous precisely because shame has artificially constrained so many categories. Norms isn't just selling hemorrhoid cream—they're demonstrating a replicable model for entering any uncomfortable health category and making it feel approachable. I'm watching closely to see where they go next. Because if you can make treating hemorrhoids into something fun and free to talk about, there's nothing you can't Normify. #brandinnovation #consumerinsights #healthandwellness #destigmatization #CPGinnovation #brandstrategy