Direct-to-Consumer Brands Are Reshaping the Face of Retail

Excerpt: “The We Company was worth $47 billion and then it wasn’t. Peloton Interactive, branded like We to be valued as a tech company and not just a fitness company, is trading 20% off its IPO price. And a range of other direct-to-consumer brands see their stocks flagging as investors shift focus from growth to profitability.
All of this takes me back to a debate I’ve been having with both my friend Randall Rothenberg of the IAB and my students at Duke’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative about the relative importance and staying power of brands in the rise of what Randy coined “the direct brand economy…”