Hitmakers, Season 2

How many people actually saw It Was Just an Accident, this year’s winner at the Cannes Film Festival?And how many people even heard of it?That gap tells you something important about culture today.Culture fragments faster than it consolidates. Mass attention is gone. Cultural currency no longer comes from scale—it comes from attention. And attention is scarce, fleeting, and brutally competitive.So how do you earn attention in a fragmented world?It’s captured by friction—inversions, oddities, contradictions, and coincidences already simmering in society. The brands that win don’t smooth edges over. They sharpen them.In this episode, we explore how to use friction to capture attention.Listen on above, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

Everyone knows what the Magic Kingdom is. And yet almost no brand in history has been able to replicate anything like it.Because world-building sounds simple. It isn’t.There are product worlds born from the thing itself. Merchandise worlds built through collections. Aesthetic worlds defined by a visual language. Fan worlds powered by community.And each one behaves differently.The mistake is treating world-building as a single strategy.Where you begin—product, fandom, or aesthetics—determines the physics of the world you can build: its growth logic, its commercial engine, and the operating model required to sustain it.Today, we map those worlds—and the companies that build them well.Welcome to Season 2 of Hitmakers—the show that tracks how culture moves margins, multiples, and market cap. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

Why does Louis Vuitton cycle through creative directors like fashion seasons—is that a weakness or a strategy?And how can Hermès go 42 years without launching a single new product yet be worth more than the entire LVMH group?Because one behaves like a trendmaker.The other behaves like a tastemaker.Is one better? That depends on what you believe creates value.In this episode, we’re exploring that tension. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

Why do brands collaborate with each other?What differentiates a good collaboration from a bad one?Have we reached collaboration fatigue?And, what is next for collaborations?Today, we reveal how to elevate collaborations from tactics to strategies. We put collaborations in context of IP, world-building, fandoms, and a brand’s cultural expansion and market growth.Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe