Edition 122.

5 brand plays worth knowing:

🪐 To infinity and Beyond (Meat): the protein-packed expansion

Beyond Meat is in the middle of a major reinvention. This spring, it repositioned as Beyond The Plant Protein Company. Or, Beyond for short.

This month came the Phytosphere: protein powders, beverages and more, with space-coded names like Starmatter and Starcut. Even the packaging goes interstellar, swapping familiar green cues for dark, starry blues.

Beyond goes to space, and the Internet has thoughts.​

Takeaway: Rebrands can be a roll out. Beyond has spent most of 2026 repositioning, expanding and evolving in public.

🔴 Staples gives Easy a villain

Twenty-one years after the iconic Easy Button, Staples built its don’t-choose-this twin: the Hard Button.

Its new Hard vs. Easy campaign amps up workplace headaches, then presents Staples as the easy route. It’s a clever spin on “That was easy.”

It also stretches what Staples means beyond pens and printer paper products, bringing “easy” to furniture, snacks, tech and enterprise *solutions.*

Takeaway: Iconic brand assets get new life when you find a fresh tension around them.

🏀 An athlete food collab that *finally* makes sense

A protein-powered snack meets game-day prep. Wonderful Pistachios signed seven college athletes across six sports to its first NIL roster.

NIL lets college athletes earn from their name, image and likeness through brand deals.

And once you see who they chose (and why), this social-first campaign gets a lot smarter than sports and pistachios. Six grams of protein per serving, btw.

Former D1 athlete here: this snack actually *makes sense* for its context.

Takeaway: The best brand partnerships don’t just borrow likeness; the product makes sense in the story.

🤖 Data shows that people *do* want creators in their AI

In Edition 118, we covered brands like Zoom using creator content as AI-search bait, while agencies tracked whether those posts earned AI citations.

Well, the “bait” is welcome.

New research surveyed 2,200 recent AI shoppers across five countries:

→ 56% prefer AI recommendations informed by creators
→ 65% of Gen Z and millennials do

Turns out, people still want people in the machine.

Takeaway: The creator-to-AI pipeline is likely preferred because people still trust people.

🎙️ AI didn’t replace me (in fact, quite the opposite)

One of my clients used AI and *still* booked a private brand workshop with me.

Because DIY’ing with AI has limits. And where it fell short is where my little human self stepped in 🤓: conversation, clarity and creative structure.

In this 90-second episode of The Brand Bloc podcast, I share what happened, how AI speeds up my creative process and, dare I say, gave me creative superpowers.

Listen in: AI Gave Me Creative Superpowers (It Didn’t Replace Me)​

More brand bytes next Sunday at 5!