In 2025, emotion is the business model.
From Ferrari’s Apple-designed EV to Doritos’ cheese-pull spectacle — Ben Kaplan breaks down how outrage, nostalgia, and virality became strategy.

MTV didn’t die — we killed it by scrolling. In this week’s episode of BRANDED Weekly, Ben Kaplan breaks down how nostalgia, dopamine, and brand emotion are reshaping business.
From MTV’s collapse to Build-A-Bear’s 2,000% stock surge, Chili’s viral mozzarella moment, and Michael Jordan’s $70M jet, we explore the one metric that now decides who wins: attention.

The real question? In 2025, how much is your brand’s emotion worth?

Beer, Rings, and Body Doubles: The Internet’s Attention Economy

Gen Z is putting ice in their beer. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement feels more like a dynasty merger than a romance, with brands racing to crash the party. And online, people are debating whether Trump really met Putin in Alaska or a body double.

In this week’s Branded, Ben Kaplan unpacks how these viral stories spiral, why brands jump on them, and what they reveal about culture, politics, and the attention economy in 2025.

From Trump firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud the same offense he was convicted of to Swift’s engagement fueling memes and marketing campaigns, we explore why irony, controversy, and cultural collisions keep driving attention.

Plus, a few hot takes from TikTok: is ice in beer actually a hack… or still a crime against hops?