An expert read on what people say when nobody's asking.
The words your brand wants to own aren’t necessarily the words shoppers use. In the online Adidas conversation, posts are mostly listings and promos, and they’re full of brand language. The comments, where shoppers actually talk, are not. Comments outnumber posts almost four to one, but you’d never know it from the language. A listing or promo post is about 140x more likely to call something “timeless” than a shopper’s comment is, and “iconic” follows the same pattern. The brand’s words are everywhere in the posts and barely show up where shoppers are talking. That doesn’t mean shoppers don’t think Adidas is iconic. It just isn’t their word. What shoppers do talk about is how things look and fit on them. For every one comment that says ‘iconic’, about 17 say ‘style’ and about 15 say ‘fit’. On a TikTok about the Adidas Superstar, one shopper writes: “I have these but idk how to style them 😣”. On Reddit, another says: “Evos (and most adidas in general) fit super narrow across the forefoot.” Both are about the shopper wearing the shoe. The problem is that brand measurement often starts from the qualities a brand chose for itself. The question for a tracker is whether it captures what shoppers bring up themselves, alongside the qualities the brand wants to own.
Secondhand got cool, and that’s started to pull its value in two directions. For one group, it’s now about the vintage find, the clout, the sustainable story, or the chance to flip it for a profit. For the other, it’s still just the cheaper way to buy. Both are shopping the same racks, and the first group is making it harder for the second. Resellers and trend-driven buyers get to the best stuff first, and shoppers who came for a bargain are left fighting over what remains. You can see the strain in the data. Nearly a quarter (24%) of comments in Reddit’s thrift and resale conversation are negative. The mood is still mostly warm, but nobody is made to shop secondhand, so for something people choose, that’s a lot of complaint. The Reddit comments show where it’s coming from. One user says thrifting has “been ruined for me” and they “can’t even walk into a Goodwill outlet without immediately being pushed around by resellers”. Another says their favorite shop was “hijacked by reseller volunteers” who are given the first opportunity to buy whatever they want. The frustration is about access: who gets first look at the bargains. What could you offer the shopper who keeps arriving after the resellers?
Signals reveal what’s changing. Organic Intelligence connects the dots across your category, so you know what’s driving the change, what happens next, and what to do about it.