Brands and their leaders have been lulled into a false sense of security by the race-to-the-bottom in digital strategy. Today’s middle market brands are left with the scraps at the table remaining after Silicon Valley and the enterprise players their space have had their fill. The only reliable solution is first-party relationships with their target customer, animated by value-driven demand, made possible by targeted and community-specific category positioning. The promise of that began digital marketing has decayed into a race to the bottom, separating brands from their greatest source of demand: their own credibility and value. The unlevel playing field of Late Stage Digital (what promised a vast playground of tools and venues) has entrapped founder-led companies and the middle market in a devil’s bargain: outsource your credibility to GAM (Google, Amazon, Meta) and trust they will bring the customers. Brands can today emerge from this entrapment with a true connection to the customer, activated by first-party data and community, and re-positioned to lead in the emerging economy that will dismiss GAM’s hegemony to the annals of history. We empower companies in the middle market to lead and co-create the emergence of a new economy: 1. Obsess about a singular vision of the customer that produces laser-focused strategy. 2. Pull away from the gravity of the big categories and build a custom community based on first-party data, driven by a distinct POV on their problem set and solutions. 3. Establish transactions of legendary value between you and that community such that they don’t see you as one option among many, but as a yes-or-no option. 4. Make the customer journey the one true “lead magnet” of your entire marketing operation. 5. Give-a-damn. Give-a-damn. By shifting culture from commodity to value, we release passion and engagement, the two most reliable factors for growth in the emerging economy.