WHY YOU SHOULD CARE:

The drop trend exploded out of the Japanese streetwear scene decades ago. Here in the U.S., Supreme achieved cult status by engaging in a weekly drop-only strategy. But these days, just about every type of consumer brand is dipping its toe into drops, from high fashion to burgers, toothbrushes to tacos, leggings to sandals. Even Sweetgreen--purveyor of millennial-friendly salads--enlisted culinary wizard Dan Barber for a recent “squash drop” (seriously).

THE CONTEXT:

Like all trends, drops don’t exist in a vacuum. I see drops as part of a much bigger story about our need-it-now culture, the specific ways information moves today thanks to the Internet and social platforms, and the power-shift from brands to influencers (also thanks to the Internet and social platforms).

So what do I mean, exactly?

Drops fulfill our our deepest need-it-now urges.

It’s not news that we’re obsessed with what’s new. That's capitalism 101, obvi. What’s new is the speed at which we’re able to access all this new stuff. Take Fashion Nova, the decade-old company that has recently blown up thanks to its knock-offs of, say, Kardashian looks, which it produces in a rapid-fire process sometimes less than 24 hours after they debut on the red carpet, for a fraction of the price (case in point: their version of Kylie Jenner’s birthday outfit, which went for $34.99). Of course, Fashion Nova is not the first fast-fashion retailer to copy celebrity looks (nor will it be the last) but it is the first to be blatantly open about the fact that they're doing it. Why is this important? Because that openness takes for granted our collective understanding that we can get anything, at any time--even the things that we previously would've considered unattainable. And increasingly, we don’t even need to shell out that much cash to get it.

Drops mimic the ways information moves today.

Drops are often the product of collaborations (“collabs”) between brands and influencers (case in point: Nike’s massively popular 2017 drops with streetwear god Virgil Abloh). This isn’t a coincidence. Collabs bring together disparate audiences and essentially help information jump from one audience segment to another. If the collab strikes the right note--as was the case with Abloh's--it can be a driving force behind virality. So, drops are yet another example of the real world mimicking the logic of the virtual world, creating one giant feedback loop that drives growth (and ideally sales).

 

Influencers have more power than brands, and drops are an expression of that.

 

In case you hadn’t noticed, influencers increasingly have as much or more clout than brands, due to the fact that they often have much bigger audiences than brands (and often connote a level of authenticity and cool that brands never can). So influencers often get to call the shots with drops. What’s more, influencers are increasingly rolling out their own drops direct to their followers, cutting out the brand entirely (this is evidently how Kylie Jenner built her $900-million fortune).

THE VERDICT:

Drops aren’t going anywhere. If anything, they’re just proliferating in different forms. I’m now seeing drops baked into the business models of fast-growing apps like GOAT (which has made the sneaker drop experience frictionless through timed sales); direct-to-consumer companies like Everlane (which introduces a new item from its sustainable collection weekly) as well as newly-launched apps like NTWRK (billed as QVC meets Comic Con), which drops live shoppable collaborations daily. Subscription boxes like Fab Fit Fun are also part of this movement--dropping a fresh bounty of goodies in subscribers’ mailboxes four times a year. Then there are apps like Told.ly (the next HQ Trivia, featuring daily timed challenges you can win cash for participating in) which I see as a close cousin of drops. In short, drops are anything but a trend. They're a new modality of consumption destined to become part of every consumer-facing brand’s standard playbook. Brands that treat drops as a trend rather than a fundamental shift in the way we consume are destined to miss this all-important moment.