I just spent the week in Anaheim, CA - at Expo West. It was my first time at Expo and - wow - what an experience.

If you’re in the consumer space at large, you should be there. If you’re in CPG, attending should be a non-negotiable.

If you’re NYC-based or will be in NYC in the near future, and want to come by our office in Dumbo, please respond to this email or send me a note at [email protected]. We’d love to host you for a meeting.

First time reading the New Edition Newsletter?

👋 Hey, I’m Brandon Blum. I’m the Founder and Managing Partner at New Edition - a Brooklyn-based creative agency that creates winning creative for emerging consumer brands.

In this weekend's newsletter, what an brand’s Amazon listing, a Brooklyn garden center, and my own experience building For Others all have in common — and what it means for you.

BUT FIRST, HERE ARE A FEW UPCOMING NEW EDITION EVENTS TO SIGN UP FOR …

📅 Subscribe to New Edition Events Calendar here.

​​​Want to partner on an event? Respond directly to this email and let’s chat.

I WAS ON A CALL THIS WEEK WITH A GUY NAMED BLAKE.

He and his business partner had just locked in exclusive seller rights on Amazon for a medical-grade gel toe pad brand. Right now, that brand does $22K a month across 5–10 different sellers. Blake is about to own all of it.

So I asked him: would you buy this product based on the current listing?

His answer: “I would never buy anything off this.”

Then he pulled up the category’s top seller — same product, same price point. That competitor does $1 million a month on Amazon.

The difference? The product photography. The infographics. The story the creative tells.

That’s a $978K gap — and it’s almost entirely a creative / product imagery problem.

👇 FREE AD CREATIVE TO THOSE WHO READ THIS NEWSLETTER 👇

I SEE THIS ALL THE TIME...

Brands with genuinely good products losing to competitors — not because of an inferior product, but because the other guy just … looks better.

On Amazon, your product listing is your store.

The only thing doing the selling is the image, the copy, and the visual story you're telling.

The market leader Blake showed me doesn't just sell a gel toe pad. They’re selling a lifestyle. Adult women living better.

That reframe — from medical product to lifestyle brand — is pure creative strategy worth nearly a million dollars a month over their closest competitor.

I've seen this firsthand. When building For Others, we made a deliberate decision to over-invest in product photography early on.

It wasn't cheap or fast — but conversion rates went up almost immediately. Better images made people trust the brand enough to buy.

YOU CAN’T RUN ADS TO A BAD SITE, EITHER.

I had another call this week — this time with the marketing manager of a Brooklyn garden center.

She said something that stuck:

“We talked about running ads on the old site and it was like… why are we bringing people here?”

No quality landing pages. Messy inventory. No clear way to collect emails. They sat on paid ads until the house was in order — and that’s the right call.

The principle is the same whether you’re on Amazon, Shopify, or Meta: the creative can only perform as well as the destination it’s pointing to.

Bad photos on a good site. Good ads to a bad page. Either way, it’s not going to work.

HERE ARE THREE COMMON PAIN POINTS I’M HEARING ON SALES CALLS THESE LAST FEW WEEKS

1. No content assets to work with. “Photography has always been an ongoing pain point” is something I hear constantly. You can’t build strong ads or listings on a foundation of weak visuals.

2. Unclear customer persona(s). One founder I spoke with launched in the US market targeting “everyone” — and spent a full year course-correcting. The brands that win fast are the ones who know exactly who they’re talking to before they spend a dollar on creative.

3. Organic vs. paid confusion. Multiple early-stage brands I spoke with are stuck debating whether to start posting organically or go straight to paid. Here’s my take: start organic to learn what resonates, but don’t wait on it. The longer you delay getting something into market, the longer the feedback loop takes.

IF YOU’VE BEEN WAITING TO CREATE ADS BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START

Use the prompt below to generate a 30–40 second UGC-based ad script in minutes. Throw this into your chatbot of choice.

Concept: [a person experiencing the exact problem your product solves]

Target audience: [age, gender, psychographics]

Pain points: [be specific — vague pain points make vague ads]

Rules: don’t mention the brand or product until at least 50% into the script. Give me 5 punchy hooks.

Or check out this blog post from a few weeks ago: This Template Will Get You 80% of the Way Towards A Winning Ad Creative

The goal is to get something into market. Imperfect creative that’s live beats perfect creative that never ships.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

IN SUMMARY

If any of this hits close to home — whether it’s weak Amazon creative, a persona you haven’t nailed yet, or a content bank that’s basically empty — reply to this email or email me ([email protected]).

Happy to take a look at what you’ve got.

Until next week ✌️

Brandon Blum