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As the U.S. and China battle over technology, tariffs, and global influence, one question still looms for Europeans: what is Europes edge? That was the question recently posed by 21st Century, a Copenhagen-based think tank that collaborates with policymakers and thought leaders to explore the future of Europe. According to Johanna Fabrin, managing director and partner at 21st Century, the answer lies in the EUs regulatory backbonethink GDPR-level data protection, rigorous environmental standards, and foodsafety rules. From a consumer perspective, knowing that if something is made in Europe, there will not be arsenic in it, there’s that trust that is important, she says. To convey that trust, the team has proposed a Made in Europe label that would signal quality, safety, and adherence to European standards. Similar to the CE label, which signifies that a product meets EU health, safety, and environmental protections, companies could display it on products to help consumers make informed decisions. The ultimate goal? To elevate the European brand as one that is trusted. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] ‘Debrandifying’ the label Made in Europe was developed in collaboration with British studio Dada. But it is more than a labelits a certification. “A symbol of trust,” says Alice Shaughnessy, head of operations at Dada. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] Shaughnessys team worked hard to “debrandify” the design so it reads less like a corporate logo and more like a stamp of approval. They cycled through dozens of proposalsfrom a wordmark spelling out “EUR” to the words “Made in Europe” set into a circlebefore landing on twelve stars arranged in the shape of a lowercase “e”. [Images: courtesy Dada Projects] By referencing the quintessential European symbol found on the EU flag, the design creates a clear association with the European institution. It conveys clout while remaining instantly recognizable. “It was important for us to be able to sit within that hall of great European design in some small way,” says Shaughnessy. Like all initiatives developed by 21st Century, the label is intended as a blueprint that sparks conversation. The team has built a “living ecosystem” of use cases that show how the label could integrate into daily lifefrom a simple logo on a fruit sticker to an embossed mark on the side of a leather chair. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] The label was designed to pair with Digital Product Passportsa QR code the EU will require by 2027 for categories like batteries, textiles, electronics, and furniture. Eventually, it could subsume existing certifications like CE, acting as an umbrella label that is relatable and easy for consumers to understand. Instead of decoding what B-Corp or CE means, you would see ‘Made in Europe’ and immediately associate it with European values like sustainability, ethical production, and consumer protection. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] Building on a momentum This isnt the first time the idea of a European made in label has surfaced. Back in 2014, the European Parliament backed a proposal for source-country labeling, including a voluntary Made in the EU tag. But the proposal stalled due to political resistance and fragmented enforcement. Now, Fabrin and Shaughnessy argue, the conditions are different. For one, Europes leverage on the geopolitical stage is rising: Russias war on Ukraine has renewed interest from candidate countries like Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine; Brexit has made the EU passport all the more desirable; and growing disillusionment with the American brand has made some companies turn to the EU for answers. Fabrin says she is hearing it firsthand as some IT consultants ask for CRMs based in Europe because of GDPR regulations. This kind of momentum usually motivates the European Commission to act quite quickly, she says. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] The biggest hurdle may be adoption: smaller businesses will need incentives to retrofit supply chains for this label. But 21st Europes vision is not to wait for lawits to catalyze a movement. Countries like Canada and Denmark have already started to take action with their own versions of made in labels. If large corporations like, say, Lego, were to adopt the mark voluntarily, it could inspire smaller companies to think about the label as a positioning exercise. [Were] thinking about the European brand as a long-term investment, says Fabrin, and a Made in Europe label is one contributor to building that brand.
Category:
E-Commerce
“Parasocial” is the Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year. That feeling that you and Harry Styles would instantly become friends if you ever bumped into each other? Yes, thats parasocial. The term dates back to 1956, coined by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl to describe how TV watchers formed para-social relationships with those on their screen. The word has taken on even greater meaning in the age of social media, where we have unparalleled access to the lives of influencers, online personalities, and celebrities via phones. Take Taylor Swift and Travis Kelces engagement. The news triggered mass hysteria online, with many displaying genuine raw emotion for a couple theyve never even met. Or British singer Lily Allen, whose latest album West End Girl details a breakup and sparked a parasocial interest in her love life, according to the Cambridge Dictionary. Its not just celebrities. This year, the dictionary noted a surge in those looking up the word after the Youtube star IShowSpeed blocked an obsessive fan, identified as his “number 1 parasocial. A number of popular female streamers have spoken publicly about dealing with stalking, some resorting to hiring security while navigating online fame. Oftentimes these parasocial relationships are built unintentionally. After spending so many hours consuming content from influencers and content creators, its only natural that fans feel a sense of kinship and emotional attachment, even if its one-sided. So strong are some of these parasocial ties, a 2024 study revealed that parasocial relationships with YouTubers more effectively filled emotional needs than relationships with “real” acquaintances or colleagues. However, it can bleed into something darker. Add artificial intelligence into the mix and things get even more complex. Many confide in AI tools like ChatGPT as they would friends or romantic partners. By September of 2025, the Cambridge Dictionary definition of parasocial was updated to include the possibility of a relationship with an artificial intelligence. Colin McIntosh, Cambridge Dictionarys chief editor, said the word captures the zeitgeist of 2025, as the publics fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles continues to reach new heights. He noted in a statement: Its interesting from a language point of view because it has made the transition from an academic term to one used by ordinary people in their social media posts. The other words shortlisted this year were pseudonymization, which spiked in interest this year in relation to discussions around protecting personal data. Also memeify as it relates to internet culture. The dictionary added 6,000 new words this year, including internet neologisms like delulu, skibidi and tradwife. Looking ahead, words to watch include glazing, vibey, bias, breathwork, and doomspending.”
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E-Commerce
In 2021, Prada created Candy, an influencer designed to sell perfume. With an appearance rendered using then-state-of-the-art tools, Candys not-quite-real vibe felt straight out of the Silicon (Uncanny) Valley. It was peppy, but cartoonlike, and it was hard to see how Candy could sell perfume it could never smell. Since then, technologies have greatly improved. A brand can now render any persona with a product, create movies with that model persona animated in a realistic way, and show them demonstrating products. By creating their own influencers, brands can keep their advertising budgets down and generate profits. Its possible that the virtual influencers will come for even more human-influencer jobs as the financial opportunities continue to grow. Long before the internet, the idea of influencing existed as sales. People have sold things to others since currency began, and while it takes labor, time, and effort to persuade others to buy what one is selling, different types of techniques and tactics emerged over the years to varying degrees of success. The rise of social media channels such as Facebook, X, Pinterest, and especially Instagram, enabled broader reach for those unable to afford network advertising. As a result of this shift, brands began to outsource marketing to people using these models to share and demonstrate their products and services through brand partnerships. In a short time, the influencer industry has exploded in growth: The global influencer marketing platform market size is set to grow from around $23.6 billion this year to roughly $70.9 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. Influencing has become an aspirational profession for one in three people ages 18 to 30and for those who succeed, a substantial income awaits.Influencers are successful due to their relatability, charm, resonance, and the ways they represent a lifestyle or objects that others wish to emulate, replicate, or possess. Martha Stewart, an early influencer, started with books before harnessing television and print media to convince thousands that they could also realize the fantasy that she portrayed. Her partnerships with Target, Macys, QVC, and Kohler, brought her endorsements of products, tools, and decorations, into homes, creating a multichannel, multisensory impressionand earned her a $400 million fortune. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Brooke Shields may not invent what they sell, but they successfully promote products to their fans, building upon the parasocial (one-sided) relationships that fans project onto them. Influencing has gotten increasingly personal over time, with Influencers extending their reach to give us peeks into their homes and lives. But influencers can also be regular people with the attributes and willingness to invite their followers into their lives. Influencers with no celebrity status, but the ability to be persuasive salespeople for brands, are plentiful. Virtual influencers already exist with varying degrees of success and popularity, ranging from animated characters to realistically modeled personas. With the kind of money that is up for grabs, some businesses are creating AI personas or are considering applying these technologies to replace human influencers to maximize profits. Or will they? A sense of agency is what defines successful human influencers. We dont know what they are going to do, or how they are going to do itand that novelty is appealing. Part of what attracts us to influencers are their stories, their lived experiences, and their families. These, in turn, create a brand message that attracts endorsements and piques our interest. Without a story and background, an influencer’s sponsored post is just an ad similar to any other. There is, of course, a price to being an influencer. Megs Mahoney Dusil is the co-owner of the Purse Forum, a premier destination for handbag, jewelry, and brand communities. In The Price of Influence: When Your Life Becomes Your Brand, Dunsil reflects on 20 years of being influential, observing that for her, kids and tragedy were the highest performing topics for platform traffic. She describes the performative aspect of being an influencer as emotional labor in disguise, a tightrope of constant negotiation between the person you are and the persona you project. Good or bad, Dusils realization may pave the way for humans and AI to form influencer partnerships, where their demonstrations and emotional connections are combined with software tools and renderings to provide a quasi-real experience. Human influencers could keep their profits (and their privacy), by using software like Synthesia, Vidyard, Rephrase AI, Adobe Substance 3D, and others to generate facsimiles of themselves, without having to reveal all. They could also benefit from the cost savings of realistic software tools, too, saving money and time on travel by creating the environment they present in a home studio. Time will tell if virtual influencers will make a difference as to how we are persuaded. We already see influencers through mediated channels, so it wont be that different for us to have a window into the fantasy of a digitally realized influencer hearth, rather than their actual home. But will we be comfortable buying products sold to us by beings that arent real? We might. We already have been acclimated to fantasy advertising campaigns. This would just circle us back to celebrity territory where the parasocial relationships we have with the personas selling us things, are those one-sided ones that we project onto them, and are not real. As with most jobs lately, its likely that AI will come for influencers, but with some savvy vibe-coding, influencers may be able to retain their brand partnerships, privacy, and income.
Category:
E-Commerce
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