20/05/25 – BY APRIL BUTTEN
The desire curve: How brand timing triggers obsession
Launches don’t fail because they’re boring. They fail because they’re misaligned.
The world feels wired right now. We’re teetering between tech euphoria and existential fatigue. One half of your feed is screaming about AI breakthroughs. The other is warning you about a civilisational collapse. Governments are fracturing, algorithms are mutating, and even the influencers seem tired.
So when a brand tries to slide into this mess with a cheerful product drop and a few polished reels, it’s no wonder it gets ignored. It’s not the creative. It’s not even the product. It’s emotional timing. And most brands are completely misreading the room.
Launches don’t fail because they’re boring. They fail because they’re misaligned.
We’re not living in predictable seasons anymore. We’re living in emotional weather systems. One day it’s optimism. The next it’s information overload. If you want your audience to care, your brand has to feel like it belongs to the moment they’re in.
This is where the Desire Curve comes in. Not as a funnel or a campaign chart. But as a tool for understanding how anticipation builds. Not through repetition. But through emotional relevance.
When a brand lands with power, it’s rarely about the volume of promotion. It’s about timing the story to the underlying tension. What are people craving but not articulating yet? What are they exhausted by? What are they secretly hoping someone will solve?
Look at Telfar. They didn’t just sell out because of hype. They turned the scarcity model on its head at a moment when people were questioning access and equity in fashion. Their Bag Security Program didn’t just feel generous. It felt political. And it met the cultural temperature with precision.
Or take Jacquemus. Every campaign drop doesn’t just feel stylish. It feels cinematic. And more importantly, it feels like a shift. The lavender fields, the architectural landscapes, the orchestration of whimsy during years of emotional austerity. They weren’t just beautiful. They were context-aware.
When a brand gets timing right, the result isn’t just sales. It’s emotional momentum. The kind that makes people talk about your launch at dinner. Send the link to a friend. Screenshot it not because they need it, but because something in them said “yes, this.”
You don’t get that from checking off a Q3 launch date. You get that from asking harder questions:
Where is our audience emotionally right now? What are they avoiding, and what are they ready to embrace? What does the world feel like today, and what could we offer that adds to it?
Product-market fit isn’t just a startup term. It’s a human one. Because people don’t buy based on logic. They buy when something feels like the right next step. Like it was made with the same clarity they’ve been craving. That’s the moment a product stops being a thing, and becomes a signal.
That’s the peak of the Desire Curve. Not demand. Not clicks. But a moment of alignment that feels both personal and inevitable.
And when you hit it, you don’t need to shout. The world leans in on its own.