A CEO was caught on camera at a rock concert recently, enthusiastically embracing a female colleague from his company. The irony was the band’s name was Coldplay, though the scene was anything but a cold one. In today’s era, where boardrooms obsess over “appropriate behaviour” while failing to tell authentic stories, the footage spread faster than any brand strategy.

We rarely look down. And yet, the floors beneath us are the silent witnesses to our histories, the secret stages where power, devotion, and human drama unfold. They are more than stone, wood, or marble; they are storytellers, holding the echo of footsteps that have shaped empires, sanctuaries, and sacred rituals.

We’re not online anymore. We’re on-leash. We’re in touch with everyone, but in contact with no one. That thought came to me recently as I caught myself standing, motionless, at the kitchen bench, phone in hand, scrolling through something I can’t even remember now. I wasn’t online; I was tethered. A dog on a lead, sniffing every post.

Welcome to the Beige Age. A world where even the shop assistants, dressed in tonal linen and glued to their phones, seem like hired extras in a minimalist theatre production titled Aisle of Numb.

While the West reminisces about glory days long gone, Vietnam has been quietly constructing the next chapter. Fifty years since the end of the "American War," they're done being the world’s factory. Vietnam’s making more than products. They're making their own brands, their own future — and soon, it’ll be our turn to follow. They’ve been invincible for millennia, and now, they're putting it to work.

Denis Diderot, the 18th-century French philosopher, writer, and encyclopaedist, might seem an unexpected figure to credit with shaping modern market research. However, his famous essay Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown (1769) offers a strikingly prescient analysis of consumer behaviour and brand association.