Hitmakers, Season 2

Ana Andjelic and Lee Maschmeyer
  • 5.0 (2)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

If a finance podcast married a culture podcast, you would get the Season 2 of Hitmakers. Each episode reveals the new logic that driving multiples, margins, and advantages before they appear on balance sheets. Over the course of this season, my co-host Lee Maschmeyer, the co-founder of transformation consultancy Collins, and I decode how cultural forces create market value: why Hermès is worth more than Ford, a far larger company; why Nvidia hired its first community manager; why collaborations became a staple of business; why merch is often more desirable than a brand’s core offering; and how cultural capital creates financial capital. andjelicaaa.substack.com

Episodes

  1. Popular culture is contradiction in terms

    FEB 11

    Popular culture is contradiction in terms

    Dame Vivienne Westwood once said, “Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it’s popular, it’s not culture.” In the 1980s, we had Air Jordans and Back to the Future. In the 1990s, it was grunge, Pretty Woman, Britney Spears. Iconic things have always been products of their moment. When the media was mass, culture was mass. When distribution was centralized, symbols were shared. That’s no longer true. Today, influence is fragmented. Taste is fragmented. Communities are fragmented. The geography of culture has collapsed—from mass movements to millions of micro-scenes. So how does culture move now? In this episode, we explore how algorithms reward both scale and specificity—and why pop culture is just a backdrop now. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    35 min
  2. What is next for merch?

    JAN 28

    What is next for merch?

    Is Millionaire Speedy a luxury bag or merch? What about the Balenciaga Maxi Pack? The term “merch” originally referred to items made for music fans, where items like t-shirts were sold on a band’s and musician’s tour. From music, merch spread to sports, film, gaming, art, fashion, design, travel, and entertainment. Merch’s original value has never been in the physical item itself–after all, a band shirt is just a tshirt, but in the social and cultural capital associated with it. Partly this stemmed from the fact that originally one could buy merch at concerts, thus signaling true allegiance to a cultural artifact. Thus, unintentionally, merch also operated on the concept of scarcity. This social and cultural capital made merch the opposite of a commodity. Commodities are interchangeable (who can tell the difference between a Polo and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt if it wasn’t for the logo?); merch was a unique expression of a specific time, place, community, and context. First streetwear brands, often run by music enthusiasts in the pre-e-ecommerce age, also operated on the same principle. The nature of merch changed as merch became commoditized in the early 1990s by Hot Topic, a chain store that gave access to band t-shirts to teenage mall rats. At the same time as streetwear became more important, it also turned merch into a commodity, which became even more ubiquitous with the rise of e-commerce. These developments removed the necessary friction that made merch a valuable cultural symbol. In the past, a person wearing a Nirvana t-shirt was probably a fan of the band’s music, today no such guarantee exists (and many more shirts are sold). This often precludes one of the original purposes of merch, a signaling of belonging to a certain subculture. Still, the meaning of merch has not disappeared, but merely shifted. A person wearing a logoed Balenciaga tee is also signaling some kind of meaning, as is the person wearing one with the logo of A24, the trendy film production company or H&M’s infamous “Dimes Square” tshirt. The need for signaling through one’s possessions has not gone away, but, in the world of social media, increased. Recently, we’ve heard: Merch is a status symbol. Merch is a subgenre. Merch is a style statement. Merch is an identity marker. Merch is past its peak. But all those takes miss the reality that merch has become big business. What used to live on the edges of culture has moved to the center of the retail economy. The side show has become the main act. In this episode, we explore what happens when consumers learn to buy everything as merch — and why the future of merch is niche, secret and indecipherable to the mainstream. Listen to our conversation above, or on iTunes, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    50 min
  3. What makes a brand iconic

    JAN 14

    What makes a brand iconic

    Iconic brands are built on products people obsess over.Think Levi’s 501s. Ray-Ban sunglasses. Nike Air Force 1. The Big Mac. Each of these products is a creative expression first—a shape, a taste, a texture, a ritual. Their form and function don’t just sell units; they influence culture, spark subcultures, and create fandoms. This is where real brand creativity lives. Not in messaging—but in the product itself. When products are designed with cultural intent, innovation becomes identity. The product stops being what you sell and starts becoming what you stand for. In this episode, we explore how products become iconic. Listen to our conversation above, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 4m
  4. Weird on purpose

    12/31/2025

    Weird on purpose

    How many people actually saw It Was Just an Accident, this year’s winner at the Cannes Film Festival? And how many people even heard of it? That gap tells you something important about culture today. Culture fragments faster than it consolidates. Mass attention is gone. Cultural currency no longer comes from scale—it comes from attention. And attention is scarce, fleeting, and brutally competitive. So how do you earn attention in a fragmented world? It’s captured by friction—inversions, oddities, contradictions, and coincidences already simmering in society. The brands that win don’t smooth edges over. They sharpen them. In this episode, we explore how to use friction to capture attention. Listen on above, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m
  5. Everybody is talking about world-building, nobody is doing it

    12/17/2025

    Everybody is talking about world-building, nobody is doing it

    Everyone knows what the Magic Kingdom is. And yet almost no brand in history has been able to replicate anything like it. Because world-building sounds simple. It isn’t. There are product worlds born from the thing itself. Merchandise worlds built through collections. Aesthetic worlds defined by a visual language. Fan worlds powered by community. And each one behaves differently. The mistake is treating world-building as a single strategy. Where you begin—product, fandom, or aesthetics—determines the physics of the world you can build: its growth logic, its commercial engine, and the operating model required to sustain it. Today, we map those worlds—and the companies that build them well. Welcome to Season 2 of Hitmakers—the show that tracks how culture moves margins, multiples, and market cap. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 13m
  6. Trend Makers vs. Taste Makers

    12/10/2025

    Trend Makers vs. Taste Makers

    Why does Louis Vuitton cycle through creative directors like fashion seasons—is that a weakness or a strategy? And how can Hermès go 42 years without launching a single new product yet be worth more than the entire LVMH group? Because one behaves like a trendmaker. The other behaves like a tastemaker. Is one better? That depends on what you believe creates value. In this episode, we’re exploring that tension. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 4m
  7. Why we will never tire of collaborations

    11/26/2025

    Why we will never tire of collaborations

    Why do brands collaborate with each other? What differentiates a good collaboration from a bad one? Have we reached collaboration fatigue? And, what is next for collaborations? Today, we reveal how to elevate collaborations from tactics to strategies. We put collaborations in context of IP, world-building, fandoms, and a brand’s cultural expansion and market growth. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    56 min
  8. Live with Ana Andjelic

    11/07/2025

    Live with Ana Andjelic

    Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min
  9. CMOs as showrunners

    11/05/2025

    CMOs as showrunners

    Why are AI brands opening cafés? Why does MiuMiu have a book club? Why does A24, a movie studio, have a membership club, a publishing arm, and now its own theater and bar? It’s not random. It’s a new operating model. And the best CMOs already know it. They’re not running marketing departments. They’re running production studios — orchestrating content, products, experiences, and collaborators like a showrunner builds a world. Today, we unpack why every business is now show business, why the modern CMO isn’t a marketer, but a showrunner, and what are the hidden formulas behind these operations. Welcome to the Season 2 of Hitmakers — the show that tracks how culture moves margins, multiples, and market cap. Find Hitmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple podcasts. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    58 min
  10. Live with Ana Andjelic

    10/31/2025

    Live with Ana Andjelic

    Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min
  11. How cultural capital becomes financial capital

    10/22/2025

    How cultural capital becomes financial capital

    In the first episode of the Season 2 of Hitmakers, my co-host Lee Maschmeyer, co-founder of a transformation consultancy Collins, and I look at moments where cultural capital turns into financial capital. We break down why Labubu is still printing money — long after most thought its hype had peaked; why Hailey Bieber’s Rhode became a $600 million brand almost overnight; and why bootleg Gucci is hotter business than Gucci itself. Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    54 min
  12. Live with Ana Andjelic

    10/16/2025

    Live with Ana Andjelic

    Get full access to The Sociology of Business at andjelicaaa.substack.com/subscribe

    29 min
  • 12 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

If a finance podcast married a culture podcast, you would get the Season 2 of Hitmakers. Each episode reveals the new logic that driving multiples, margins, and advantages before they appear on balance sheets. Over the course of this season, my co-host Lee Maschmeyer, the co-founder of transformation consultancy Collins, and I decode how cultural forces create market value: why Hermès is worth more than Ford, a far larger company; why Nvidia hired its first community manager; why collaborations became a staple of business; why merch is often more desirable than a brand’s core offering; and how cultural capital creates financial capital. andjelicaaa.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ana Andjelic and Lee Maschmeyer
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    12
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ana Andjelic
  • Show Website
    Hitmakers, Season 2

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