Podcast Summary: Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty

Episode 243: I'm With The Brand (we, the customers), Part Five
Release Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Amanda Lee McCarty
Guests: Kim Christensen, Dustin Travis White

Overview:

This episode dives deep into the ways fashion and retail brands (specifically Urban Outfitters, but the discussion is broad) develop ideas of who their customer is, how this has evolved, and how digital marketing and data surveillance now shape branding, targeting, and pricing. Amanda explores the flawed assumptions brands make about their customers, the transition from understanding customers through research to relying on social media platforms’ data, the implications for both consumers and small businesses, and the disturbing rise of “surveillance pricing.” A significant part of the episode is an accessible, thorough conversation with digital marketing consultant Kim Christensen about how digital platforms know you better than anyone – including brands themselves.

Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. The Urban Outfitters Case Study:

Timeframe: [00:00 – 21:09]
Amanda’s personal account as a former Urban Outfitters (UO) employee and buyer frames a larger point about brands’ customer myths and realities.

Key Points:

• UO’s early 2000s peak: products like “heinous” mesh shoes, ironic tees, humping dogs shirts, and the “beef curtains” (wide-leg gaucho pants) – all bestsellers [00:00].
• UO’s customer in the company’s own mythology: “22-29, creative, urban dweller, lives in a small apartment, early adopter, artsy, world traveler.”
• The actual UO customer: teenagers and tweens, living at home, shopping with parents’ money, not trend leaders but followers, and they age out of the brand [14:19].
• The company's repeated internal crisis: “Is Urban Outfitters still cool?” led to desperate brainstorming and “hipster task forces” [05:46].
• Disconnect between branding/product decisions and store reality:

  “Really, something that I knew from working in the store… The real customer, the core customer actually spending money at Urban Outfitters was very different.”
  – Amanda Lee McCarty [15:04]

• Result: over-invested in trend-forward, expensive product that didn’t fit the lives or budgets of the actual buyers.

2. The Double-Edged Sword of Aspiration vs. Reality

Timeframe: [21:09 – 25:46]

• Brands often focus on an “aspirational customer” or “muse” – someone they wish to attract, not their real revenue driver.
• Amanda recalls never seeing the “target” customer shopping, only the actual customers seldom profiled or acknowledged.
• Corporate taboos: Not allowed to discuss customer reality or blame externalities (like weather) for poor sales.

Notable Quote:

“We were losing money on this aspirational customer… building our whole business around this person who didn’t exist—or at least didn’t exist in the store—versus the actual person showing up to buy the stuff. That was a problem.”
— Amanda, [23:36]

3. How Brands Historically Understood Their Customers

Timeframe: [25:46 – 37:16]

• Past reliance on “monoculture” and minimal segmentation: before e-commerce, people shopped what was available.
• Emotional Branding (via Marc Gobé’s book): the rise of brands creating an “emotional connection” to drive loyalty [28:00].
• The importance of understanding where customers live, what they value, and who else gets a “share of wallet” [31:10].
• Amanda’s teaching of small business owners: customer profiling homework is essential, and “everyone” is NOT your customer.
• The Amazon myth: almost “for everyone” but actually excludes major segments for reasons from ethics to lack of Internet access [40:32].
• Target’s recent DEI miscalculation is highlighted as a “blown up in their face” example of misunderstanding core customers [42:38].

Notable Quote:

“There is no business where everyone is the customer.”
— Kim Christensen [37:19]

4. The Modern Datastream: Data, Privacy, and Digital Marketing

Timeframe: [63:32 – 112:00]
With Amanda and digital marketing consultant Kim Christensen, a detailed, accessible explanation of how digital platforms now know consumers better than the brands themselves.

The Meta Machine:

• Meta knows everything: Clicks, hovers, device used, time of day, mood, shopping intent, even relationships (via DM/friends/follows), thanks to Meta pixel tracking across the web [68:11].
• Brands upload customer lists: Data from purchases—including something as granular as who bought a “Hello Kitty sweatshirt”—is uploaded and used to build “lookalike audiences” for targeting [72:55].
• Granularity has changed: Meta has reduced some targeting after lawsuits/regulation (especially around health & sensitive data), but still highly targeted by age, gender, location, interest, online behavior, even estimated income by zip code [78:28].
• Algorithmic targeting: Brand doesn’t know the “why”—Meta’s AI just finds new customers by pattern, not by conscious researcher or marketer effort [87:06].
• Small brands benefit, but dependency grows: Meta ads can be the lifeline for small brands crowded out by big players, but now all brands are dependent on Meta/TikTok/Shopify/Amazon’s data “walled gardens” [77:51].

Memorable Moments:

• “Meta knows you better than you know yourself.” — Kim Christensen [68:11]
• “You don’t necessarily always pick your customer. It’s really Meta AI that does it, and it’s based on who it will predict will actually buy.” — Kim [88:37]

Surveillance & Price Personalization:

• Surveillance Pricing / Personalized Pricing: When online retailers adjust prices based on your data—location, purchase history, even what occasion you’re browsing for (e.g., funeral flights cost more) [114:57].
• Big travel sites, airlines, retailers adjusting prices not just for market demand but your individual signals—affluent zip code, Mac user, browsing behavior [116:04].
• Costs of accessing you as a customer are being baked into prices you pay.

Notable Quote:

“We are giving them our information for free… and we are then also, in a weird way, giving them even more money from our own pockets because companies have to account for the cost of marketing to us via our data in the prices of the products that we buy. And that means, well, this is where massive economic inequality comes from, right?”
— Amanda [112:36]

5. How to Respond: Takeaways and Advice

Timeframe: [126:04 – end]

• “There are companies out there that know everything about you. Forget about emotional branding. This is like emotional surveillance, right?” — Amanda [126:04]
• Limited actions individuals can take: Use a VPN, clear cookies, disable ad personalization, avoid logging in via Facebook/Google, or ask friends to cross-check prices (with limitations) [124:57].
• Structural, policy-level change needed: advocates for regulation, acknowledges Europe’s regulatory lead, and calls on listeners to pressure lawmakers [126:18].
• The “rage, panic, frustration” of learning all this is normal—but the goal is to move from anger to action, knowledge, and solidarity.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Amanda’s nostalgia/critique for UO in the 2000s:
  “They probably cost the company, like, $1. They were 100% made in highly unethical conditions. I know this for a fact. And I would unpack them… they smelled like carcinogens.” [00:36]

• On the “hipster task force” to save UO:
  “I was chosen to be a part of this, like, hipster task force, possibly because I am really cool, or maybe just because I’d come from Portland—which was literally the coolest place anyone knew of back then.” [05:46]

• On the unreality of the aspirational customer:
  “All of us in buying and design and the art department… the customers in that hardbound book were all archetypes of our friends and acquaintances.” [11:02]

• On how brands are increasingly dependent on digital platforms:
  “Before the Internet and online shopping and social media, companies had to invest a lot of money and time into understanding who their customer was. Now, these days, they might be investing the same amount of money, but they don’t actually know anything about their customers because someone else… is handling it for them, without actually giving them access to the information.” [110:13]

• On algorithmic targeting:
  “It literally knows you better than you know yourself. It knows that you are shopping for a couch before you've even told your best friend.” — Kim [70:34]

• On persistent myths of universal customers:
  “There is no business where everyone is the customer.” — Kim [37:19]

• Amanda, closing frame:
  “With knowledge comes change. There is that first thing that happens after you get the knowledge, which is rage and panic and frustration... But the goal is to get to the next phase: How can I change it—how can I help others?” [129:54]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Urban Outfitters brand myth vs. reality:
  • [00:00] – [21:09]
• Aspirational customer & business misfires:
  • [21:09] – [25:46]
• Emotional branding & the monoculture era:
  • [25:46] – [37:16]
• Amazon, Target, customer not = everyone:
  • [40:32] – [46:28]
• How digital marketing works in 2025:
  • [63:32] – [112:00]
• Surveillance pricing explained:
  • [114:55] – [124:57]
• Advice for listeners, rage to action:
  • [126:04] – End

Final Takeaways

• Brands’ images of their core customers are often dated, aspirational, or downright imaginary, leading to flawed product and marketing decisions that are increasingly out of sync with reality.
• The data-driven present means consumers are no longer mystery shoppers; instead, platforms like Meta and TikTok know intimate details about habits, moods, and triggers—sometimes better than brands, often more than friends.
• Access to customers has become a commodity and cost that brands (especially small ones) must pay digital giants for—raising questions of autonomy, transparency, and sustainability.
• “Surveillance pricing” is a warning sign of the shifting power landscape: the more data you give, the less control you have, and the more vulnerable you are to subtle exploitation.
• The path forward is a mix of awareness, policy advocacy, and collective refusal to take branding and pricing at face value. It’s not about dropping out, but about getting from rage to effective, informed action.

For listeners who want practical steps:

• Understand that “free” digital services come at the cost of your data and targeted marketing.
• Use privacy-enhancing tools, support small brands consciously, advocate for regulation—and share what you learn.

Essential, rich listening for anyone who wears clothes—or shops online.