The Anatomy of Craving, or What All That Brand Money Isn’t Buying

Every year, brands pour fortunes into nostalgia — the polar bears, the holiday trucks, the Santa who basically works for Coca-Cola. The theory is that feeling is what sells the drink. So we tested it. Using Constellations, we asked 467 participants to react to images based on what made them actually crave a Coke, and the results were unkind to the marketing budget: the winners weren’t the beloved icons or the multimillion-dollar sentiment. They were photographs of cold, wet, in-motion liquid — condensation on glass, a bottle at the lips. It turns out people don’t crave the brand. They crave the drink. Which raises an uncomfortable question about how much of that nostalgia spend is buying affection no one asked to feel.

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When We Look at Robots, What Are We Really Seeing?

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For July 4th, we explored what “American” looks like in 2025—revealing shared civic values through visual perception mapping.

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