Chaos Has a Season (and It’s Coming Fast 😅)

Every November, DTC Twitter dusts off the same greatest hits:

“How to write eye-catching BFCM emails!”
“1001 discount strategies for 2025!”
“Urgency hacks that actually work!”

Kinda makes me giggle. 😅 We act like BFCM is some exotic new ritual that requires fresh hacks every year… when in reality, the holiday always runs on the same engine: stressed, broke, excited, irrational shoppers.

The season itself doesn’t change…but the customers do.

And that’s the part most marketers miss.

When it comes to BFCM, I think most brands assume they’re competing against other brands. Which is entirely wrong.

You’re not really competing with other brands. You’re competing against your customer’s brain.

And the “consumer brain” in 2025 doesn’t behave the way it did in 2020, or even 2022. Inflation, AI, TikTok, political unrest… our collective neural wiring has been completely rewired from the ground up in the last few years.

So if you’re drafting a BFCM offer and you haven’t updated your playbook to include what changed with the consumers, you’re essentially rolling out VHS tapes in the age of Netflix.

That’s why this week’s newsletter isn’t “another list of BFCM tips.”

It’s the 5 biggest behavioral science shifts you need to know before you put pen to paper, copy to email, or image to ad.

Let’s start with the first…and maybe the weirdest.

🏦 Saving Is the New Spending

Remember “revenge spending” after lockdowns? Basically everyone broke out of their quarantined homes and sprinted to Sephora, determined to get their $500 worth of retail therapy in person.

Those were the gold rush days for anyone selling products both on and offline but studies are finding that this “revenge spending” behavior isn’t just calming down…it’s backsliding.

Welcome to the new wonderful world of revenge saving.

Yep. Americans are now flexing their financial discipline like it’s designer. The same thrill once tied to a Gucci belt is now tied to a “high-yield savings account.”

The Science Behind This

According to a recent study by MarketWatch:

• 40% of Americans say they’re worried about emergency funds, and 50% are actively boosting savings.

• Savings rates in the U.S. quietly crept up this year: 4.1% in January → 4.9% by April. That’s a seismic shift in collective behavior.

• Forbes calls it “the new trend in personal finance,” and Investopedia is calling it as a “post-pandemic correction” — people woke up to the fragility of indulgence and started hoarding stability.

In other words: people now brag about not spending money.

This is the part where we all laugh-cry together 😂 😭 :

• Instead of flexing a Tesla lease, people are flexing their Ally Bank log-in.

• Instead of “new year, new bag,” it’s “new year, new 6-month CD.”

The humble brag is no longer a vacation in Greece. It’s “I just maxed out my Roth IRA contribution.”

(Imagine explaining that to 2021 you. 😀)

What This Means for BFCM

If your BFCM offer is framed as treat yourself, you’re already fighting uphill. The cultural current has shifted, and we need to shift right along with it!

People want offers that feel like future-proofing, not indulgence. That doesn’t mean no one wants to spend money. It means they want to feel smart while spending. They want to feel like their purchase is shielding them from chaos, not adding to it.

The offer type matters, too. Bundles, pre-paid plans, “stock-up-and-save” deals all align with the revenge-saving mindset.

This year, a 3-pack might outperform a 1-click splurge because it feels responsible.

• In 2021, identity was tied to indulgence: “I’m free, I can travel, I can splurge.”

• In 2025, identity is tied to discipline: “I’m smart, I’m secure, I’m prepared.”

If your brand doesn’t tap into that identity, your 40% off will look like everyone else’s 40% off…which we definitely don’t want.

And here’s the most interesting part: saving isn’t the only identity flip happening this year. The same “infrastructure” reframe is happening with mental health… and it’s about to change the way customers interpret offers, process urgency, and even the way they see your ads.

🧠 Mental Health = Infrastructure

Let’s rewind to 2010.

If you told a TV executive you wanted to produce a prime-time series about autism, eating disorders, and Alzheimer’s…they would’ve smiled politely, walked you to the door, and asked if you maybe wanted to try pitching a cooking show instead.

Fast forward to 2025:

PBS’s Healthy Minds with Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein is celebrating its 10th season and is now Emmy-nominated. Mental health professionals like Dr. Nicole LePera, Andrew Huberman, and many others are becoming flat out social media influencers, with millions of people following their socials.

Ten years ago, mental health was usually something people only prioritized after they struggled heavily with it. Today, it’s binge-watched on public television and is one of the main reasons for calling out of work.

The Science Behind This

That shift isn’t an accident. It’s behavioral science in motion.

• Research from the National Alliance on Mental Illness shows that more than 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year. Instead of being seen as rare “outliers,” these experiences are increasingly framed as part of everyday life.

• The fact that Healthy Minds is Emmy-nominated tells you something simple but massive: mental health content isn’t niche. It’s becoming mainstream desirable.

• When society treats something as infrastructure (integral to how society operates at a basic level), it gets woven into daily decision-making. Just like you’d fix your plumbing before it floods, people now see therapy, stress-relief products, or “mindset” purchases as preventive maintenance.

(Imagine explaining to your grandfather: “Yes, Grandpa, people are watching a show about eating disorders… and no, it’s not depressing. It’s Emmy-nominated. Also, I gotta run. My weighted blanket just arrived and I gotta snag it before my roommate does…”)

The glow-up of mental health is one of the wildest brand pivots of our time, and I’m here for it. ❤️ (The more we support each other inside and out, the better things get.)

What This Means for BFCM

Stress is baked into the holidays.

Your customers aren’t just buying to “get a good deal.” They’re buying to reduce the number of decisions they have to make in December, and to take a little mental break for themselves.

Your BFCM offer can (and should) lean into that psychological relief.

In 2025, mental ease is as valuable as money. But here’s where it gets really interesting…While customers crave ease around their mental health, they also crave risk when it comes to resources.

That’s the paradox of the season, and it’s about to explain why loss-framed buyers suddenly YOLO into big bundles when their wallets are hurting.

💸 Consumers Will YOLO When They Feel “Down”

Let’s talk about one of my favorite behavioral glitches: the reflection effect.

In plain English:

• When people are winning, they suddenly get cautious.

• When people are losing, they suddenly get reckless.

It’s why your buddy pulls his $200 profit out of DraftKings as soon as he gets it… but then bets the farm after a losing streak.

Or why crypto bros panic-sold after February’s breach, while institutions swooped in and bought the dip like it was a yard sale.

Our brains are allergic to steady logic…and it’s absolutely fascinating. 😅

The Science Behind This

The reflection effect was first mapped by Kahneman & Tversky under Prospect Theory (the OG behavioral finance bible).

• In gain mode, people are risk-averse: they protect their win.

• In loss mode, people are risk-seeking: they roll the dice to “get back to even.”

Here’s a great example from the finance world to help all of us have even more anxiety about this 😅 :

• Fidelity’s FBTC (Bitcoin fund): After one breach, retail investors pulled out in droves while institutions scooped the dip and made billions of dollars.

• Fidelity’s Ethereum ETP (FETH): After a 10.8% price drop, investors yanked out $156 million almost instantly.

• Leveraged crypto products (UXRP): People double down during downturns but exit early when they’re up.

The same brain that whispers “play it safe” when you’re ahead screams “spin the wheel!” when you’re behind.

Sounds weird, but that’s how the brain works. Humans are basically walking contradictions. It’s like the brain has a casino pit boss in charge of decision-making.

• “You’re up $200, sir! Please step away from the blackjack table…”

• “Dang, you’re down $200. You know what’ll fix this? Doubling down…”

Humans are the only species that treat financial loss like heartbreak and financial gain like a fragile baby bird.

What This Means for BFCM

This is the paradox you’ll see play out in November:

• Customers who feel behind financially are actually primed to go bigger with their purchases. They’re more open to all-in bundles, “stock up for the year” packages, and upsells.

• Customers who feel stable are more cautious. They’ll lean toward small, safe purchases (“let’s just grab one…”)

Either way, your copy should mirror the risk mood they’re in. Because if you pitch the wrong energy, you’re gonna be swimming against the current.

But here’s the kicker: even if you nail the offer type, people still don’t believe brands the way they used to, because let’s face it…AI has made almost everything unbelievable 😅

They don’t trust your promises.
They only trust what they can see.

Which is why the next shift might be the most important of all…

👀 Don’t Tell Me — Show Me

Here’s a dirty little secret about 2025…Nobody believes you anymore.

They’re ignoring your “best deal ever.”
They’re ignoring your “last chance” sale.
They’re ignoring your “we care about the customer” manifesto.

The internet trained us to roll our eyes at claims.

That’s why behavioral scientists are now treating AI like pigeons in a Skinner box: they study the behavior of AI, not its intentions.

The Science Behind This

A new framework called AI Agent Behavioral Science is changing pretty much everything we know about AI, including how we evaluate technology.

Instead of trying to crack open the black box of machine learning, researchers are saying: “forget what it’s “supposed” to do…let’s just watch what it actually does.” Here’s what they’re finding:

• Chen et al., 2025 → argued that AI should be studied like people: through observed choices, adaptations, and feedback loops.

• Related research shows embodied AI agents in VR can change human snack decisions just by how they behave in the environment. 🤯

In other words: in both AI and human worlds, feedback might show intent, but behavior is proof.

Sound familiar? Good, because this is exactly how customers treat brands now.

Marketers today are like toddlers who’ve been caught fibbing too many times:

• Toddlers: “This is my BEST drawing ever!” (…it’s a stick figure.)

• Marketers: “This is our BIGGEST discount of the year!” (…except you ran the same one last March.)

(This is by no means meant as an offense to toddlers or marketers, they’re both trying their best. 😅)

Customers have mom-vision. They squint, nod politely, and wait to see what you actually do before they decide what to do with you. It’s why everyone screenshots last year’s “lowest price ever” and cancels brands on Twitter.

Behavior is the new brand equity.

What This Means for BFCM

If you want to win this season, don’t tell people. Show them.

Finally, we get to the last and final shift we’re seeing from consumers.

And it’s a good one…

The Improv Brain – Flexibility Wins

If I had to summarize 2025 in one phrase, it would be: “We’re winging it.” 😅

Everywhere you look, humans are improvising.

• We improvise our work schedules (“9 to 5” is now “whenever Slack gets loud”).

• We improvise our diets (“A protein bar and coffee is technically lunch”).

• We improvise our shopping (“This influencer said lavender crocs are back…so here we are”).

When it comes to decision making, the brain is jazz, not classical music.

And during BFCM, that improvisation shows up as one thing: people want options, not orders.

The Science Behind This

When people feel constrained, they resist. When they feel flexible, they commit. The best way to work around this is:

• Diversify the rewards you offer. Even in gamification research, offering people choice of reward increases engagement by up to 40%.

• Keep it short and sweet. It’s not that people want infinite options (that causes overload). They want controlled flexibility — the feeling that they’re co-authoring the outcome.

Black Friday used to be rigid:

• “Doors open at 5 a.m.”

• “One deal, one day only.”

• “You either stampede for this toaster or you lose.”

Now that same toaster has options:

• A pre-order window.

• A rolling unlock.

• A “build your own bundle” configurator.

The modern BFCM shopper is basically a DJ: they want to remix the offer into their vibe.

What This Means for BFCM

Your deal doesn’t need to be a single blunt instrument. It should feel like a menu of super clear, super flexible wins:

Flexibility makes people feel clever. And when they feel clever, they buy.

NOTE: Improvisation can be scary for brands because it feels like loss of control, but here’s the truth…

Your customer is improvising anyway.

They’re price-checking while they scroll TikTok.
They’re building carts across five tabs.
They’re stashing items for weeks just to see what feels right in the moment.

If you don’t build flexibility into your offer, they’ll invent it on their own by bouncing to competitors who did.

Might as well lean into the jazz rather than fight it. 🎶

TLDR: This is the 2025 BFCM Consumer Brain Map

1. Revenge saving is in. Your customer wants to feel responsible. Frame offers as future-proofing, not indulgence.

2. Mental health is infrastructure. Sell peace of mind and reduced decision load. Position your deal as “one less thing to stress about.”

3. The reflection effect is alive and well. Loss-mode buyers will go big; gain-mode buyers want safe bets. Split your offer paths.

4. Trust comes from proof, not promises. Show evidence: comparisons, receipts, live counters. Behavior builds credibility.

5. Flexibility wins. Build improvisation into your deals with bundles, options, and rolling unlocks.

Final Takeaway

Don’t draft your BFCM deal until you’ve asked:

• Am I selling responsibility, not indulgence?

• Am I reducing stress, not adding it?

• Am I matching their risk mood?

• Am I showing proof, not promising hype?

• Am I giving flexibility, not commands?

If the answer’s no, you’re not ready yet…but that’s ok. This year, your best BFCM campaign won’t be the one with the biggest discount. It’ll be the one that feels like it was written inside the customer’s brain.

👉 Want to Build Your BFCM Offer With Us? 👈

Reading the playbook is one thing. Writing your actual BFCM offer — the copy, the bundles, the proof points — is where it gets fun (and messy).

That’s why in three weeks on September 24th, inside Tether Lab, we’re running a live workshop where we’ll:

• Break down each of these five psychology shifts,

• Map them directly to your product and audience,

• And then… actually build your BFCM offer together in the room.

Think of it like creative improv jazz: you bring the brand, we bring the science, and by the end you’ll have a tested, psychology-backed BFCM offer ready to ship.

If you’ve been circling “what discount should we run?” on your to-do list, this is the session that finally answers it.

👉 Join us in the Lab — and let’s make this your most brain-aligned (and revenue-aligned) BFCM yet.

Until next week,

🦕 Sarah

P.S.: If you’re worried about committing to a group during the busiest season of the year (I know how busy we’re all about to get), don’t stress. I have a 14 day money back guarantee. Come in, try it out…no hard feelings if you need to bounce after that!

🚨 Dex’s Trend Alert: 400% Spike…Reaction Pics Are the New Emoji

This week’s fastest-growing communication hack isn’t a new app. It’s old memes.
“Reaction pictures” just spiked ↑ 10% this week ↑ 20% this month ↑ 400% year-over-year.

📈 The Signal:

Scroll through Pinterest or TikTok comments and you’ll see it: SpongeBob panic faces, confused toddlers, cursed Ronald McDonalds.

The demographic lean? Mostly 16–29, cross-gender, with a heavy skew toward meme-native communities.

Reaction pics aren’t just jokes anymore. They’re functional.
They compress emotion into one low-res JPEG:

→ Say more with less effort.
→ Borrow identity through a familiar face.
→ Get a laugh while signaling how you feel.

It’s emotional shorthand, scaled.

🧠 The Diagnosis:

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s emotional compression technology.

• Words are laggy. A picture hits your mirror neurons 60,000x faster than text.

• Identity mirroring. You’re not just expressing an emotion—you’re aligning with a cultural archetype (SpongeBob = frazzled, Rage Face = chaos).

• Humor as armor. Reaction pics let people show vulnerability (“I’m overwhelmed”) while buffering it with a laugh.

The more chaotic the feed, the more people grab images that feel louder than words.

📌 How to capitalize (without giving “How do you do, fellow kids?” energy):

🛍️ For DTC Brands
Don’t force the meme. Borrow the vibe.
→ Use reaction pics as “before states” in transformations.
→ Treat them as the emoji layer of your creative, not the product ad itself.

🎥 For Creators & Media Buyers
Lean into reaction velocity.
→ TikTok POV: “My face when the ad actually worked.”
→ UGC ads with baked-in reaction memes feel native, not forced.

🧠 For Strategists
Clock the new journey:
Step 1: See the emotion (reaction image).
Step 2: Recognize yourself in it.
Step 3: Engage/share because it feels “me.”

If your creative skips the identity mirror step, your ad has to work twice as hard downstream.

💡 Pro Move:

Create a brand-owned “reaction pack” your audience can use.

• A skincare brand could drop “before wash” vs “after glow” faces as meme assets.

• A SaaS could design ironic “dev reaction” templates that customers want to steal.

Give them the emotional tools and they’ll spread your brand without being asked.

Until next time—
Stay curious and remember:
If they’re defaulting to SpongeBob for self-expression…
They’re waiting for a brand to give them a reaction face that feels even truer.

– Dex 🦖