Email is 50 years old this year. Its resilience is so familiar that we don't even bother joking about the many "Email is Dead" eulogies.

General Mills CMO Ivan Pollard brought us back a century to the invention of the Betty Crocker persona to illustrate how the company is trying to reassert the basics of consumer engagement by digital means. He demonstrated how a social interaction with a Saudi Arabian boy led to a massively successful Ramadan campaign that promoted men trying their hand at baking.

4th Ave. Market is a two-year-old D2C grounded in a century-old tradition and business model. The e-retail platform for hair, beauty and personal care products for consumers of color is recreating digitally the Black-owned and supported business districts that ran parallel to and in the face of Jim Crow. The model is simple: give and get support from your own community. Co-founder and CEO, Salim Holder, brings to the venture years of experience with legacy brand building while bringing out of history a very simple lesson: Don't "leverage" community, invest in it.

Do I really look like that? Staring at our imperfect mugs on ZOOM meetings for the last year drove many to seek professional cosmetic help. The problem for the medical aesthetics Med Spa retail chain was a ton of demand and no supply during lockdowns. But as Ideal Image's CEO David Prokupek tells us, the company quickly accelerated its emerging virtual consultation system that primed customers for the eventual return of physical engagements. The telehealth platform now serves over 25,000 people a month. And as retail slowly reopened, Med Spas are already performing 75,000 procedures a month. It is a …

SmileDirect has a lot of explaining to do. The maverick D2C smile straightening product is a long, involved sell, where leads can take up to two years to convert. And so CMO John Sheldon is expanding mindshare on every TV, CTV, Social video screen that can tell a good video story. It is a big brand play that remains anchored in D2C obsession with performance, by keeping CPMs tethered to the bottom line.

Founder and CEO of climate-oriented skincare Pour Moi, Ulli Haslacher, has always been a show-and-tell marketing purist. She built the D2C brand via shopping channel appearances. And she is a walking demo herself - keeping one hand treated with traditional products and the other moisturized with a Pour Moi mixture tuned to her current climate. But during the pandemic, Ulli turned the limitations of remote video to an advantage by marketing Pour Moi into countless local TV news segments.

Branding breakfast is not that far removed from marketing a better cannabis buzz.

After a year of pandemic and social unrest, America could use a cup of India Street Vanilla Chai, preferably served in a single- serve ceramic pot and cup combo. Business coach and serial entrepreneur Stephanie Synclair's second D2C startup, LaRue 1680, launched in October fueled in part by her existing social media base of followers. But then, Bridgerton happened, and Netflix's hit period, softcore series seems to find time for a lot of tea between those infamous trysts.

Helix Sleep has refocused a lot of the data-driven strategy to LTV and launched several new brands, among them the AllForm sofas.

Alex Reed, co-founder and CMO of D2C cleaning product brand Truman's, is one of the only marketers to give an honest and nuanced answer to my cynicism about "brand love." He gets it. There really is no love lost between most of us and the spray we use to clean our counter top. Nevertheless, Truman's is trying to build a different kind of CPG relationship with consumers without ad-bombing Instagram.