This week’s articles have mostly been about industry trends, so let’s finish in the same vein with a look at threats to marketers.

More heretical still: the brand’s image matters less than the image of the brand’s customers. So argues research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, which has just introduced AffinID Score, a way to measure how strongly consumers identify with their image of a brand’s consumer. “Strategic brands don’t win on price: they win on tribe,” says the research firm’s head of consumer psychology.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.