How do you stay on top of youth culture and streetwear after 20 years in the game? Dave Dullens says the first lesson is the hard one: take yourself out of it. You're not the consumer, and the moment you start chasing what you think is cool, you've already lost. Stay curious, stay close to the culture you actually love, and surround yourself with good people who are closer to those communities than you are.

Then Dave gets into the thing that's fascinated him across his whole career. Every iconic brand he's worked on has one product that's outlasted the generations, and none of them are used for what they were built for. The Dr. Martens 1460 was a 60s work boot adopted by punk. The Timberland yellow boot was made for freezing winters and ended up in New York hip hop videos. The Chuck Taylor was a 1920s basketball shoe that got handed to skateboarding, music and art. The lesson for any brand trying to stay relevant: the consumer decides where your brand goes. Your job is to follow them there and be useful.

From Add To Cart Episode 645 with Dave Dullens, Head of Brand and Consumer at Conquest Sports, the longest-running Converse licensee in the world.

Brands mentioned: Converse, Dr. Martens, Timberland

Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Dave Dullens → https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-dullens-20005655/
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush

🎧 Listen to the full episode → https://www.addtocart.com.au
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Dave Dullens has spent 20 years keeping brands like that relevant. He's Head of Brand and Consumer at Conquest Sports, the 45-year Converse licensee for Australia and New Zealand, and his whole career has run through iconic footwear: Converse, Vans, Timberland, Dr. Martens. This isn't a creative-tactics episode, it's a masterclass in keeping an iconic brand relevant across generations.

In this episode, Dave sits down with Nathan Bush to make the case for brand in a business obsessed with conversion. We get into why the algorithm understands conversion but not your brand priorities, so some messages need their own budget to find an audience. We unpack his layered creator pyramid, from nano and micro fans through to global ambassadors, and why leaning into what a creator already does well beats handing them a rigid brief. And Dave explains what it actually takes to let go of brand control, including the dirty-sneaker video that broke all of Converse's rules and still drove sales. Plus why he thinks physical and offline is the next real resurgence, and how to measure brand so the finance team stops treating it as fluff.

Brands and tools mentioned: Converse, Conquest Sports, Vans, Timberland, Dr. Martens, Nike, Jordan, Hurley, Tracksuit, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, Patten
This episode is brought to you with thanks to our partners:
🛍️ Shopify → https://www.shopify.com/au
📧 Klaviyo → https://www.klaviyo.com/au/
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Dave Dullens → https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-dullens-20005655/
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush
👤 Rosa Willis → https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-clara-willis-23761066/
🎙️ Want to be a guest or sponsor on Add To Cart? → https://www.addtocart.com.au/contact
📩 Sign up for the free Add To Cart newsletter → https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe
💬 Join the Add To Cart Community → https://community.addtocart.com.au/feed

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Everyone assumes AI tooling pulls users out of your platform.
Klaviyo's data says no.
Ed Hallen: brands using the MCP don't spend less time in Klaviyo. It's supplemental. And their attributed value goes UP.
So every feature gets built open. Exposed. Available elsewhere.
Built right, there's no trade-off.
🎙️ More like this at addtocart.com.au

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Nathan asked Ed Hallen the question every Klaviyo user wants answered: what's the hidden gem most brands aren't using?

His answer isn't the exciting one. It's flows. Ed reckons the average brand still has a big unlock sitting there in more flows, more personalised flows, more ways of reaching customers closer to one-to-one. It's the unglamorous feature where the missed value keeps showing up.

The more interesting part is what comes after. Ed makes the case that marketing and service were never really two separate relationships, and the brands treating them as one through line are finding new revenue in conversations they used to file under support. Then Nathan pushes him on the tension every operator feels: fewer simple flows done well, or the complicated one-to-one version that's harder to manage? Ed picks a side, with a caveat.

From Add To Cart Episode 630 with Ed Hallen, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Klaviyo, recorded live at K:SYD.

Brands and tools mentioned: Klaviyo, Composer

Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Ed Hallen → [confirm LinkedIn URL]
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush

🎧 Listen to the full episode → https://www.addtocart.com.au
📩 Sign up for the free Add To Cart newsletter → https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe
💬 Join the Add To Cart Community → https://community.addtocart.com.au/feed

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