Drake’s Pants? That’s Lammers Law.

Welcome to Wednesday, futurists.

In the immortal words of Gotham City’s most infamous District Attorney: “In the world of Commerce, you either die a hero or you live long enough to become an [ad unit].” Paraphrased.

Today we’re breaking down “Lammers Law,” and how advertising eventually comes for us all.

Drake has always found a way to monetize his wardrobe. From the $50,000 MSRP pair of jeans in collaboration with Chrome Hearts to his own brand, October’s Very Own (OVO), Drake has (usually) kept it very classy.

However, that ended this week when Drake performed wearing a polyester ad unit. The pants were emblazoned with the logos of Onda Tequila, OnlyFans, and Cialias. Across the back,ads tied to Drake’s recent merch—hoodies and t-shirts advertising “hotmoms.com.” The merch, available at Drake Related, foreshadows 

The isometric videogame aesthetic Shopify website is an advertisement for Drake’s many brand investments across a portfolio of apparel, fragrance, and product collaborations. In that way, it’s an ad unit for discovery of other brand collaborations.

The NASCARification of eCommerce is nothing new, it’s just moving further up the funnel. As payment technology and digital wallets (the Web 2.0 kind) became more prolific, we saw payments logos begin to cover the checkout. At one point, 1800Flowers.com had as many as seven checkout buttons. Seven.

The pants are a signal of a growing trend in culture—selling out—by turning all available space into ad units. If you’re Walmart, Amazon, or even Wawa, you’d call this a retail media network. When it’s Drake, it’s fair play for monetization and communicating his ‘brand.’ By going gouache, Drake is communicating a change in narrative.

We’ve often referred to this growing trend in shoehorned advertising as “Lammers Law,” a term coined during a Future Commerce podcast interview with Calvin Lammers, formerly of TRUFF. His assertion: the nature of what we consider advertising is much broader than we formerly believed.

“On a long enough time horizon, everything becomes an ad.”

The nature of an ad depends on the medium's maturity; product collaborations are a form of advertising—they just don’t sit in the typical tower ad unit. Curiously, the Drake Related website

Indeed, the web is now very mature. In VISIONS: Volume IV, we considered the shift of the eCommerce site from a catalog or a shop into a canvas. In The Multiplayer Brand, we considered a brand's shift from a singular vision into a multiplayer game, where customers become players in shaping the brand.

Now, we have to find a way to squeeze pants into that narrative.

— Phillip

P.S. The “Sephora Kids” trend isn’t just taking up media cycles, but it’s creating reactive brand campaigns. Tune into this week’s podcast as we unpack the rapid maturing of the child-consumer. Listen now on Apple or Spotify.