The "Brand" Is Just The Greengrocer’s Sign

Yesterday at Davos, Mark Carney didn't just give a speech. He declared a rupture. He quoted Václav Havel’s 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, specifically the famous allegory of the Greengrocer.

The Allegory: A greengrocer puts a sign in his window that says: "Workers of the World, Unite!"

• Does he believe it? No.

• Does the public believe it? No.

• So why does he do it? To signal compliance.

He puts up the sign to avoid trouble. He performs the ritual so he can be left alone to sell his carrots. Havel called this "Living within a lie." Carney’s message to the global elite was brutal:

"Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down."

He meant it geopolitically. But for Category Designers, the rupture is ontological.

1. The "Brand" Is Just The Greengrocer’s Sign

Brand operates as a correlative signal, while Category functions as a causal force. Brand is the sign in the window. Category is the physics of the shop.

• The Lie: We put up signs that say "We are an AI Platform!" or "We are Mission-Driven!"

• The Reality: We are just selling carrots (features).

• The Ritual: We run the ads. Buyers pretend to care. Analysts pretend to believe. We all "signal compliance" to the GTM playbook.

As long as everyone agreed to perform the ritual, the system worked. You could survive on Brand correlation without ever owning Category causation.

2. The "Rupture" is the AI Agent

Carney said we are in a "Rupture," not a transition. In the GTM world, the rupture is the AI Agent.

Why? Because Agents do not read signs. Agents check the inventory.

• The Human Buyer: Reads the sign ("Workers Unite!"), nods at the ritual, and buys the carrots because they like the "vibe."

• The AI Agent: Ignores the sign. Scans the shelf. Checks the SKU. Verifies the supply chain.

If your sign says "Platform" but your shelf contains "Tools," the Agent doesn't argue with you. It doesn't perform the ritual. It ghosts you.

Carney’s warning is technically precise: "You cannot live within the lie when the system demands verification."

3. The Spillover Coefficient (γ) Was Our "Compliance Mechanism"

The Category Spillover Coefficient explains how brands capture value by drafting off the category leader’s causal gravity.

• The Leader (The Party): Creates the ideology (The Category).

• The Followers (The Greengrocers): Put up the signs to signal they belong to the movement.

When the Category Leader created demand (γ), everyone else harvested it by putting up the right sign. You didn't need to be real. You just needed to be present.

But Carney’s point is that spillover stops when the order fractures. When the "Rules-Based Order" (or the "Narrative-Based Market" or the category leader shifts the frame and rewrites the rules) collapses, the drafted air disappears. Suddenly, the Greengrocer is standing there with a sign no one believes, selling carrots no one can verify.

The Greengrocer Audit: Measuring The Lie

Havel said the lie works because it is invisible. But in the AI economy, the lie leaves a data trail. Here are the 4 KPIs that tell you if you are living in a Brand Cult or a Real Category.

KPI 1: Pre-Evaluation Inclusion Rate

• Definition: Percentage of AI-generated comparisons that include you without prompting.

• The Signal: If your "Brand Awareness" is high but your "Agent Inclusion" is low, you are a Greengrocer. The humans see the sign; the machines don't see the shop.

KPI 2: Spec-to-Conversation Ratio

• Definition: The amount of evaluable info available before a human conversation is required.

• The Signal: "Contact Sales" is the ultimate Greengrocer move. It hides the inventory behind a ritual. Agents treat hidden inventory as Null.

KPI 3: Semantic Debt Accumulation

• Definition: The frequency with which you have to explain what you are.

• The Signal: If you have to rewrite your positioning every 6 months, you aren't iterating. You are lying about your physics.

KPI 4: Ghost Metric Delta

• Definition: The gap between your downstream pipeline (Humans) and your upstream evaluability (Agents).

• The Signal: When the pipeline looks healthy but inbound slows, it means the ritual is still working on old humans, but the new system has already routed around you.

The Conclusion: Living in Truth

Havel’s solution to the lie was simple but terrifying: "Living in Truth." It meant taking down the sign and refusing to perform the ritual.

For Category Designers, this is the new mandate. Stop optimizing the Sign (Brand). Start optimizing the Shop (Ontology).

You can no longer survive by drafting off someone else's keywords. You have to build your own Causal Arc.

• Living in the Ritual: "We are the Uber for X." (Defined by another's physics).

• Owning the Arc: "We are the Ontological Architecture for X." (Defining your own physics).

Mark Carney told the world that the "pleasant fiction" is over. The AI Agent is telling your marketing team the exact same thing.

As countries are learning - signs no longer stabilize markets. Physics does.