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Simon Weisskopf
Company
Highsnobiety
Location
Berlin Metropolitan Area
Bio
Simon Weisskopf is a Berlin-area commercial and brand-growth leader, currently VP Brand & Commercial Development at Highsnobiety. He’s held multiple senior business development roles there (VP Business Development, Global Director Business Development) and also served as Managing Director of Highsnobiety. Previously, he worked at Axel Springer in strategic investments and digital growth (including board involvement with 1plusX), and earlier gained experience across finance and strategy roles including Goldman Sachs, UBS, Arthur D. Little, and Rocket Internet.
Simon Weisskopf is a Berlin-area commercial...
description
Highsnobiety is a global brand, sitting at the heart of culture that unites community, content and commerce. Over the 19 years, our editorial and curatorial perspective has grown a community of Cultural Pioneers, a group whose social influence and ability to shape culture has become impossible to ignore. For this audience, Highsnobiety is a destination to be kept ahead of the curve; a place to read and shop the latest stories, brands and products. We are constantly investigating their relationship to a landscape we coined The New Luxury; a mindset that places stories over product and cultural knowledge over material possession. What we’ve learnt from this community, we also share with our brand partners, ensuring they too can future-proof their business for tomorrow’s culture. The Highsnobiety agency offers an end-to-end solution for brands, from consumer insights; strategy and consultancy; creative concepts and production and media. Feel free to get in touch with one of our six offices here.
Highsnobiety is a global brand, sitting...
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Actionable Takeaways
Influence the Influencer:
Highsnobiety's strategy centers on reaching the Cultural Pioneer first — an early adopter with 2.5x the average social media reach and 5x the luxury purchase likelihood — knowing the influence trickles down to broader audiences organically over time.
"New Luxury" Is Borderless:
The streetwear-to-luxury convergence (symbolized by Supreme x Louis Vuitton) proved that luxury is no longer the exclusive domain of heritage houses; a rare Jordan sneaker now carries equivalent cultural weight for younger consumers.
Hype Has Value Too:
Not every cultural moment needs to become a megatrend to be worth engaging; brands that move fast enough can extract real value from fleeting moments before they fade — the key is speed and timing.
Data Plus Taste Together:
Highsnobiety pairs cultural instinct with rigorous research — including its BCG partnership and proprietary white papers — so that what the team's taste-makers sense on the ground is validated and amplified by evidence.
Status Is Now Multidimensional:
The latest Highsnobiety Status Economy report reveals that status markers have expanded well beyond fashion into what you eat, drink, and where you travel, opening brand opportunity across nearly every consumer category.
Authenticity Requires Discipline:
Brands with a clearly defined identity make faster, better decisions because they already know what to say no to; without that clarity, cultural pressure from every direction pulls a brand's positioning apart.
Corporate vs. Agile Mindset:
In a large corporation, you're punished for failure; in an agile company like Highsnobiety, you're punished for not trying — and that fundamental difference reshapes how teams operate, take risks, and innovate.
Culture Is Not a Policy Document:
Highsnobiety's culture isn't defined by a values framework on a wall — it's a living force shaped by founder David Fischer's hands-on involvement and the fact that employees are genuine fans of the brand they work for every day.
Conversation Highlights
Simon Weisskopf, VP of Brand and Commercial Development at Highsnobiety, breaks down how one of the world’s most culturally influential publisher-agency hybrids operates at the intersection of storytelling and brand marketing. He shares the framework behind the “Cultural Pioneer” consumer cohort — a mindset-based audience 5x more likely to purchase luxury goods — and explains why taste, speed, and disciplined authenticity are the defining traits of the next generation of iconic brands. From the genesis of “New Luxury” to the emerging “Status Economy,” this episode is a masterclass in cultural intelligence.
Topics Discussed
- What Highsnobiety actually does as a hybrid publisher and full-service agency
- The “Cultural Pioneer” audience — mindset over demographics, and why they’re worth influencing first
- How to distinguish a fleeting cultural hype from a lasting tectonic shift
- The role of data and Highsnobiety’s research partnership with Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
- Defining “New Luxury” — the 2019 white paper and the streetwear/luxury convergence
- The emerging “Status Economy” — how status has expanded beyond fashion to food, drink, and travel
- Taste vs. commerce: The Row as a case study in disciplined brand building
- Nike’s product tiering strategy — pure brand halo product vs. high-volume commercial product
- How Highsnobiety selects staff: cultural fit as a core hiring criterion
- What brands need to do to stay relevant: speed, authenticity, and strategic clarity
- Simon’s personal transition from Axel Springer’s corporate world to an agile creative agency
