If market is an environment how can it be ecological?

The concept of ecology, when understood in the broad sense, is about dynamic equilibrium with the environment. This equilibrium is achieved through a complex interplay of elements where they align to coexist and coevolve. This equilibrium is less about perfect balance and more about ongoing negotiation between organisms and their surroundings.

Why would this be important for marketing?

Attention is the key resource that everyone competes for. A market that’s saturated with offers is draining the resources. A newcomer with a generic offer will not only find it difficult to compete but will also further strain the ecosystem. A more ecological approach would be to find the gap in the market and focus on it instead. A gap can be seen as some kind of inefficiency: an offer that should be there but is not yet available. Resolving this inefficiency can benefit the whole ecosystem and increase productivity.

Ecological systems have an inherent ability to survive and evolve. The concept of Panarchy, for example, describes evolutionary dynamics that is typical for natural systems: a period of active growth is followed by a period of saturation, which allows for patterns to fully materialise and manifest themselves (think of a mature forest). In order to further evolve, a system that’s ecological will break the connections and discover new links between parts (mycelium networks, natural processes of decay), which will allow it to reorganise and evolve even further. The final step in the cycle is the process of disruption (e.g. forest fire), which helps to clear out the system and produce the conditions for the new elements to emerge.

The whole process makes the ecosystem resilient and adaptive, and allows it to evolve. It combines growth and decline, focus, and reorganisation. It develops through cycles and can withstand external perturbations and adverse events.

A similar approach can be applied to the way we think and perceive the world. In our “cognitive variability” framework we apply the same methodology to attention and demonstrate how a similar process can be used to ensure that our mind and perception stay agile and adaptive. The framework is based on alternating the scales of perspective (large scale overview and zooming into details) and intent (exploration and focus). The basic idea is if we our attention can go through the different states in this cycle, we can ensure that we will stay open-minded and yet maintain the ability to focus.

This same framework can be applied to marketing. When the market it saturated, it is important to explore underserved niches through identifying the gaps and bridging them with new product ideas and marketing campaigns. If we follow the cognitive variability framework further, the next possible step can be to either go back into the focused mode of saturation (double down on the refined message and turning a niche offering into a mainstream product) or moving on towards the dissipated mode, pivot, and come up with a completely new idea based on the discoveries in the previous stage and then start developing it into a product.

The ability to shift between the states and to know when to switch can be beneficial not only for the project’s development but also for the market environment at large, because it ensures constant renewal and adaptation.

Here are some practical examples that explore interesting examples of ecological processes in the context of marketing.

From Canopy to Understory: Resource Allocation in Mature Markets

In a mature forest, the canopy dominates access to sunlight, yet the ecosystem thrives through stratification. The understory (the vegetation layer below) doesn’t compete directly with towering trees; instead, it specializes in processing filtered light, developing shade-tolerant strategies, and occupying temporal niches—growing rapidly when gaps appear.

Market participants face a similar dynamic: the dominance of the market leaders creates shadow zones where direct competition is futile, but these shadowed spaces become laboratories for adaptation. AI was not really on the FAANG’s agenda until OpenAI released its breakthrough products.

In this context, the canopy (or the network of the top players) itself depends on what happens below. Decomposition—the breakdown of failed branches, fallen leaves, and dying growth—doesn’t represent waste but active transformation. Mycelial networks redistribute nutrients from decay back into the system, making past failures available as raw material for new growth. In terms of cognitive variability framework, this is the transition between the state of reorganisation (3rd quadrant) into the stage of disruption (4th quadrant), creating the conditions for the new products to emerge.

In market terms, this suggests that declining product categories and “failed” offerings aren’t dead weight to be cleared away, but nutrient sources to be metabolized. The companies that master this—extracting lessons, relationships, and overlooked value from their own declining offerings—create conditions for genuine innovation rather than mere iteration. They don’t just tolerate the recess; they cultivate it, knowing that today’s experimental niche is tomorrow’s breakthrough, and yesterday’s decay is today’s fertility.

Finding the Gaps: A Network Approach to Market Opportunity

Not all gaps are opportunities. Some represent genuine unmet needs; others exist precisely because there’s no viable demand. The challenge lies in distinguishing between the two before committing resources.

A gap reveals itself through absence—concepts that should connect but don’t, questions that get asked but never answered, needs that surface repeatedly without resolution. In discourse, these appear as structural holes: places where two clusters of conversation exist independently but never bridge. When people discuss “sustainable packaging” and separately discuss “premium coffee brands,” but rarely connect them, that gap signals potential. When they discuss “meditation apps” and “sleep tracking” without linking them, the gap might indicate opportunity or might simply reflect that the connection isn’t valuable.

Network analysis makes these structural holes visible. By mapping how concepts relate in existing discourse—what people search for, what competitors talk about, what questions go unanswered—you can identify where connections are missing. The graph shows not just what’s absent, but what surrounds the absence. This context matters. A gap flanked by high-activity clusters suggests unmet demand; a gap surrounded by sparse, disconnected nodes might indicate lack of interest.

Three types of gaps warrant different responses:

Bridging gaps connect established territories. The demand exists on both sides; no one has built the link. These are lower-risk opportunities: you’re serving existing needs in a new combination. For instance, meal kit services bridging “convenience” and “home cooking,” or project management tools connecting “creative collaboration” and “AI automation.”

Emergent gaps appear as small voids in rapidly growing areas. The surrounding discourse is active but hasn’t yet articulated the specific need. These require more interpretation: you’re naming something people feel but haven’t verbalized. Think: “digital wellness” before it had a name, when people discussed screen time and mental health separately, or “no-code tools” before the category crystallized.

Phantom gaps look like opportunities but exist for good reason—technical impossibility, fundamental conflict, or simply lack of demand. The gap between “automation” and “email processing” isn’t a market opportunity because it might not be economically attractive. The gap between “instant results” and “meaningful personal growth” reflects a natural contradiction, not market failure. It is interesting, however, that external perturbations or cataclysmic events may render phantom gaps viable by dramatically decreasing the cost of pursuing the gap, in which case phantom gaps can become emergent.

The network approach doesn’t just find gapsm it reveals their nature. Dense connections on both sides of a gap suggest people are actively trying to bridge it themselves: they just lack the right tool. Sparse connections suggest the gap might not be felt as a problem. Growing clusters moving toward each other signal emergent opportunity. Stable separation suggests the gap serves a purpose.

Gap-finding becomes less about intuition and more about reading the structure of existing discourse, identifying where conversations want to connect but can’t, and recognizing when absence signals opportunity rather than impossibility.

Antifragility and Portfolio Rhythms: Marketing Through Cycles

Resilience means withstanding shock. Antifragility means gaining from it. An ecological marketing approach doesn’t just survive market turbulence, it uses disruption as fuel for adaptation and growth.

When a market shifts unexpectedly, fragile strategies collapse. Robust strategies endure. Antifragile strategies improve. The difference lies in how the system treats volatility. A single product line optimized for current conditions is fragile—any shift threatens its foundation. A portfolio distributed across different cycle stages is robust—some products absorb the shock.

But an antifragile approach goes further: it positions products to capture the opportunities that disruption creates, using market chaos to discover new niches, validate emerging gaps, and accelerate evolution.

The key is optionality. In natural systems, diversity isn’t just insurance; it’s a learning mechanism. When conditions change, multiple strategies get tested simultaneously. Some fail, feeding nutrients back into the system. Others thrive in the new environment. The mycelial network redistributes resources from declining areas to emerging ones. Market portfolios can work the same way—not as isolated bets, but as an interconnected system where learning flows between products at different stages.

Consider a company with products distributed across the panarchy cycle. One product sits in the growth phase—rapidly expanding, capturing new territory, defining a category. Another occupies the conservation phase—mature, dominant, generating stable returns but facing saturation. A third enters reorganization—pivoting, testing new connections, exploring adjacent possibilities. A fourth exists as pure experimentation—small-scale, testing emergent gaps with minimal commitment.

When disruption hits, each position responds differently. The growth-phase product might stumble as its expansion plans hit new obstacles. The mature product might face sudden obsolescence as its category shifts. But this volatility creates clarity: it reveals which directions have real traction and which were just riding momentum. The reorganization product, already in flux, adapts quickly—its loosely coupled structure allows rapid reconfiguration. The experimental product either validates or fails fast, providing cheap learning.

The antifragile advantage emerges from the portfolio dynamics. Resources flow from products that the disruption has weakened toward products positioned to capitalize on new opportunities. Insights from the failed experiments inform pivots in the reorganization phase. Customer relationships from the mature product provide a testing ground for emergent ideas. The growth product’s momentum gets redirected toward newly visible gaps.

This isn’t passive diversification. It’s active cycling. Companies gain from disorder by maintaining products at different cycle stages simultaneously and moving resources fluidly between them. When one product hits saturation, instead of defending it indefinitely, channel some resources toward reorganization—use the stable platform to fund experimentation. When experiments reveal promising gaps, accelerate them into growth phase. When growth products mature, harvest their returns while preparing the next reorganization.

The forest doesn’t just have old trees and young trees. It has decomposing logs feeding fungi, fungi feeding new saplings, mature trees creating conditions for shade-tolerant species, and occasional clearings where pioneer species experiment with rapid growth. Each element occupies a different temporal rhythm. Each responds differently to fire, storm, or drought.

The system gains resilience not from any single strategy, but from the interplay between strategies at different stages.

Market portfolios work the same way. The antifragile approach maintains multiple temporal rhythms—products that move fast and learn quickly, products that move slowly and compound advantages, products that sit in deliberate reorganization, products that hold mature territory while funding experiments at the edges. When disruption arrives, some positions become liabilities, but others become assets. The system doesn’t just survive the shift; it uses the shift to discover what works in the new environment.

This requires letting go. The conservation phase—mature, profitable products—generates resources but also generates attachment. Companies often defend these positions too long, treating any decline as failure rather than natural cycling. But in an antifragile portfolio, planned obsolescence isn’t defeat; it’s strategy. The mature product’s role is to generate resources for reorganization and fund experiments that will eventually replace it. Its success is measured not by eternal dominance, but by how well it enables the next cycle.

Disorder becomes valuable when you have multiple options positioned to benefit from different outcomes. An unexpected market shift might kill your mature product but validate your experimental one. A regulatory change might constrain your growth product but open new gaps for reorganization. A competitor’s collapse might hurt your market share but reveal unmet needs your experiments can fill. Each disruption provides information, and information flow between products at different stages turns volatility into evolution.

Making It Practical: Diagnosing Your Position and Recognizing Warning Signs

The cognitive variability framework moves through four states: focused growth, saturation, reorganization, and release. Products and campaigns cycle through similar states. The challenge is recognizing where you are and when to transition.

Diagnostic Questions: Where Are You in the Cycle?

Growth Phase Signals:

Are you gaining market share without increasing marketing spend proportionally?

Do customers describe your offering in ways you didn’t anticipate?

Are competitors copying your positioning rather than differentiating from it?

Does your messaging feel generative—opening new conversations rather than defending territory?

If yes: you’re in growth. Maintain momentum and double-down on your efforts but watch for saturation signals when the focus will need to shift to optimization.

Saturation Phase Signals:

Is customer acquisition cost rising while conversion rates flatten?

Are you tweaking messaging incrementally without seeing lift?

Do customer conversations focus on price rather than value?

Are you repeating the same campaigns with diminishing returns?

Does “optimization” mean making the same thing slightly better rather than exploring alternatives?

If yes: you’ve hit saturation. Optimization is the best course of action, but the niche is filling. It may be beneficial soon to consider reorganization.

Reorganization Phase Signals:

Are you questioning your core positioning without clear alternative direction?

Do internal debates focus on “what business are we really in?”

Are adjacent markets or unexpected use cases showing more energy than your core?

Does your messaging feel stale even after refreshing it?

Are small experiments generating more insight than major campaigns?

If yes: you’re reorganizing. Stay loose, test connections, don’t force premature coherence. Experimentation and exploration are key at this stage. Looking for new opportunities and findings new links between the existing ones.

Release Phase Signals:

Have you discovered a gap or insight that makes your current positioning feel obsolete?

Is a small experiment outperforming your main offering?

Do you feel attached to your current approach despite declining effectiveness?

Would starting fresh with new assumptions feel liberating rather than threatening?

If yes: consider release. Let go of what worked before to make space for what works now. Total reorganisation, pivot, a complete change of strategy, letting go of staff and resources in order to free up the energy for something new.

Transitioning Between States: The Cognitive Variability Map

The cognitive variability framework operates on two axes: scale (zoomed in ↔ zoomed out) and intent (exploring ↔ focusing). These create four states that mirror market cycles. The key to ecological marketing is moving between states deliberately rather than getting stuck.

Growth Phase = Zoomed In + Focusing

You’ve identified a gap and you’re developing it intensively. Your attention narrows onto execution: refining the message, optimizing conversion, building the niche. This is deep focus on specific territory. The danger is tunnel vision—missing signals that the niche is filling.

Transition trigger: When saturation signals appear, you need to zoom out while maintaining focus. Move to the Saturation Phase by pulling back your perspective. Stop drilling deeper into the same positioning and instead survey the broader landscape. Optimize. What’s happening at the edges of your niche? Where are customers pushing beyond your intended use case? What adjacent gaps are appearing?

Real-life examples: AirBnb 2009-2011, Notion 2016-2018 (rapidly growing adoption), Oatly in 2016-2018 (US expansion), OpenAI in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT

Saturation Phase = Zoomed Out + Focusing

You’re still focused on your territory, but now viewing it from altitude. You can see the whole niche, its boundaries, its density. You recognize it’s filling up. This overview-with-focus state lets you assess strategically: is there room for deeper penetration, or is it time to explore new ground? If it’s about deeper penetration, how could the processes be optimised to ensure continued growth?

Transition trigger: When you see the niche is truly saturated—when the focused overview reveals no viable expansion routes—shift your intent from focusing to exploring. Move to Reorganization Phase by maintaining the zoomed-out perspective but loosening your attachment to conclusions. You’re no longer trying to optimize the current position; you’re scanning for new connections.

Real-life examples: Spotify in 2016-2018 (going into podcasts and doubling down on personal recommendations), Lululemon improving the quality of the fabric, Amazon reducing its workforce in 2025, Apple shifting profits to the apps and media business

Reorganization Phase = Zoomed Out + Exploring

This is the most generative state. You’re viewing multiple possibilities simultaneously without committing to any. You’re testing bridges between disconnected clusters, noticing unexpected customer uses, exploring adjacent markets. Nothing is off-limits. You’re asking “what if?” rather than “how to?”

This is where gaps become visible—the structural holes between established territories that no one has named yet.
The danger here is dispersion—exploring endlessly without consolidation. You need enough time to discover genuine patterns, but not so much that you mistake endless searching for progress.

Transition trigger: When experiments start showing pattern—when certain connections generate more energy than others, when one direction produces unexpected traction—shift from exploring to focusing while staying zoomed out. Move to Release Phase by acknowledging what you’ve discovered. Some of your explorations led nowhere. Some revealed genuine gaps. Pick the signal from the noise.

Real-life examples: Stripe offering new financial services in 2019-2022, AirBnb going into experiences post Covid, Nike going into fitness apps in 2018, Starbucks offering niche tastes around 2019.

Release Phase = Zoomed Out + Focusing (transitioning to Zoomed In)

You’re still viewing the landscape broadly, but now with decisive focus on the gap you’ve identified. This is where you let go of the old positioning—not because it failed, but because you’ve discovered better territory. You’re making the cut: releasing attachment to what worked before, committing to the new direction.

This state is brief but critical. It’s the moment between cycles. You’re consolidating insights from reorganization, choosing a specific gap to develop, and preparing to zoom back in.

Transition trigger: Once you’ve committed to the new direction, zoom back in and begin focusing intensely. Return to Growth Phase with fresh territory. Now you’re developing the newly discovered gap with the same focused attention you gave the original niche—but informed by everything learned in the previous cycle.

Real-life examples: Ford cutting off the old models in 2018-19, Adobe shifting from perpetual licenses to subscriptions in 2013, Netflix going from DVDs to fully digital

The Full Cycle in Practice:

Growth → Saturation: Zoom out while maintaining focus. You’re still committed to your territory but viewing it from higher altitude. This lets you see saturation coming before it becomes crisis. You’re asking “where are the boundaries?” instead of “how do we grow?”

Saturation → Reorganization: Shift from focusing to exploring while staying zoomed out. Release the pressure to optimize the current position. Allow yourself to notice adjacent possibilities without immediate judgment. You’re asking “what else is possible?” instead of “how do we defend this?”

Reorganization → Release: Shift from exploring to focusing while staying zoomed out. Start consolidating the patterns you’ve discovered. Identify which explorations revealed genuine gaps and which were dead ends. You’re asking “what did we learn?” and “what’s the strongest signal?”

Release → Growth: Zoom in while maintaining focus. Commit to the new direction and begin intensive development. You’re back to deep focus, but on different territory. You’re asking “how do we develop this gap?” instead of “what should we do?”

Movement as Strategy: The framework isn’t just diagnostic—it’s prescriptive. When you feel stuck, identify your current state and deliberately move to the adjacent one:

Stuck in Growth with diminishing returns? → Zoom out to Saturation perspective

Stuck in Saturation trying to optimize what’s exhausted? → Shift to Reorganization exploration

Stuck in Reorganization endlessly exploring? → Move to Release by focusing on signals

Stuck in Release unable to commit? → Zoom in to Growth and start building

The cycle isn’t linear—you can move between any states as conditions require. But the natural progression follows the panarchy pattern: growth leads to saturation, saturation triggers reorganization, reorganization enables release, release returns to growth in new territory.

The ecological approach recognizes that each state serves a purpose. Growth develops gaps. Saturation reveals limits. Reorganization discovers new connections. Release clears space. Marketing becomes extractive when you try to stay in one state permanently—usually Growth or Saturation—ignoring the signals that call for transition.

Warning Signs: When Marketing Becomes Extractive

Ecological marketing contributes to the system’s health. Extractive marketing depletes it. The difference isn’t always obvious, both can show short-term results. Here are some patterns that may indicate a shift from ecological to extractive marketing:

Attention Depletion:
You’re extractive when your marketing adds to noise without adding signal. If your campaign could describe any competitor’s product with minor word swaps, you’re not filling a gap—you’re clogging the channel.
Test: if you removed your messaging from the market entirely, would anyone notice? If the answer is “no one except us,” you’re extracting attention without contributing meaning.

Message Saturation:
You’re extractive when you keep pushing the same message into a saturated niche without acknowledging the saturation. If you’re competing for the same keywords, the same positioning, the same customer language as five other companies, you’re all depleting the same resource. The ecological move is to find adjacent territory or bridge to underserved clusters.

Innovation Theater:
You’re extractive when you rebrand existing offerings as innovations without genuine differentiation. “New and improved” that isn’t meaningfully different adds cognitive load without value. This is especially common in saturation—companies feel pressure to appear fresh but don’t reorganize deeply enough to generate actual novelty.

Defensive Positioning:
You’re extractive when your messaging exists primarily to block competitors rather than serve customers. If your campaigns focus on “why not them” rather than “why us,” you’re fighting for fixed territory instead of discovering new ground. This burns resources—yours and the market’s attention—without generating value.

Premature Scaling:
You’re extractive when you scale a message into channels or audiences that didn’t ask for it. Aggressive expansion into markets that show polite disinterest depletes goodwill. The ecological approach waits for pull signals—evidence that the gap is felt—before pushing.

Recognition Test: The Three Questions
When evaluating whether your marketing is ecological or extractive, ask:

Gap filling or gap creating?
Does your offering resolve an existing tension in the market, or are you creating artificial needs to justify your solution? Ecological marketing identifies where people are already trying to bridge a gap and provides the connection. Extractive marketing manufactures dissatisfaction to generate demand.

Resource generating or resource depleting?
Does your presence make the market environment more navigable—clearer categories, better information, resolved confusion—or more cluttered? Ecological marketing adds structure that helps everyone, including competitors, by clarifying distinctions. Extractive marketing adds noise that makes decisions harder.

Cycle awareness or cycle denial?
Are you operating with awareness of where your product sits in its lifecycle, or are you pretending it’s always growth phase? Ecological marketing acknowledges saturation and reorganizes. Extractive marketing denies natural cycles and tries to force perpetual expansion.

Case Pattern: Navigating Transitions

While specific brand examples age quickly, the pattern repeats:
A company dominates a niche (saturation). Instead of defending territory with incrementally better messaging, they notice adjacent gaps—customer use cases they didn’t design for but that emerge organically. Rather than ignoring these “off-label” uses, they enter reorganization: testing connections between their core offering and adjacent needs, loosening their positioning, exploring bridges. Some experiments fail. Others reveal genuine gaps. One finds traction—an underserved niche where their capabilities solve problems in unexpected ways. They release their old positioning and shift toward the new gap (growth phase in different territory). The original offering continues but stops consuming marketing resources. The new direction gets the attention.

The key moves: noticing saturation early, entering reorganization before crisis forces it, testing multiple directions cheaply, following the energy toward gaps rather than defending depleted territory, and releasing attachment to previous success when new opportunities clarify.

The Transition Trigger

The hardest part isn’t identifying your position—it’s choosing to transition. Saturation feels dangerous to abandon because it’s still generating returns. Reorganization feels wasteful because experiments fail more than they succeed. Release feels like giving up.

But extractive marketing happens when you stay in a phase past its natural duration. Pushing growth tactics in saturation depletes resources. Defending position during necessary reorganization prevents adaptation. Refusing to release what’s no longer working blocks what could work next.

The ecological approach requires timing: entering each phase when the conditions call for it, not when it’s comfortable, and trusting that cycles are how living systems stay viable over time.