Because it proved someone was paying attention. It wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t templated. It was human. And that small gesture meant more to me than any influencer campaign, ad spot, or loyalty discount ever could.
The Unscalable Moment That Stuck
A few years ago, I bought a jacket from a company called Dri Duck. I liked it so much that I did something I almost never do: I wrote a review.
I don’t usually write reviews. I assume no one really cares what I think. Most reviews feel performative, overly dramatic, or just lazy attempts to feel helpful. But this jacket was different. It fit. It felt good. And more than that, it made me feel good. So I wrote this:
Let’s drop the Big & Tall euphemism: I’m fat. I’m about 5'11” and weigh somewhere between, are you kidding me? And dude, you’re not healthy. My weight fluctuates a lot, and sometimes I drop weight and think, yes, this is me from now on. Then depression sets in for some reason, and food is my comfort, and my weight goes up. I never know when to buy clothes, but I took a chance on this jacket.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, coming from the Northeast. I know cold, and I know hot. Here, it’s rarely really cold, and the heat is nothing like what I experienced in Salt Lake City. I’ve been in the PNW for two years and have gotten by with an LL Bean—sorry for the plug to a competitor. I've been wearing a zip-up, hoodless sweatshirt with sherpa lining for a long, long time. That baby will not die. However, it has seen some years, and though it’s warm and comfy when I wear it, I look like I just stepped off the boat from Slobovia. So, I needed warm-but-not-too-warm jacket-type outerwear for when I’m not working or playing. I spied this jacket.
The jacket is really good-looking, or so said the little man in my eyebrow when I looked in the mirror. I’d say handsome, but even the man in the eyebrow can’t lie, and it’s a jacket, not a miracle. I looked at the size chart, read reviews, and ordered based on those factors. Then I waited.
If you’re not fat, you don’t understand the heartbreak of buying an item online, thinking it is perfect, getting it, and putting it on, only to find that 100XL is too small. You get depressed and hopeless, make plans to diet while ordering a pizza from Strait Slice, and then bag it up and start the return process.
Not so this time, Sports Fans!!!
This time, the jacket arrived. I cautiously strapped it across my girth and laughed, smiled, and did a little dance that caused books to fall off shelves and my downstairs neighbors to scurry to their safe room. This fits me perfectly. I’m not swimming in it, I’m not greasing my body up with lard to slip into it, but I am greasing it up for other things, but that’s a need-to-know situation. It fits, and I can even put a sweater or sweatshirt under it. I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so very happy about this. I cannot wait for the temperature to drop, and then I can preview it for the seagulls and seals.
All joking aside, this is a great jacket with a great look and a perfect fit. Thank you so much for thinking of the fat folk when you made it.
I figured that would be the end of it. Review written, jacket worn, life goes on.
But a couple of weeks later, I got a package in the mail from Dri Duck. Inside was a camo beanie—and a handwritten note. They said they all laughed out loud at my review, appreciated the honesty, and wanted to say thank you. That little beanie didn’t cost them much. It wasn’t part of a CRM workflow. It wasn’t scalable.
But it made me a fan for life.
Because it proved someone was paying attention. It wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t templated. It was human. And that small gesture meant more to me than any influencer campaign, ad spot, or loyalty discount ever could.
We don’t talk enough about moments like that. The unscripted, unrepeatable ones. The ones that don’t scale—but absolutely matter.
And that’s what this piece is about.
The Myth of Scale = Success
Somewhere along the way, “scalable” became shorthand for “worth doing.”
We’ve built businesses, workflows, and even brand philosophies around efficiency, repeatability, and speed. How fast can it ship? How many people can we reach? Can we automate it, templatize it, and run it through the system at volume?
And to be fair, scale matters. You can’t build a business on one-off gestures. You need systems. You need infrastructure. You need to know that what worked once will work again.
But the problem starts when scale becomes the only metric that matters. When anything that can’t be replicated a thousand times is seen as wasteful. Sentiment gets labeled as inefficiency. Emotion gets reframed as friction. The humanity that once made brands memorable gets sacrificed on the altar of optimization.
We hear phrases like “that won’t scale” tossed around like a mic drop, as if the very idea disqualifies an action from being meaningful. But that thinking misses something vital: the things that don’t scale are often the things people remember most.
Nobody tells stories about well-structured onboarding flows or beautifully automated follow-ups. They tell stories about surprise kindness, unexpected generosity, someone going off-script to fix a problem — the moments that break the system just enough to feel human.
Ironically, those small, unsystemized acts can do more to cement a brand in someone’s memory than a year’s worth of scalable content.
But they don’t show up in the dashboard. They’re hard to track, hard to train, and impossible to predict. So they get deprioritized — not because they don’t matter, but because they’re inconvenient to measure.
And that’s how brands lose their magic.
But here’s the thing: just because something doesn’t scale doesn’t mean it can’t have impact. In fact, some of the most powerful brand moments are powerful because they’re rare, personal, and wildly inefficient.
So, what do these unscalable moments actually do? Why do they linger long after the campaign ends or the product wears out?
Let’s look at what small moments really create.
What Small Moments Actually Do
When brands make room for small, human gestures, they do more than create a feel-good moment. They create emotional leverage — the kind that shapes memory, loyalty, and word-of-mouth far more effectively than any KPI-driven tactic ever could.
So, what do these unscalable moments really do?
They create emotional contrast.
Most brand interactions are expected, automated, and neutral. A small, unscripted gesture feels like color in a black-and-white world. It interrupts the transactional flow with something human — and that interruption is where emotion lives.
They make things specific.
Specificity is memorable. A handwritten note. A gift that references something you said. A customer service rep who listens instead of reciting. These aren’t grand gestures — they’re personal ones. And personal is powerful.
They build asymmetrical trust.
When a brand gives you something extra, something unexpected, something not required, it feels like they’re overdelivering. That kind of generosity doesn’t just create delight. It creates trust because it proves the brand is thinking beyond the minimum viable transaction.
They drive organic advocacy.
People tell stories. But they don’t tell stories about optimized workflows. They tell stories about a company that made them feel seen. And those stories get repeated — in group chats, over coffee, on social media. One small moment can echo far beyond the person who received it.
In short, small moments don’t scale — but they spread. Not through automation. Through affection.
And yet, if they’re so powerful, why do brands rarely make space for them?
Let’s talk about what gets in the way.
Why They’re So Rare
If small, personal brand moments are so meaningful, so emotionally sticky, and so effective in driving trust, then why don’t we see more of them?
Because most brands don’t leave room for them. Not on purpose, anyway.
Here’s why:
1. They don’t fit the metrics.
What isn’t measurable often isn’t valued. If a moment can’t be tagged, tracked, or fed into a dashboard, it tends to fall through the cracks. The ROI of a handwritten note or a spontaneous act of kindness is hard to prove, but that doesn’t make it less powerful.
2. They’re not “efficient.”
Modern organizations are built around repeatability. Scripts. Templates. Flows. Anything that deviates from the norm is seen as a risk, or worse, a waste of time. But efficiency isn’t the same as effectiveness. And what looks inefficient on a spreadsheet may be priceless in someone’s memory.
3. They require trust in front-line teams.
The best small moments often come from people at the edge of the brand: support reps, retail clerks, and delivery drivers. But too often, those people are over-scripted, under-trained, or not empowered to make decisions. A culture of control leaves no space for spontaneous care.
4. They’re hard to replicate.
You can’t build a training manual for serendipity. You can’t A/B test genuine surprise. Brands love to operationalize success, but the whole point of these moments is that they feel unoperationalized. That’s their magic. And magic doesn’t follow process.
So instead, these moments tend to happen in the margins. Not because the brand designed for them — but because a person broke protocol to do something real.
But what if we flipped that?
What if brands intentionally made space for the unscalable?
Let’s talk about how to design for smallness, without breaking the business.
Designing for Small Moments
If unscalable moments are so meaningful—and so rare—the obvious question is: Can they be designed for?
Not in the traditional sense. You can’t script authenticity or mass-produce magic. But you can create the conditions that make small, human gestures possible, even inside big, complex systems.
Here’s how:
1. Build flexibility into the front lines.
The people closest to the customer often have the best instincts. Trust them. Empower them. Don’t just train them to solve problems—train them to notice opportunities. Give them room to act off-script when it serves the relationship, not just the policy.
2. Make generosity part of the brand DNA.
Whether it’s sending a beanie or comping a fee, generosity doesn’t need to be grand—it just needs to be felt. Set a cultural expectation that small, meaningful gestures are not only allowed but encouraged.
3. Celebrate the anecdote.
Most companies worship the case study. But the anecdote is just as important. If someone on your team creates a beautiful, human moment, share it. Talk about it. Celebrate it. Not to standardize it, but to reinforce that this is what we value.
4. Leave room in the system.
Not everything needs to be optimized. Leave a little slack in the process. A little time between tickets. A little room in the budget. The tiniest bit of wiggle room can make all the difference when someone needs to go the extra inch.
5. Remember: one moment is enough.
You don’t need 10,000 tiny gestures. Sometimes, one is enough to create a story that sticks. Especially in a world where most interactions are polished but forgettable, even one genuine moment can be brand-defining.
This isn’t about designing more. It’s about designing differently. Less automation, more invitation. Less predictability, more permission.
Because in the end, a brand that allows for real human connection—even just once in a while—is a brand people remember.
So what’s the balance?
How do you build systems strong enough to scale, but soft enough to flex?
Let’s land the plane.
Summing Up: Build Systems. Then Break Them, Gently.
Brands aren’t remembered for how well they optimized their operations. They’re remembered for how they made people feel.
That feeling doesn’t come from flawless funnels or automated delight sequences. It comes from moments. Small, honest, human moments that remind someone they’re not just a transaction—they’re seen. Heard. Cared for.
In the rush to scale, we’ve quietly built systems that squeeze out surprise. We’ve taught teams to stay in the lines. We’ve called anything unrepeatable “inefficient.” And in doing so, we’ve traded emotional impact for operational ease.
But not everything that matters scales. And not everything that scales matters.
The best brands aren’t the ones that try to systematize everything. They’re the ones that leave just enough space for generosity, for instinct, for the unscripted moment that makes someone say, “Wow, they didn’t have to do that.”
So yes, build your systems. Create your efficiencies. Design for scale.
But also: break the script. Make room for smallness. Let your people do something beautiful that no spreadsheet will ever capture.
Because the truth is, most customers don’t fall in love with your systems.
They fall in love with your moments.
