Steve Jobs once said, “It’s more fun to be a pirate than join the navy.”
Just back from addressing the Nation Retail Federation on In-store Branding for the Experience Economy with my long time client and co-conspirator Robert Raible. I must concur with Cap’n Jobs
; pirates know how to have a good time. Pirates know they are in it for themselves but that they can only get what they want by banding together. Pirates have their own language and get to wear pretty cool hats, all while disregarding the conformist tendencies of proper society as they share an ideology which helps ‘em understand how they fit in to the big picture. They even have a book about branding for pirates: The Pirate Inside by Adam Morgan. (more…)
A recent speaking engagement in Chicago forced me to become absolutely clear on how to discuss brand’s relationship to business. I was planning to keep it separate and available only to audience participants, but Forbes recently published two articles that made me realize there are people still evangelizing the Old Testament (The Four P’s of Marketing, as introduced in 1960’s America). I can no longer sit back and let them screw up a bunch of well educated people’s understanding of the New Covenant: The Experience Economy. (more…)
“Don’t panic, It’s Organic!” These are the words used by my first intern’s Father when explaining to his impressionable young-en that its okay to throw an apple core out of the car window because it’ll rot.
It was 1970 and the hippie movement was in full bloom… free love, flower power and support for the organic farmer as a way to “Stick it to The Man” and denounce popular culture of the day.
The hippies had immediate influence over music, movies and family values. Why did it take forty years for the organics movement to go mainstream?
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Is Perception Latin for Reality?
Are discount stores finally realizing that they can’t be something they’re not? Attention retailers: just be yourselves (’cause if you don’t, customers will see right through you). And, by the way, you cannot be everything to everybody. Case in point: First there was Kmart. Then came Wal-Mart. Then came Target. Then the fun started. Kmart tried to be like Wal-Mart. Mistake. Kmart filed for bankruptcy. Then Wal-Mart wanted to be like Target. Mistake. Wal-Mart realized it, and fired its marketing guru and ad agency. Wal-Mart is for low-price shoppers. Target is for shoppers with a little less concern about price and more concern about style. Kmart, you can’t fall somewhere in between. In the Experience Economy, retailers will not be successful mimicking a concept. They have to seize the opportunity to create their own unique personalities. To be themselves.
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