2008
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Discounts
Jan 12
I work in a luxury store where clearance runs 40–60% off and every other item carries a “discretionary discount.” Now every customer expects one, and I worry discounts have warped how consumers perceive value.
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Preview
Jan 11
A preview of a coming series on retail marketing: divide products into necessities and luxury goods (the everyday minimum versus a temporary escape from it), and each calls for very different marketing.
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House of Brands
Jan 6
Extending your brand into a new market looks easier, but it risks confusion and lost brand equity. Toyota built Scion rather than an edgier Toyota. The case for a second brand under the corporate umbrella.
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Acquisitions
Jan 5
Buying a competitor just to reduce competition is a poor investment. You’re buying a brand, not spare parts — and chopping the legs off a new horse won’t make your old one run faster.
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Red Ocean Islands
Jan 4
If you can’t escape to a blue ocean, become an island in the red one. Two techniques (never stop innovating, and set the industry standard) illustrated by VHS beating Beta and the HP print heads inside other companies’ ink cartridges.
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Blue Ocean Strategy
Jan 3
A recap of my first article: when competitors turn the water red, move to a new ocean. Apple stopped being a computer company and became a consumer electronics company — and now Microsoft is copying it.
2007
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Comparative Advantage
Dec 30
When products, prices and company structure are identical across a saturated market, look for a comparative advantage. Extended service plans are the easy route; a consistent, standardized customer experience is the better one.
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Staggered Entry
Dec 19
Any entry into a new market should start with brand advertising. Sonic ran TV ads in my area long before it opened a single location nearby. When it finally did, business boomed.
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TOWS
Dec 18
SWOT analysis starts with the company and looks outward. Hermawan Kartajaya turned it around: TOWS starts with the market and the customer, then turns the lens on yourself. I cannot agree more.
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Landscaping
Dec 17
Before you enter a market, survey the landscape. Three questions every entrepreneur must answer in detail first. If you can’t answer even one, your brand will likely fail before it launches.
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Differentiation
Nov 29
Segmenting the market gets you a differentiated product, but imitators always follow. Three ways to stay distinct: leverage your company’s background, invent a new category, and go where the competition won’t.
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The Perfect Customer
Nov 27
The perfect customer is an unpaid advertising force: the person who sends friends, family and strangers your way for nothing, like the man who has eaten a Big Mac almost every day since 1972. Stop flooding channels and target that customer instead.