innovation playground Idris Mootee

What They Learned In Design School ... and Business School?

I was reading a very interesting piece by our friend David Armano at Critical Mass. He talked about his D-school experiences and the power of a single conversation (You can read the full story here.) I am a big believer of that. I am fortunate enough to have many of those conversations earlier in my life and I am glad that I am now old and wise enough to be in a position to have those with many people, many times these conversations helped them master change in both their personal and professional lives. This is probably the most valuable thing I bring to my clients and associates.

The other thing I am inspired by is how David described his D-school experience. I am a big believer (and practitioner) of D-School meets B-School (my company Idea Couture was created on that very idea and my business partners are also big believers). So I added my piece below. I though it would be interesting when you read them together. Two very different paths...let me know what you think. Here's David's piece:

Yesterday I was part of a communications exercise where we had to tell a story. I told the story of how a single conversation with my Mom in the middle of the night made it possible me to attend design school (Pratt). In short, I stated that had that conversation never happened—I wouldn't have been in that meeting room sharing my story to them. Which made me think of this post as well as the power of a single conversation. So here it as again—and thank you Mom for helping me pursue my dreams. (Originally posted on 9/25/2006)

For every Ying, there needs to be a Yang. A while back, Design Observer re-printed, “The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School.” by New York-based architect Michael McDonough. It’s a great read and all too true—sadly schools of any type don’t often prepare us for the real world. But what about the things we DO learn in D-school (Design School)? How are we influenced during this pivotal moment in our lives? And does it carry over into life after D-school? What about values that are instilled in our developing hearts and minds?

I was fortunate enough to attend Pratt for the better part of three and a half years. I received a very unique education which consisted of pioneering the usage of computers in design, cooking fillet mignon in the classroom, welding in workshops, and even posing in the buff for a figure drawing class (I'll explain in face your fears). I learned a great deal about urban living in the middle of some pretty rough neighborhoods (got mugged at gunpoint in my second week). But I also learned how privileged I was to be able to receive this kind of education in one of the greatest cities on the planet.

What I learned in D-school has served me well to this very day. Here are a few highlights. All of the images included in this post were created during my time at Pratt.

What I Learned in D-school:

See Things Differently.

My visual communications professors constantly challenged us to look at things differently. To never be satisfied with our first ideas—they were merely stepping stones to something better. When I facilitate ideation sessions, I remember these lessons. The first ideas can sometimes be really good—but the more ideas build upon each other, the better the chances of ending up with something wonderful.

Embrace New Experiences.

I learned how to use computers early on when much of the design world was cutting and pasting away. If I wanted to do something like create an animation—it might mean learning a new program, doing things like creating 3-D models. I didn’t know any of this stuff before coming to Pratt, but I left there with a "learn by doing attitude" which enables me to put myself in the shoes of users—do what they do, and a desire to experience things for myself.

Face Your Fears.

A group of students who wanted to get better at figure drawing agreed to meet one a week after class to continue drawing. There was only one problem. We didn’t have models. So we modeled for each other. I really didn’t want to get up in front of my fellow students with nothing but my bare assets—however I did want to learn how to draw better. So I got up on that platform—in full view of my classmates. But once I did it, I felt a sense of accomplishment in staring down my fears—and to this day, it takes a lot to rattle me. After all, once you do something like that—even the most demanding work experience seems tame in comparison.

Build Something.

The mask I designed here was created in one evening. But before I started working on it, I had to show a sketch to my professor. The initial sketch didn’t do the actual mask justice—my professor wasn’t very impressed at the idea until he saw the execution. This taught me the value of executing ideas rapidly. Sometimes people need to see, touch and feel to believe.

Have Fun.

Having fun is probably THE most important thing I learned in D-school. One of my projects was to design a better “choking victim poster”. So I thought, why can’t a poster about choking be fun? And with a little inspiration from Keith Haring, I did just that. Work doesn’t have to feel like work—I had a lot of fun at Pratt staying up all night working on projects. My roommates and I would wake each other up in the middle of the night if one of us was working, just to get feedback. We had fun with our work and with each other. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously. All things that should ring true in our serious corporate settings (but don't always).

I guess that’s about it. And if you think about it, you really don't need to go to Design School for any of this—but for me, it did the trick. And the funny thing is that if you look at this collection of thoughts and images, you see very little which directly corresponds in a literal fashion with my actual practice in digital experience design (at least not how it’s practiced today). There are no flows, sitemaps or personas. These are skills I had to learn on the job. Marketing, user-centered design, copywriting—these were all developed through real work experience in the field. However I still tap into the core values I leaned at D-school. Maybe what it comes down to was being influenced. But as we know, a little influence goes a long way.

                                                    - David Armano

For me, although I never went to design school or received any formal visual art training, I have always been a pretty good self-taught art director, photographer/cinematographer and visual artist; these skills served me well to this day and helped me a lot in many aspects of my life and work. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if I have gone to Pratt or Rhode Island School of Design instead of B-Schools. Will I be working in a different role of simply doing the same thing through a slightly different path?

And for me, I was fortunate enough to attend some of the best B-Schools in the world. I received a very unique and prestige education which I greatly benefited from it by learning from some of best business minds of the world. The profs at these schools had always thought that I was a little different from the average investment banker type (translation: I cannot be rich). I was never interested in graduating at the top of the class (although I did pretty well), but more about finding answers. What I learned in B-schools has served me well and will continue to do so. I wish they had provided me with a little prototyping tutorial for objects, software, experiences, performances, and organizations. Design thinking can be extremely useful to tackle difficult, messy business problems. Anyway here are a few highlights.

What I Learned in B-school:

See Things Differently.

My marketing professors constantly challenged us to look at things differently. Strategy or marketing is not about doing what others are doing, it is about doing it differently. In order to do it differently, first you need to see it differently. It is about how to see the world through the eyes of the customers. That understanding explains consumer adoption of any new products which is a critical success factor of launching innovative new products. Simple lessons, yet very useful.

Embrace New Experiences.

Every B-school casestudy means a new experience. Going through an intense debate of what a company should or should not do at a particualr point of time is the best part of B-school. I notice some school is better than other at this. The amphitheatre is like a stage and it is like drama class (excpet you need a lot of preparation and making sure you have as much access to information before class). For me, everyday I was embracing new experiences when I put myself in the shoes of those characters in the case studies. The funny part is I eventually get to work with those poeple in real life.

Face Your Fears.

Business is about uncertainties. Strategy is about managing them. Uncertainties cause fears. It is about facing your fears, fears of unknowns and fears of failure. Fears of how your competitors will run you over. There I learned and perfected the craft of strategy; that is, how to identify the industry strcuture and choose a superior competitive position within their structure or try to shape that stucture (strategic innovation), how to analyze a strategic situation, and finally how to create the organizational context to make the chosen strategy work.

Build Something.

Business is about building things, from building products/services and customer experiences to building delivery capabilities and new competencies. It is so called “operations management” and teaches us to develop an operations strategy, perform process analysis and the effective use of data and managerial opinion. It is about building something with many moving pieces and ty connecting them together that produces something call "profits".

Have Fun.

Having fun is probably THE most important thing for ME in B-school. I don’t know about others, I enjoyed every moment of my B-schools’ days and that’s why I kept going back for more. Although the return-on-learning was hitting a point of diminishing return, I just loved it. I made many wonderful friends for life. You know what, I think I probably won’t switch from attending B-school to D-school if I were starting over again. Actually maybe I would have, well probably not.

On Celebrity Endorsed Brand

On the topic of brand architcture, Morgan wrote, “With all his sky-diving off buildings and hot-tubbing it with the hotties - what Flavio calls his "Indiana Jones acts" - Branson has put himself so far out there as a personality (THE personality of Virgin) that Tom's comments (about consumers turning away from the brand), Pete's comments (about succession being critical for Virgin's evolution) and Mike's comments (about "less of Mr. Branson and more of something else")should definitely be ringing the old geezer's bell.”

"And he is old, which is part of the problem - whether it's about him dying and leaving Virgin fatherless or him just getting so creepy and crusty in his old age that anyone who remembers the punk rock cachet he launched the company with, is on their death bed too. Is there an expiry date on a Branded House that's 'slightly maverick'? Will RB make a big personal purchase and re-launch the little blue pill under the Virgin logo? Branson isn't the boss of the brand, he is the brand. It's more than an iconicity, it's like a cult-status. Which leaves just one avenue to pursue if Virgin wouldn't explore the house of brands avenue to prep for the future. Andre's got it: start looking for the future Branson or start producing them. Now.”

Think about this, Britney Spears and Elizabeth Arden launched a fragrance from Spears that is, like J. Lo, be linked to the pop princess’ name. The fragrance marked Britney Spears’ debut in the fragrance/cosmetics category. Not sure how well the fragrance is doing lately with Britney’s latest stunts. The main inherent downside to a celebrity brand is that when the name is no longer the public’s darling or when the celeb pulls some stunts. Yeah, there’s the old saying that there is no bad publicity as long as they spell your name right, and to some degree I think that is true.

Successful celebrity brands have to have a very direct connection to the celebrity. It has to make sense to the prospect. Michael Jordan selling Nike sneakers is no question an effective strategy and flawless execution. The Jordan maketing team are world class. They enjoy great success naturally. But can Tiger Woods sell Viagra? I don’t know, may be not, for the simple reason that the prospective customer sees no natural connection to it. People see he was just paid to be in the TV ad. There is a growing feeling that traditional marketing based on a brand's inherent core values is being crushed under the relentless march of celebrities collaborating with, and now creating their own, brands.

This is an ad for Nikon cameras. The brand-to-celebrity connection is quite clear. Here is a question. Kate Moss has recently launched fragrance Kate by Kate Moss. Moss is one of a growing band of famous faces who are making the journey from featuring in advertising campaigns, to being the "face" of a brand, to becoming brands themselves. Moss' development into a standalone brand is being managed by her modeling agency, Storm. So Moss now needs to continually up-keep her credentials as a style-setter in order to grow into a sustainable brand, with a degree of longevity, as opposed to being a short-lived marketing campaign.

Brands that associate themselves with celebrities such as Moss need to find the balance between choosing the right star for a campaign and not allowing the message to be overshadowed it happens in 6 out of 10 by the celebrity with whom they are collaborating. But Moss is not alone.

There was an incident during the football World Cup, David Beckham appeared in four separate ads during a single commercial break. This highlights the fact that marketers can no longer think of their brands as a single entity but must also manage the brands with which their celebrity endorser may have other arrangements. Essentially their role changed from a brand endorser to a co-brand. Not something marketers would like to see. I think celebrity brands will continue to be welcomed by marketers and celebrities who are forging new relationships with marketerss with a a lot more complexity than the original endorsements and licensing deals.

The obvious upside of attaching a celebrity to a brand is that the brand literally has a real face and a distinct personality that a consumer can link or relate to the product. What is better than the image of a living, breathing, likeable person as opposed to a faceless corporate entity? The downside is celebrities have lifecycles and they are often less predictable. Remember how people were concerned with Martha Stewart a couple of years back? Celebrity branding can be high risks and these risks are sometimes hard to manager.

Is This Time To Quit Your Job?

A lot of my friends have changed jobs the last few months. Moving to a new environment and leaving people whom we enjoy working with is never an easy thing. Although it’s not that bad today, thanks to Facebook and IM. Every time you think about moving on, there’s always a voice in your head that says you are capable of more and that you must stretch yourself, but another voice is filled with doubts and fear. Fear of what ? Fear of failing? Fear is the worst enemy of greatness. Not one person I know taught himself/herself to ride a bicycle without falling a few times. Did you?

So when is the right time to make the move? Here are the three questions to think about before you make that decision:

1/ Try to envision a picture of your future with your current company’s future. See if you like what you’re seeing. Ask yourself where you think the company will end up in three years and map that against where you want to be in three years. A simple gap analysis will give you a good picture.

2/ Take a look at your manager/boss or other senior members in your organization and see if you can find someone whom you think can be your mentor and help you to break through your current ceiling. We all have ceilings and a little mentorship will go a long long way. Some would think this even more important than the company. You don’t need to like the company’s future, if you like your mentor and you think he/she is helping you to grow, stick around?

3/ Go take an inventory of your job's pros and cons. Write down the top three of each? Write down the three things you enjoy most and ask yourself whether you can do a world class job on at least one of those? Look at the three most hated things and ask if they are necessary for your job even though you may not like them?

As much as we'd all like to simply wake up one day to find ourselves in our dream job, such as having unlimited funding to create the next Facebook, the chance of it happening is probably slightly slimmer than an alien landing on your backyard. Hope you'll find my advice useful. BTW, have you seen the movie "The Weatherman"?

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On the topic of changing jobs, our friend Colin Ballantyne just finished his last day at Blast Radius and is moving on. According to Colin, “I am excited about heading into the new role. My time at Blast has been a great run and I have worked with some incredible talent on some excellent projects. Onward into new challenges, it will be good to have the change.” Colin is wonderful to work with, there is a creative side of him which is somewhat hidden. He has always been very popular with the creative and strategy folks. Best of luck to you Colin!

Advanced Brand Strategy Masteclass Week 4 - Managing Brand Architecture

Welcome to week four. This week we are introducing brand architcture. This is less exciting previous sessions as the primarily focus of this one is on the economics of brand management. So why do we need a brand architecture?

Creating a clear brand architecture is to help structure a brand's position (both now and for the future) and support management the task of developing that brand and ensuring that everyone within an organization (from ad agencies to field mkt folks) is working to a common and clearly understood goal. When do you need one? Consider GM has 32 brand names, P&G has hundreds, BMW has 3 or 4, IBM has 5 and Starbucks has 1. Obviously the more brands you have, the more you'll need one. It gets more and more complicated as companies have multi-brands as a result of merger and acquisitions, aggressive brand extensions due to pressure for quick profits and increasing complex structures involving sub-brands, endorsed brands and co-brands.

Brand architecture is not an one-off effort. Often the task includes periodic regrouping multiple product groups, brand families, reposition them to reflect their role in the market and to create a structure for immediate successful marketing. The establishment of a clearly understood and coherent brand architecture creates the structure within which the vital day-to-day tactical decisions can be made. Without this brand architecture in place, these tactical decisions become strategic and long-winded in nature.

Brand Architecture is the logical, strategic and relational structure for all of the brands in the organization’s brand portfolio. The objective is to maximize clarity, synergy and leverage to maximize customer value and internal efficiencies. The main advantages of developing a brand architecture:

1. It helps everyone in the organization see and understand all the connections between corporate brands, sub-brands and master brands.

2. It makes decision making easier when it comes to allocating and sharing marketing resources such as advertising and promotions.

3. Protect brands by being over-leveraged and being diluted by over-stretching communications messaging and graphic design options.

P&G’s brand architecture effectively manage the relationships between product, brands and market segments. Head and Shoulders dominates the dandruff control shampoo category and Pert Plus targets the market for combined shampoo and conditioner. Pantene is positioned as a brand with a technological heritage and the benefit of enhancing hair vitality. The three brands basically optimizes their brand coverage instead all products under a P&G product brand names. One additional major benefit is to avoid a brand association that would be incompatible with another offering and adversely affect the other brand’s performance.

The most important strategic decision is to decide whether a company should adapt a "Branded Hosue" or "House of Brand" strategy.  I have seen hundred of heated debates in the boardrooms on this and it is never an easy one. Because it involves corporate strategy as well as many long term views. Questions for deabte:

1/ Should Google employ a "Braned House" vs. a "House of Brand" strategy when it expands into new areas even ourside the internet seach and ad space?

2/ Should Yahoo gradully replace those brands that they acquired (Flickr etc) and putting them under a Yahoo umbrella or let those companies continue to operate under their own brands? If not, should there be any assoication with Yahoo? If yes, what kind?

3/ Should Virgin consider moving away from a Branded House and start creating new extensions or co-brands preparing the brand for the next decade as there will be certainties over succession issues as well as maintaining relevance beyond certain categories?

Pls share your thoughts. 

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Media Co-habitation and Experience Design

I was running an offsite scenario planning exercise with my three business partners yesterday on the future of broadcast media. A lot of interesting foresights came up. Just want to share some of the thinking and after thoughts with you here.

Let’s start with the idea that generally everything (devices, appliances, even ads) is becoming smaller, but then "experiences" are actually getting bigger, richer, and more emotive. One big challenge is that as devices get smaller, the adaptability of the interface becomes very important.  Not only the "interface" is the brand, more innovative new features are now fueled by software that eventaully be included as "service". That means what was once accomplished through changes in the physical configuration of a networkable product/device will now be managed by its digital interface and smart sensors. Designers can creatively play with the controls of a device so that, depending on the situation, can quickly morph from function to function, such as from a phone to internet browser (iPhone is an example). That is a big part of the brand experience. How does that impact the future role of advertising agencies?  Translation: ad agencies are not only about ads. Now that’s a problem for many. For the AKQA, Critical Mass, IDEO and RGA of the world the future is bright. For marketers, the future is to imagine and create a new experience (service) that extends customer engagement rather than disrupt it; brands can then strengthen their contextual involvement and connection with the consumer. Media will go beyond broadcast to "service". Advertisers will bid to support these services.

When distribution is trivial, unlimited, and available to all, marketing to a captive audience sitting on a cough in front of a box is now a thing of the past and creating "quality" product/service/content is paramount. Content is now a part of any product (and its experiences). Consumers will consume only what‘s relevant and what entertain them most, not what is marketed to you them in a repetitive fashion. So content becomes the bloodstream of marketing. Today we are constantly receiving content from multiple streams. Interestingly, the computer's encouragement of multitasking is equal to the TV's discouragement of it, suggesting that the former promotes active, albeit partial, engagement with multiple streams of content while the latter demands one full attention. Think about it, only about 17% of time spent watching TV is shared with other medium, according to the Kaiser study's findings, compared with an average of more than 65% for computer-based activities.

So here’s a big idea for you. It's Media Co-Habitation. Everything in the future needs to be designed with the idea in mind that the experiences not only need to accomodate multitasking, it should be argued that it needs to be designed to encourage or facilitate multitasking. That will bring a whole new paradigm in experience design, web or TV or small screen.  I don't know about, I am am a crazy multitasker and that's how I can get more things done (I use all 3 Thinkpads on my desk). I bet many of you are the same. A lot of thinking is needed here. A little caffine will help. Pls do share your thoughts.

JUST IN. Here are latest number from research houses for first half of 07, ad spending slipped 0.5% versus the 06. Not surprisingly, the Internet led the way--again--as the most improved category, UP 23.6% versus a year ago. Many of the TV platforms were also in the red, with spot TV taking the worst hit--down 4.6%. Network TV didn't have much to cheer about either; it was off 3.8%. Cable TV was the least hit, slipping just 0.3%.

NOTE: Advanced Brand Strategy Mastrerclass - We will resume our branding session next Monday and we will start module four. Looking forward for some exciting discussions.

Luxury Brand Marketing - Marketers Must Read

Here's a piece by Morgan Gerald, it is an interesting piece so I decided to post it here. So you know, Morgan is an anthropologist (he holds BA, MA and PhD in Anthropology) and has a special interest in youth culture. He spends a lot of time hanging out in malls observing teen and youth’s behavior. Interesting job, right?

In Grade 10, I had a friend who liked to make loud farting noises in French class and who once did something relevant to the current luxury crisis, transformation or challenge.

Over the weekend, my friend visited every store on

Yonge Street in Toronto that sold Zod Lacoste. In dressing rooms and on display floors, he used an exacto knife to perform a little brand surgery and, arriving at school Monday morning, proudly showed us all his new t-shirt, complete with over 100 safety-pinned alligators. Even though he had long hair and listened to Ozzy, we all thought that was pretty fxxking punk rock!

20 years later that same aesthetic is back, maybe in a bigger way than ever. Some hints?

COUNTERFEIT

On Canal St. in NYC or at the corner of Brimley & Sheppard in Toronto, there are more locations selling knock-offs of luxury goods than there are Barney’s, Bloomingdales and Holt Renfrews times 1000. If brands are signs and not just products, need we look for any more proof than here? And if consumers can’t make an authentic connection with a brand (translate, in this case: afford it) you can bet they’ll steal it. Will counterfeit chic come to rear its pirate head in the near fashion future?

THE MECONOMY

A report from Amsterdam-based trendwatching.com predicts 2008 as the year of the ‘meconomy’ (as opposed to the me-too economy of aspirationalism). Why?

- a disdain for big-box retailers

- a loss of faith in the cost of luxury goods.

- a feeling that luxury brands have flopped on their promise by sometimes producing less-than-stellar quality goods

- luxury house are run by brand managers rather than designers

- luxury brands have diluted their exclusivity (Lagerfeld at H&M, anyone?).

One effect, according to the report, is a desire to tell more personal brand stories through odder, more obscure and more curated puchases made from local, independent retailers and designers.

STREETWEAR

With its focus on obscure brands (1-man lifestyles like A-Ron), Customized and Limited Edition and Artist Series remixes of standards (hundreds of Air Force 1 variations since 1982), and personal tweaks on product templates (Nike I.D.), streetwear will drive more consumers towards purchasing personal and defining brand space through exclusivity.

Traditional luxury brands have a place in that space (streetwear’s musical arm, hip hop, made that obvious in breaking Prada, Gucci, LV, Moet to the mainstream), but only if they jive with core value placed on heritage and on the core aesthetic of curating one’s style by mixing & matching high and low cultures of Paris runways and NYC streets.

Online continues driving core consumers towards new products from afar (www.hypebeat.com for the world) but don’t forget the ‘street’ in streetwear: some exclusivities and subcultural luxuries are available only to the hyper-local consumer.

THE 100 MILE CONSUMER

Forget ‘Can I afford luxury?’ With increased environmental and social concerns, more and more consumers could be asking themselves, Can we afford luxury?

Big cities are seeing this with top chefs tailoring (curating, again) menus to fit meat and produce available locally and seasonally. Where a luxury food market has sprouted from the soil of organic green beans grown on farms outside city limits and then sold at the Farmer’s Market in the local park for 3x times the price of green beans in the grocery store, so too might a similar scenario emerge in established luxury brands and products.

Will fashion designer Arthur Mendonca become even more popular among consumers in his home city of Toronto because he and his labor are local? Will future car purchases be influenced by the proximity of the manufacturing plant? Will vacations be taken closer to home so as not to jet-fuel the environment? 

QUESTION OF THE WEEK?

What are the "unobtainables" that your brands or products are based on? I’ll pass on that one when it comes to traditional luxury and where Web 2.0 fits into marketing them because buying online, making messages too public and SNSing with just anybody about the $52,500 Louis Vuitton Patchwork bag seem to contradict the anti-massness of luxury.

Instead, I’ll run with life-caches and life-streams as a luxury performance category.

- start with biographies of clients: income, status, life cycle, goals, social concerns

- meet the needs of clients paring down purchases and simplifying lives by helping them decide what Best Things In Life are worth holding on to or attaining

- help them create ‘most’ experiences (vacations that are the most exotic, extreme, relaxing, educational, wine & food-oriented) and ‘best’ services (financials where stocks and funds are in collaboration with their level of social consciousness)

- customize service in Luxury Offsetting for clients in New York that want to buy German cars, French wine and Italian purses but feel a need to compensate (Don’t plant any tree just anywhere - pay for Pinot Gris vines or a locally-sustaining crop to be planted in the upper New York State region of your choice) 

- dig deep into those biographies to curate those ‘most’ and ‘best’ so clients can access not only the cultural capitals of high culture but also the subcultural capitals (coolness, obscurity, localisms, underground-ness, hyper-speed taste-making, activism etc.) of the ‘low’ and ‘mass’ cultures of the street and Internet.

Top Photo: Coolhunter (www.coolhunter.net) Bottom Photo: Louis Vuittin Art Show Paris Store

The Transformation of Luxury Brand Marketing

There are many good postings to share:

André Galhardo: As “Jacques Lacan pointed out, human-beings need to learn how and what to desire. ‘Desire is the Desire of the Other.’ It is on the basis of this fundamental understanding of identity that Lacan maintained throughout his career that desire is the desire of the Other. What is meant by him in this formulation is not the triviality that humans desire others, when they sexually desire (an observation which is not universally true).

Flavio Azevedo: "What constitutes luxury becomes a wholly individual and emotional decision." Clearly the rules of luxury are not set exclusively by a few educated minds anymore. Experience is luxury. Silence is luxury. To some, not mentioning the word luxury is luxury. Very human. Not so engineer-friendly.

Bart Suichies: Luxury comes from exclusivity. Individualism equals exclusivity. So by definition, every time a brand gives room to consumers to express their individualism, it becomes an exclusive, luxurious good. This will lead to a future of consumers using their self-expression to get the luxury into pretty much any brand in their brandsphere.

Christian Briggs: If this is the case, then the current weak version of experience co-creation (which is still more like mass configuration at this point, despite its own protestations to the contrary) may give way to what I have been calling "deep co-creation," in which customers not only co-create the experience and some of the value, but the business itself (and, by extension the brand). And they will of course do this as a large, interconnected community. So in this changed world, a big part of people's meaning might come from co-creating a business and seeing it thrive.

Thanks everyone for these are great insights. So we all agreed that the very idea of ‘luxury” has changed. .  What you buy is more important than what you earn. Luxury is not a goal anymore. For many, it has become a necessity, part of our daily experiences. Although the purchases are the same, motivations are different.  While consumers are always eager to rationalize their luxury purchases, today they do so based on different value systems. Today’s luxury drivers are rooted much more firmly in personal well-being and self-satisfaction while purchases such as jewelry, watches and handbags continue to satisfy the desire and to indulge one-self and one’s loved ones.

Here are some further insights into luxury goods purchase behavior:

Real vs. Imaginary- Consumption sometimes operates at a level of the imaginary, but it also has real effects in facilitating the construction of self-identity. While luxury shoppers are led by rational desire to purchase items of high value and craftsmanship, eight of the ten top purchase motivators are emotionally driven.  Marketers must tap into consumers’ desires for well-being, self-concept and indulgence. The consumption of symbolic meaning, reinforced through advertising, provides the individual with the opportunity to construct, maintain and communicate identity and social meanings. Victoria Secrets is a great example of a marketer using the unobtainable, imaginary dreams of its consumers to drive sales. Beautiful and perfectly proportioned models strut down the runway and grace glitzy catalog pages to convey the notion that the company’s products can enhance—or even instill such glamour. If Victoria’s Secret products are worn by the beautiful, does the inverse also hold true? Will wearing them make one beautiful? Women scoop up the product for themselves and dazzling elegance will rub off the wearer. Ask this important question: What are your key target segments’ wildest imaginations?

Material vs. the Symbolic After a product fulfills its ability to satisfy a physical need, we enter the realm of the symbolic, and it is symbolic meaning that is used in the search for the meaning of existence. We become consumers of “illusions”. De Beers’ slogan “A diamond is forever” has been so successful in creating the illusion of “love and eternity” that a diamond is the material symbol of love and marriage. For many, the gift of a diamond symbolizes eternal love, which in itself is an elusive concept (ok not all agree). Now marketers are trying to do the same with platinum. Ask this question: What illusions does your product help consumers to create or maintain?

Social vs. the Self - The function of symbolic meanings of products operate in two directions, outward in constructing the social world—social-symbolism—and inward towards constructing our self-identity: self-symbolism. In other words, using products to help us become our “Possible Selves”. Most SUVs and sports equipment brand images are built on this very concept. SUVs have an image of being sporty, powerful, tough and rugged. They appeal to men (and some women) who may not travel anywhere more treacherous than the local supermarket.  The Hummer sold to civilians is radically different from the one used by the military, yet the brand’s image, as an enduring, robust all-terrain vehicle remains intact.  Expensive and “cool”, SUVs are popular yet practical—they hold a carpool full of kids and their hockey equipment—without saddling their upscale owners with a “minivan” image. Ask this question: What are your target luxury segments’ ideal possible selves?

Marketing of luxury goods is in the middle of a transformation. The individual must experience consumption as part of the journey towards personal development, achievement and self-creation. They are content to map their lives on a marketer’s segmentation chart. Marketing of luxury goods is evolving away from a top-down approach towards one that provides or facilitates innovations for new ideas and meanings- empowered by Web 2.0. The co-creation of brand meanings through social networks and virtual interactions has become the basis for value. This, in fact, challenges the convention view of product-centric innovation. 

Some examples invclude a social networking site targeting affluent consumers under 35 years old launched a weeks ago. Squa.re, is a members-only site offering internet protocol TV and a focus on luxury. The company behind the start-up, Square Media Ventures, which describes itself as a Web 2.0 internet broadcaster, says Squa.re "aims to bridge the online gap in the luxury sector and the affluent 18 - 35-year-old professionals market". The founders Olivier Bassil and Jeremy Genin say that the site will "move one step beyond the MySpace and YouTube generation" and will go up against other select sites, such as aSmallWorld. Bassil adds: "Leveraging social networks is a powerful sales and marketing tool. We want to help luxury brands increase their awareness among an engaged and highly influential audience." They allow members to create their own online TV channels and showcase their lifestyles with like-minded individuals with user-generated and professional video content. See you guys there in your Dolce Cabana purple jacket!

CMO Stands For Chief Meaning Officer

Here is a question …is it corporations, who by their ad campaigns ultimately determine what consumers want? Or is it consumers, whom producer must satisfy in order to stay in business? Or as Flavio puts it “Beware of the connected-consumer. For he/she will have a vote on what the next “unobtainable” will be. We want to 'co-create the unobtainable'. After all, we do this for hours in the web, everyday.” Good observations. Let’s take a look at Bart’s view (from his post this morning):

“Luxury comes from exclusivity. Individualism equals exclusivity. So by definition, every time a brand gives room to consumers to express their individualism, it becomes an exclusive, luxurious good. This will lead to a future of consumers using their self-expression to get the luxury into pretty much any brand in their brandsphere.”

“On the other hand, one could also argue luxury brands should never empower consumers, as that (not being able to personalize your brand) would create an unobtainable in itself.”

This deceptively simple question has been at the heart of debate between marketing scholars and practitioners. The success of marketing lies in its ability to embed meanings in brands and products. This suggestions leads to the important conclusion that meaning does not necessary emanate from the material or functional aspects of products or services. Consumer understandings and experiences of what are seemingly objectives properties are simply “culturally constructions” and often comes from "conversations". Today many of these conversations are happening in a vitual environment and cultural constructions happen a lot faster and are more global in nature. Brands have symbolic meanings in all cultures and societies. Marketers need to induce the consumer with a preference or to pay a premium for luxury brands that are sometimes (somtimes) more mass produced similar quality products. And now, the power to induce is shared by the consumers.

Once markets believed that to mobilize meanings it means owning and monopolizing through media channels of meaning creation. Nike, for instance, does not aim to attract particular meanings to its products; it just needs to attach the swoosh to any person, place or event that is granted cultural value in the world of sport. Mercedes Benz does aim to attract particular meanings to its range of automobiles; it just needs to have its logo to be seen in major events of golf of tennis where cultural value is being granted.

So that brings us the conclusion that a CMO should really be called the Chief Meaning Officer. How many CMO out there that truly understands what we have discussed the last couple of days and their marketing team is fully equipped for this new job of "co-creating meaning with customers?" For sure, traditional ad agencies struggle so much and many are stuck in the 80's advertising paradigm. How many of them have the right mindset and tools to sell the “unobtainable”?

Advanced Brand Strategy Masterclass Week 3 - Luxury Brand Marketing

Since we have great momentum on the debate on this subject, this is the perfect time to introduce next week's module - Managing Luxury Brand. The topic of "Brand Meaning" is particularly relevant in this industry and so we can carry on our debate and see these ideas through the lens of luxury brands. This has always been one of my favorite subjects and one of my most populars among my keynotes.

The natural evolution of all luxury concepts is from class to mass and it started to accelerate 8 years ago. Although the very definition of what is a "luxury" brand is open for debate, I believe that it's being expanded. Luxury is first adopted by the affluent and wealthy and inevitably translated and reinterpreted down to the mass market. So today's luxuries become tomorrow's necessities. Luxury marketers need to stay out in front of the luxury consumers, discovering new and different ways to give expression to the luxury consumers' desires. New technology creates new luxury needs and business opportunities, such as HD-TVs, iPhones and other electronic gadgets. Changes in fashion, too, are a way to continually reinvent luxury, so today's colored diamonds are hot. But to assure the greatest long-term success luxury marketers need to connect with the luxury consumers' inner-emotional lives and create new products and services to meet those needs.

Bear with me here. There’s another way to explain what’s happening is that the imbalance in our current spending patterns which perhaps may be viewed as a market failure caused by consumption externalities: (In English please?) Basically, in a little economics here, the fact that greater consumption by a group of people actually imposes costs on others. An important advantage of this explanation is that it is grounded in the very same theoretical framework that animates the beliefs of the most ardent defenders of the status quo. When one family's spending decisions impose negative consequences on others, Adam Smith's invisible hand simply cannot be expected to produce the best overall spending pattern. The good news is that if consumption externalities lead us to work harder thereby improving productivity, spending more improving this consumer-driven economy, and save little and helping the explosive growth of credit card and personal finances companies (and the now mortgage problems), that's what it is. Brand is a core part of any capitalist society.

While all these sounds good, we need to watch out for a new breed of consumer: the middle-aged ex-yuppies who, finding himself surrounded by too much stuff acquired over the years, decides to simplify life. Out will go conspicuous consumption and a trophy culture. These advanced luxury spenders will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, "experiences", not heavy goods for the home (although Wolf and Sub-Zero kitchen is still nice and considered must-haves). This is great for those who work in the digital space as there will be lots of opportunities to design "life cache" services ( here is a million dollar idea here) or as our friend David Armano at Critical Mass puts it, "life streams" and these life streams need to be captured and preserved in roder to create meaningful experiences.

The most interesting concept to explore here is “Desire vs. Satisfaction”. This presentation here is about 6 years old with some minor updates when I talked to our clients on this subject. I have presented this in Spain, Germany, NYC, Boston and San Francisco and this is the slide (slide 53) that my audiences find most interesting. Brand advertising often provides gratification and recodes a commodity as a desirable psycho-ideological sign. In fact, it feeds the desire to sometimes the unobtainable.

Advertising feeds the desire to achieve the often unobtainable unity of the self with destabilized meanings, images that separate commodities from their original intended use and offer the opportunity to reconstruct a self by "purchasing meanings" in a Do-it-yourself fashion. Desire exists in the gap between visual / languages / symbols and the unconscious. Desire does not desire satisfaction. To the contrary desire desires desire. Images are often so desirable that things hardly satisfy. Humans have a natural ability to want, desire, aspire, yearn, and long for. Any attempt to diminish this natural desire I believe is counterproductive, frustrating, and so improbable it borders on the impossible. Some people desire desirelessness with such a passion that it actually increases their ability to desire. What we do we become stronger in, and these people yearn so much and so often to have no more yearning that their ability to yearn becomes astronomical. Postmodern consumption is inextricably linked with aspects of sexuality, both conscious and subconscious. Desires are being constructed through linkages between consumption and the human body. Visuals will continue to be the most powerful tool because they never satisfy. Calvin Klein, Diesel, Gucci and Abercrombie and Fitch built and maintain their brands based entirely on this concept. “Meaning” is created through continuous search for l