Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Kaldeidoscope in ME Magazine
ME Magazine, a mechanical engineering publication as the title suggests, spoke to our very own Chris Hammond recently for an article they published on user interface. Here's what he had to say:Apple also did something else unusual. It kept the iPod controls simple. It included the commands necessary to play music, and it made them intuitive and obvious. (Later, it added equally intuitive commands to display photos and movies.)
This took enormous discipline, said Chris Hammond, design manager for the Cincinnati-based design shop Kaleidoscope. "Complex interfaces happen with consumer electronics all the time," he said. "You start with a sheet of features and you look at how many bullet points differentiate you from the competition, and try to include as many features as possible.
"But look at the iPod or the Blackberry personal digital assistant," Hammond said. "It's an integrated, rich experience that people become addicted to. Think about Apple's iPhone. You can access all those features and never use a single drop-down menu. Now, think about the clunky interfaces on your TV and VCR. They are among the most unintuitive products ever designed."
posted by Finn McKenty at 10:06 AM
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Four Stages of a Lifestyle Brand
We define a lifestyle brand as one that differentiates itself based on the collective values, ideas and beliefs of the people that buy it. This is in contrast to brands based on value, performance, or other price/feature-based differentiators. In other words, you buy a lifestyle brand because you feel like you belong to the same tribe. Value, performance, and other considerations matter, but they aren't dealbreakers or dealmakers.Good examples of lifestyle brands are things like fashion, sports, cars, and other categories where people have a deep emotional connection to the product. Most lifestyle brands are built on self-expression. In theory anything can be a lifestyle brand, but in practice it's difficult to build a lifestyle brand around a category that people not inclined to think of as a means of self-expression like paper towels, house paint, or ceiling fans.
In any case, lifestyle brands follow a four-stage evolution during their lifecycle that we've outlined below. Click the image to view it larger, or download a PDF here.
Stage 1: Core
At this stage, the brand is by the core, for the core. It’s small, but growing. It’s relatively easy to create and manage a brand at this stage because the competition is so unsophisticated.
Core: Small group of passionate consumers who evangelize
Mainstream: Unaware
Market size: Very Small
Marketing: Word of mouth, events, online
Examples: Skateboarding in 1992
Stage 2: The Next Big Thing
This is the most critical stage, where lifestyle brands ultimately live or die. At this point, the brand is as big as it can get within the core, and needs to crossover in order to continue growing.
Core: Nearly universally popular among core consumers. Community rallies behind the brand to help it grow.
Mainstream: Early adopters and influencers start to spread the word, but still relatively unknown.
Market size: Small-Medium
Marketing: Word of mouth, speciality media
Examples: Ultimate Fighting Championship
Stage 3: Crossover Success
This is the sweet spot for a lifestyle brand. It mostly retains the credibility it had during Stage 1 and 2 while broadening its market substantially. Some loss of credibility is inevitable, though.
Core: Growing skepticism. Has mostly moved on to a new, core brand (Stage 1) that feels more authentic to them.
Mainstream: Enthusiastically embraces the brand. Feels like they’re part of something new and cool.
Market size: Large
Marketing: Mass
Examples: Kevin Smith movies
Stage 4: Sellout (Optional!)
Most, but not all, lifestyle brands eventually end up as Sellouts. They’ve gotten too big, made too many compromises, and eroded their brand too much. It doesn’t have to happen, though!
Core: The brand is completely discredited with the core. They wouldn’t buy it if their lives depended on it.
Mainstream: All but the slowest laggards have moved on to the next crossover (Stage 3) brand.
Market size: Small
Marketing: Mass, if any
Examples: Bam Margera
Labels: branding
posted by Finn McKenty at 2:56 PM
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Friday, February 01, 2008
McKinsey Quarterly: Shedding the B2B Commodity Mindset
The latest issue of McKinsey Quarterly has an excellent article on elevating B2B products above the commodity level:Is the soap you buy really different from the competition? Probably not, though consumer goods companies know how to differentiate their products by building strong brands. By contrast, companies that sell things such as bulk chemicals and steel to businesses, burdened by the notion that these goods are commodities, churn out more and more product more and more cheaply and then sell as much as possible at the market price. Yet in many B2B markets, nonprice factors might be responsible for as much as two-thirds of a customer's buying decision.The conventional wisdom is that price is the only real differentiator in B2B products, that nonprice and touchy-feely things like branding don't really matter, but as the article points out, that simply isn't the case.
For one data point that supports the article, I think back to my days in printing, where I dealt with a lot of paper suppliers. Most kinds of paper are without a doubt commodities, especially common versions like 20# white. You can get just about any kind of paper from just about any supplier, which I did when I placed my paper orders every day. I rarely bought from the cheapest place in town. Instead, I bought from the supplier that was most reliable, with better inventory management systems that meant they were almost never out of what I needed. I paid a higher price, but it was worth it to me because it meant one less round of phone calls I had to make everyday, which was worth a lot to me.
Check out the full article here. Free registration is required, but it's more than worth signing up.
Labels: innovation, product development
posted by Finn McKenty at 2:48 PM
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