Brands Enter Here

Posted on | January 19, 2009 |

The economy has now redefined accessibility for the global brand. In the past, to access a brand was to understand price and availability. In the coming year you’ll see a flood of “innovations”, new categories of products and all sorts of other methods, severely hampered by this old method, to assuage consumers they’re making the wisest choice with a limited budget. Price and availability look a little different now. Add the new equation for accessibility -leverage locale and language like never before.

Activity Centering
Availability has become about your…comfort. The old sales maxim, “fish where the fish are,” has never been truer, and because we tend to fish the same pond to exhaustion, it may require that you address new locations that simply make you uncomfortable. Consumers have migrated, and proximity is now key -not simply to population centers- but to activity centers.

The demographic decisions made to streamline operations, supply or distribution, have to be re-thought to streamline the activities of the consumer. What does this look like? An afternoon devoted to groceries. To clothes. Leisure shopping. Sports. This isn’t “big-box thinking” about providing for all these needs in one location. Rather, target those proximities that matter -make it easy for the consumer to engage on their terms- and forgo the rest. Uncomfortable? Yes. Becoming an integral part of the consumers’ day? Definitely.

Re-locate, Re-locate, Re-locate
For global brands, moving into new regions or cultures is the obvious reality in the pursuit of composite balance and economic stability. Addressing activity centers for a specific consumer can then appear exponentially complex when expanding into new territories. Why wouldn’t I simply port an existing program into another country, with a like-minded retailer, and not confuse the issue? Because the issue isn’t about location.

Study those activities unique to a culture and those proximities that make the most sense in the day of the consumer. Recognize, for instance, that Hispanics in North/Central America prefer to shop with their families, not alone or with peers. A women’s only boutique will simply not work. A shop for high-end denim, say, would have to cater to both husbands and children to win the business of this consumer such that neither she, nor her family, feel alienated from the experience. Similar cultural traits that impact daily lives -that subsequently impact shopping behaviors- can be found across the globe, if you simply care to look.

No Translation Necessary
As you expand into new markets, express the universal, and leave the translation up to the consumer. There’s a reason why Naoto Fukusawa’s work is so easily understood across the globe (and why he and others like him are the true source of Apple’s design inspiration): he builds into each product the expression of a core consumer need, for the context where it’s identified, and no more. Call it human simplicity; it’s when a product at the time it’s discovered solves an immediate and understandable need. For a century, we’ve universally walked into rooms and changed the ambiance when pulling on a cord (illumination); why not employ the same technique with a CD player…when turning on the “auditory” ambiance of a space?

It’s on this platform of human simplicity, of universal understanding, that layers of customization can be built. And the time is now. Etsy, Threadless, NikeID are all great case studies in how brands, in the conventional sense, simply get out of the way. Provide the canvas, or the forum, where consumers can make products for themselves, and others. If a brand picks the moments it will reflect the consumer, how better for it to see itself grow?

Growth in hard times is possible. Certain, if accessibility is looked at with these new eyes. Beyond “location” as the chief means of defining access, it’s those brands that better understand the sum of location, locale and language that will move beyond survival. Thrive even. There’s never been a better time.