The other afternoon on Dateline White House on MSNBC, Nicole Wallace mused with a female guest about what will happen when they can go outside again. Their consensus: They need elastic-banded pants. Their knowing smiles suggest we all will expand our wardrobes. After a year of relying on figure forgiving leggings, t-shirts and hoodies, entering the once and future world of wardrobes frozen in the amber glow of our year-ago closets may come as yet another shock to our already traumatized selves. Yet it must be said, our year of living Covidly …
The New Consumer Faces an Anxious Future
Conventional wisdom insists the world as we’ve come to know it this past year balances precariously on a polarizing precipice: economic instability vs. the stock market’s irrational exuberance. Remember what happened to irrational exuberance? Consumer behavior today straddles a tipping point. To be clear, marketers are balancing the same divide. Poised on this teeter-totter, the key question looms: wither brands that understand and serve The New Consumer? Fairytale Moments Today’s reading of reality reminds us of the ballet version of The …
The Winter of Our Discontent
Sometimes it helps to stand back and look for the big truths hiding in plain sight amidst massive mounds of little insights, false positives, mistaken assumptions and, well yes, wishful thinking. Such a truth revealed itself as I took my regular Fitbit-inspired walk around Manhattan today. I started on the Upper East Side in the 90s and headed 35 or so blocks south, before heading back up: my roughly10,000-step daily requirement and all logged before 9:00 AM. Invigorating, right? Well, not quite. An Urban Wasteland Typically, I walk down …
Reimagining JCPenney
Several weeks ago, a colleague asked me which retailer(s) I thought were genuinely innovative. For me, "innovative" and "retailer" rarely fit in the same sentence, but, my immediate response: Carvana. Disruption for Detroit The world of used, or previously owned cars will never be the same. It has now been transformed into a fascinating, fun and, dare one say, festive shopping experience. Carvana is a totally reimagined catalytic wonder-what-it-would-be-like moment of new car ownership all the way through to the thrill of delivery and …
How to Understand Your Customer
Remember when the Paradox of Choice was published? Sociologist Barry Schwartz's thesis was that consumers were stunned by the sheer staggering number of product category options, and thus defaulted to making no choice. Scores of CPG clients began the laborious process of attempting to re-rationalize SKUs, until "cease and desist" orders were issued internally. The shelf space strategy was to edit the number of offerings to mitigate the paradox of choice syndrome, until the impact on slotting fees raised its ugly head. Shopping vs Buying The …
For Whom the Retail Bell Tolls
Recent news headline: Retail CEO announces that luxe retail is the new normal. Another recent news headline: Real estate empresario comments on how overbuilt and expensive New York City has become. We were, of course, shocked to learn that real estate was expensive here. Any fair-minded observer can be forgiven a moment of disgust as these particular twin revisionist rationales work to fling more pixie dust on the legitimate question we face, Whither retail reality? Ghost Town It's not all Covid all the time. Think of the forced march to …
Why This Is So Hard
Several Christmases ago I was invited to one of those Secret Santa holiday parties. I am always a hopeless failure at such under-$25 scavenger hunts, but the erstwhile colleague who drew my name was far more able. Thus, around the luncheon table at the moment of reveal, I received a gift from the Museum of Modern Art: a coffee cup and bag with the legendary I "Heart" New York insignia. I was enthralled and have used both endlessly. We now fast forward to the moment at hand; from repeated dishwasher visits the cup has begun to lose its …
How the Coronavirus is Going to Change Our Lives
In its recent review of A Bit of a Stretch, a prison memoir from filmmaker and ersatz tax fraudster Chris Atkins, The New York Times reports on his observation that sexual pornography isn’t the primary tool of gratification and anticipation of release in the British prison system. Rather, GQ’s brand of capitalist porn is the lusted after publication of prisoners’ choice. “Prisoners drooled endlessly over Orlando Bloom’s watch or David Beckham’s shoes, believing they too could possess these luxuries if they sold enough drugs,” Atkins is quoted …