Earlier this year, Pete Nordstrom, president and chief brand officer of the retailer that bears his family name, launched Nordy Pod, a podcast or as he said, he added a new title to his resume. During the hour-long presentation, he invites employees or members of the extended Nordstrom family,” including friends of the company and actual blood relatives, for unscripted chats. As is characteristic of exceptional retailers, Pete is truly interested in people and his authentic curiosity shows in his conversations. His guests over the course of …
Disney Versus Florida
A recent Wall Street Journal article quoted Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, saying, “The No. 1 concern CEOs have is ‘When should I speak out on public issues?’” related to the faceoff between Disney CEO Bob Chapek and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. George concluded it was inevitable that CEOs and corporations would be forced to take a political stand and suggested that was a good thing. But is it? In today’s politically contentious environment getting on one side of a political debate will probably alienate at least …
The Paradox of Brands
Paradoxes are both familiar and common to the human condition. They are brain teasers that reveal faults in our senses and errors in human logic. Authors and poets delight in paradoxes because they stop the reader in their tracks to ponder the apparent contradictions. Like the familiar phrase, “Less is more,” or when Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, “I must be cruel to be kind,” we are forced to reflect on the paradox and what it means. So, I was naturally drawn to a new study led by University of Illinois marketing professor Maria Rodas on …
Retail Unionization on the Horizon
During the early days of the pandemic, a new phrase entered our lexicon: essential workers. Defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “Essential workers are those who conduct a range of operations and services that are typically essential to continue critical infrastructure operations.” Many retail employees fit that definition including those working in grocery stores, pharmacies, medical supply stores, convenience stores, pet stores, hardware stores, office supply stores, liquor stores and e-commerce operations like Amazon. Most …
Luxury’s Got a New Change Agent: Gen Z
For years we’ve talked about the 72-million strong millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) as the next-gen customers for luxury brands. But now there is an even younger generation on the horizon, Gen Z (born from 1997 to 2012), 67 million and counting. Note to self: immigration continues to add to their numbers. Similar But Different Like siblings born in the same family, millennials and Gen Z share similarities, but the greater the age difference, the greater the differences in the worlds they grew up in. Sixteen years …
Help Wanted
In advance of the holiday season, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported retailers will hire between 500,000 and 665,000 seasonal workers in November and December. At least some of retail’s 8.5 percent to 10.5 percent projected growth for holiday sales is contingent on retailers having enough employees to ring up the sales, stock the shelves and pull-and-pack the online orders. Employee Shrink Then the November 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics reported jobs numbers dropped; retail employment declined by 20,000 jobs in October from 15.45 …
Why Amazon Has a Hold on Millennials
Since its inception, Jeff Bezos has been playing the long game at Amazon. He put everyone on notice in his first shareholder letter in 1997: “We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be shareholder value we create over the long term. We choose to prioritize growth.” Profits took a back seat to growth and early on he took a lot of flak about it, as when Forrester Research analyst George Colony called the company “Amazon. Toast.” The winning strategy as laid out in that first letter and followed ever since is “customer …
What Does a Luxury Brand Sound Like?
Not too long ago, although it seems like ages since we could attend conferences in person, I met a senior marketing executive from Farmers Insurance who told me that when his team was first presented with the Farmers jingle, they hated it. “Too hokey!” is what he said. But their vote was overridden by more senior executives and the jingle became the sound of Farmers and the sound of history. Turns out customers also loved it and hokey though it may be, everyone in the company became a believer in the power of sonic branding. The golden age …