The concept of the Unique Sales Proposition (USP) has been enshrined in marketing and sales circles for decades. Advanced by advertising executive Rosser Reeves in the late 1940s and 50s and then introduced into the lexicon in his 1961 book Reality in Advertising, he called on brands to extend their product advertising from product features to the specific unique benefits their product delivers to consumers. The value of a brand’s USP was to move the “mass millions” to buy the product. One of the most famous taglines he is credited with was …
Strategy
Driving Meaningful and Enduring Retail Change
I recently returned from NRF’s 2023 “Big Show” in New York, along with nearly 40,000 of my new best friends. There were plenty of shiny new objects such as holograms, smart mirrors, the metaverse, and the like. These innovations certainly create great press, and buzz. True the hundreds of keynotes, panels, and featured sessions by some of the retail industry’s most noteworthy leaders and observers and the thousands of vendors touting their tech on five massive Expo levels are both mind and foot numbing. Also true, although this year’s …
Walmart Checks Another Box that Amazon Can’t
Amazon has wasted the past several years and billions of dollars fiddling around with testing physical stores of all types and failing (a couple of Amazon Style stores are still breathing). It also over-predicted growth following the pandemic and retreated by shedding thousands of jobs and cancelling the planning and construction of unnecessary DCs. And Walmart marches on. But First, a Word About Visionaries Here's a lesson that keeps on giving: Visionary and genius entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos can “parachute in” from some imaginary …
Clean Is Under Siege
Even before the November 2022 class action lawsuit against Sephora, filed by a customer who evidently felt bamboozled by its “Clean at Sephora” seal, I could sense the once-hot category of “clean” beauty was sputtering. Utterly ill-defined, even more so than its chief precursor -- the “natural” category – clean’s big moment in the beauty spotlight lasted all of maybe five years. Cleanwashing Coming on the heels of “greenwashing” we have now have fears of “cleanwashing,” i.e., marketing that overpromises on the good-for-you front, …
2023 Retail Strategy Outlook: People, Processes and Platforms
Over the last three years retailers and brands were faced with both opportunistic initiatives and post-pandemic obstacles. The industry unilaterally and almost instantaneously became aware of how the overall business model was changing. Consumer behaviors and demands have forced a re-examination of how retailers and brands operate, creating a fundamental shift from product to consumer centricity. As a result, retailers are currently focused on evolving their people, processes and platforms. This retail model re-evaluation has resulted in a …
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New Retail: How the “Store” Will Undergo Transformation
For the vast majority of the 20th century, retailing had been largely transactional. The store was the place where the goods were seen, sold, and stored (hence the term). With the advent of ecommerce that definition became questioned, and the change-averse retail industry was challenged, and became progressively under siege. Retailers who were already outside their comfort zone prior to the pandemic got pushed to the limit, and in some cases over the limit. The tsunami-like wave that compressed five to seven-years of ecommerce maturation …
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Missed Signals
Most of us went to sleep on November 8, 2022, expecting to wake up to a new political landscape. Some were dreading the morning and some couldn’t wait, but as the sun rose, I would argue that all of us were surprised. But really? Consider our behavioral changes in recent years; we have jettisoned our landlines, block calls from unknown sources and ignore unwanted texts. So many of our habits have changed in fundamental ways and it is increasingly obvious that the polling methodologies on which all political predictions are made are archaic. …
The Robin Report Announces the Retail Radicals: The Movers and Shakers of Legacy Brands
We are pleased to announce the winners of The Robin Report 2022 Retail Radicals. The annual awards program focuses on identifying radical thinkers and doers (innovators and entrepreneurial leaders) exclusively in the legacy (brick-and-mortar) sectors of the retail industry. These radicals are driving the major transformations within their respective retail brands. We celebrate traditional, legacy radicals because they face challenges that are much larger and more complex than those of the legion of tech-driven startups who are so often …
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