Courage

It’s Midlife Crisis Time for Millennials. Here’s What They’re Buying

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Geriatric millennials are turning forty, but don’t expect us to make the same big-ticket purchases as our predecessors. Millennials currently fall within the age range of 27 to 42. Many are staring down the barrel of the big Four-O. But, due to the perilous state of the economy, millennials have more to fear than our mortality. Although millennials’ minds and bodies are of a certain age, our net worth is not. Millennials still only account for 7 percent of the nation’s total wealth. Before you start saying that everyone struggles in their …

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Growing Retail C-Suite Vacancies

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There’s a growing crisis in retail C-suites. Nobody wants the top job. VF, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Puma, Designer Brands, Stitch Fix and Rite Aid have longstanding vacancies ready to fill. Gap is close to announcing a permanent replacement for Sonia Syngal who left the company in the middle of last year, but it will have another CEO position to fill for the Athleta brand after Mary Beth Laughton makes her exit. And Gap’s chief people officer is on the way out as well. To fill the open slots, board members are moving from their interim roles …

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After the Crash, NFTs Are Repurposed for Retail

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NFTs have sprinted through the hype cycle, from frenzied enthusiasm to disillusionment in less than 24 months. Signals are hinting that they may have reached the ultimate stage of the cycle: productivity. The crypto winter chilled a large cohort of investors previously emboldened by a steady upward march in digital asset valuations. Bored Apes, secured by FTX-stored tokens sailed from their virtual yacht club to oblivion, as the celebrity-backed craze ran aground while the speculative NFT market plunged by 97 percent between January and …

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Insights for Retail Innovators from Shoptalk

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Identifying the critical trends that are shaping retail (short- and long-term) is an art supported by science. And that’s what Shoptalk does every year to build insightful content to guide retail executives in navigating an unpredictable, dynamic digital marketplace. All retail, whether legacy physical brands or the digital natives, face the same macro issues that keep everyone awake at night. The operations that once separated legacy from digital brands have merged, and it takes some brave, bold, and innovative thinking to chart the course …

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What Ever Happened to Caring About Brand Dilution?

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Remember when you couldn’t open your laptop without getting bombarded by “race to the bottom” brand messaging? They were selling Coach and Kate Spade at T.J. Maxx and we couldn’t stop talking about it, and whether the brands would be able to retain their value positioning. Analysts feared that brand dilution would be the death of retail. Not one of us had an inkling about the global pandemic that was about to turn the retail industry on its head, bringing fashion retail closer to swimming with the sharks than anything to precede it. The …

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The Culture Power Brand. Designing Brands That Move People.

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We are living in extraordinary times as we come out of a once-in-a-lifetime collective reset. And as we heal, recalibrate, and seek joy, we are prioritizing experiences that move us. Great retail can do this through breakthrough products that speak to our multi-hyphenated needs and superior brands that build on functional excellence and imbue it with emotional and creative meaning by tapping into the big-picture power of culture. Brands that connect the dots and deliver on all these fronts are hard to displace. Culture, the sum of …

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The Electric Slide

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Consider this: There are about to be 1.3 million opportunities that have never existed before for retailers, restaurants, and service providers. Those that jump on it first will reap the benefits. All you have to do is plug in. The transition of the American vehicle market from internal combustion engine (ICE) power to electric (EV) is happening faster, more furiously and at more price levels than anyone could have forecasted, even as recently as a year or two ago. In 2020, EVs represented barely two percent of the American market. They …

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Cautionary Tales of Big Tech and Your Business

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Let’s take a pause. Have you been keeping track of the tech news? We’re entering a new phase of our obsession with technology and its influence. This is not an essay on turning a blind eye to the power of technology nor a rejection of its synergistic role in improving the human condition. But rather, this is a voice for the skeptics that are monitoring our steps and missteps. What does it have to do with retail? It has everything to do with how everyone is navigating a brave new world that has no unified playbook – and that includes leadership, …

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