Tag: SOS

Going b(u)y the book !

In the ever dynamic world of click and having things delivered in a jiffy, the one question that any marketer or retailer in physical locations need to ask themself is: Are We Worth A Special Trip?
Now that more and more are ordered or experienced online, the only trips we make are special trips.
If your brand or your service or your place is not worth a special visit, it is unlikely that the customer is going to come anytime soon.
Exceptional customer experiences are the only sustainable platform for competitive differentiation. In an in increasingly commoditised world, riddled by a SOS(Sea of Sameness), your best product or service is CeX(Customer Experience).
You enter a bookstore by design in a mall or as you get to your gate at an airport, what you will see are prominent displays of books which are ‘ bestsellers ‘. Books which are not booksellers(or were old bestsellers) occupy shelf space in an alphabetical order that go by the authors’ second name.
This is creating an experience for that almost extinct category of readers or buyers who come to a book shop knowing fully well the name of the author and the book|s she or he has written.
There is a scant regard for making things memorable, quirky, inspiring. Nothing that says ‘ Weekend Must Reads ‘, ‘ Fiction For The Young (that adults would enjoy) ‘, ‘ Must Read Books You Have Never Heard of Let Alone Read ‘, ‘ Page Turners From A Different Era ‘ , ‘ Great Reading for Non Readers ‘…
There is no attempt at personalising the experience. The thinking seems to be that shelf space has some shelf life and nothing more needs to be done to add life to the store experience. In such a scenario, why would you give up the convenience and frictionless experience of shopping on Amazon and haul your way to a physical bookstore? There is no special incentive.
Sticking to a mindset that helped you flourish a couple of decades ago is a sure fire way to go out of business. Re-imagining is not a choice, it is a compelling necessity.
Enough of going by the book. Time to turn the page and begin a new chapter!
ENDS

Your audience is not where you have been told it is

Did you get that? I am sorry if you thought otherwise.

 

Brian Eno is a musician par excellence. He is considered to be the inventor | father of what we refer to today as ‘ ambient music ‘. His quote is worth paying a load of attention to. Here goes:

 

” People often want to aim for the biggest, the most obvious target and hit it smack in the bull’s eye “, Eno says. “Of course with everybody else aiming there as well that makes it very hard to hit.” The alternative? “Shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it,” Eno explains. “Make the niches in which you finally reside.”

 

What is the prognosis here? Fly away from the competition. We are so often tempted by the SOS(Sea of Sameness), the resident comfort of herd mentality or the wisdom of the crowds !! . Even though it is very much a drift into a tumultuous Red Ocean territory. Playing it safe has never been more dangerous.

 

Instead of aiming for the same target as other writers, sportsmen, designers, musicians—trying to out-write, out-play, out-sing or out-design them, focus on how you can stand out, your uniqueness.

 

Time to stop suppressing your unique crafts and skills because they don’t conform, adhere or comply in the default ecosystem dictated by the omnipresent industrial complex of scale.

 

Embrace your weirdness, idiosyncrasies, your anomalies, your contrasts and bring them to the foreground. And here’s the thing : We notice things because of contrast. Something stands out because it’s different from what surrounds it. Celebrate your difference.

Time to woo your AWEdience! Thankfully they are there ( what we refer to as the MVA- Minimum Viable Audience), willing to explore, experiment, discover and celebrate with your youniqueness.

 

 

ENDS