Comments on: everything you ever wanted to know about retail

By: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Jonathan Salem Baskin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:50:08 +0000

LOL. I get it now. But I’m still not clear on what creates that ‘strong consumer connection if it’s not the very operational qualities you/they mentioned. I sometimes wonder if all the presumptions and associative squishy language about brands is no different than somebody ascribing engine performance in an automobile to some ‘magical force.’ The miracle is in the reality, and from it emerges imagination, not the other way around?

I dunno…hey, pass the Kool-Aid…

By: Denise Lee Yohn

Denise Lee Yohn — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:17:50 +0000

good catch, jonathan — i think i did a disservice to the report by excerpting that comment from the full article — what i believe the authors were trying to say is that the assets and operational proficiency a company may have is not sufficient enough to create a strong consumer connection — specifically they were lauding Wal-mart for transforming an operational advantage (scale) into a brand advantage (size matters to customers when it means lower prices, bigger impact in environmental efforts, etc.) — i found this a compelling point — but maybe i just drank the kool-aid???

By: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Jonathan Salem Baskin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:01:47 +0000

I love this self-serving nonsense from Interbrand. Most of the ‘findings’ rely on making things happen in the real world — focusing on experience, differentiation through service, and actual functional benefits — and then the last bullet says that businesses can’t “out-operationalize the competition anymore” but, rather, need to have “an emotional connection.”

Huh? Talk about the cart preceding the horse…didn’t they just argue for operations — real things, real actions, real systems, etc. — as being the tools for gaining advantage? Emotions COME from such behaviors; they don’t precede or compensate for it if there’s no THERE there.

I’m consistently amazed at how these brand gurus are allowed to talk out of both sides of their mouths, not to mention use a veritable devil’s dictionary of metaphors, incomplete or conflicting statements, and imprecise or downright opaque definitions.