Tuesday Tidbits #01
Moderate spice / general controversy included
I know, I fell off the bandwagon and you haven’t heard bupkis from me in weeks, because: life. My mother hasn’t heard from me either so you’re not alone. Luckily, this newsletter is free! (So share it with your friends / colleagues / strangers 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻)
Thursday Things will return on… Thursday. But until then I wanted to just do a roundup of things that aren’t worth a whole send on their own, but are sufficiently interesting / thought provoking to pass up entirely. I get that the title suggests this will be an ongoing thing. Maybe it will / maybe it won’t / maybe we’ll dance the funky chicken at edition 75*.
Anyway, on with the tidbits.
File this under ‘NO KIDDING’. The co-founder / CEO of Harry’s realized what any marketer worth their salary has been telling you forever… effective trumps cool every day of the week. For that matter, cool is in the eye of the customer, not your founder or CMO or whoever. The TL;DR on this is that Harry’s was (is?) a design led business, and when they acquired the brand Lume they planned to give it a Harry’s makeover, thankfully realizing in the nick of time that ‘cool’ is not universal and they were about to give up a lot of effectiveness for IYKYK design cred. There are many, many founder-led brands that fall into this trap for different reasons, often that the brand is built around the founder and the founder either a) ages out of the demographic and no longer knows what is relevant to their market (*cough* Vans *cough*), or b) becomes wildly successful and no longer has their finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist (I could make this argument for James Jebbia…).
You know that expression that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? It’s amazing to me how often we do it anyway. I see it a *lot* in hiring practices. Companies hire from other similar brands and then wonder why they end up commoditized and competing on price. So I was fascinated by skincare label Kate McLeod hiring pastry chefs and bakers to make and perfect their flagship product. They even found these hires brought their own ideas to the table and improved the product. Interesting approach, no?
We’ve all seen great examples of brands jumping on culturally relevant moments. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they suck, sometimes they… I don’t even know what this is. Just plain odd? Minutes after the Trump verdict was announced, bougie design-forward D2C homestuff shop Flamingo Estate sent an email with the subject line ‘we’re guilty too’… also managed to shoehorn a ‘stormy’ reference in for good measure. But what say you? Clever? Corny? Totally unnecessary?
Cred where it’s due, I am not a Flamingo Estate aficionado and saw this via
. I think she was as bemused as me.I saw a TikTok video recently where the creator was arguing in favor of his thesis that the most successful people are those who manage outcomes, not processes. His theory is that they focus on the big picture are open to more radical approaches as long as they’re effective, not getting caught up in paper-pushing and general micromanagement. I can’t say I wholly agree (I’ve worked with too many execs who lack the knowledge needed about how things get done to make sound strategic decisions), but it did get me thinking - which is more important, what is made or how it’s made? I would argue that this system of thinking is why so much of America thinks that China “steals our ideas” and China is all “uh… no, we just do it better”. America sees final product. China sees process.
Finally, I insist on resurfacing the fact that in 2010, Microsoft held a funeral for the iPhone 3 upon the launch of their Windows Phone 7 (pic above). Look, 10 points to Slytherin, I admire the chutzpah. Not many brands are willing to be this audacious these days (and TBH it wasn’t that different in 2010 either), but dang I wish they did.
Anyway, that’s me. Chat Thursday!
*Ping me if you get this reference 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻