Trends
Global branding, design and consumer trend observations from In-a-Nutshell
Middle market products squeezed from both ends
In his Financial Page in the New Yorker, James Surowiecki presents a number of interesting observations, data and to support his theory that the middle is the worst position you can find yourself in these days - at least as far as branded products go.
He writes that Apple’s launch of the iPad is a gamble - that consumers will pay for quality. The iPad is significantly more expensive than its competitors. But Apple’s assumption is that if the iPad is also significantly better, people will happily shell out for it (as they already do for iPods, iPhones, and Macs).
In contrast, the Taiwanese company Acer has become a dominant player by making cheap, reasonably good laptops - the reverse of Apple’s premium-price approach. Similarly, companies like Ikea and H& M are flourishing not by selling products or services that are better than anyone else’s, but by selling things that aren’t bad and cost a lot less: they are engaged in what Wired recently christened the “good-enough revolution.” For them, the key to success isn’t excellence. It’s well-priced adequacy.
These two strategies may look completely different, but they have one crucial thing in common: they don’t target the amorphous blob of consumers who make up the middle of the market. Paradoxically, ignoring these people has turned out to be a great way of getting lots of customers, because, in many businesses, high- and low-end producers are taking more and more of the market.
Thursday, 25 March 2010 08:43
P&G looks to services for growth
A recent article in Advertising Age looks at how Procter & Gamble is increasingly looking to services to fuel growth: P&G got to be an $80 billion company and the world's-largest marketer almost entirely by selling goods, but it is increasingly looking to services - ranging from concierge physicians to car washes and dry cleaners - to fuel its thirst for growth.
Chairman CEO Bob McDonald says, "I think service is yet an untapped area for us. We're active in franchising now with Mr. Clean car washes and Tide Dry Cleaners. MDVIP (a concierge physician service) is a service operation. But we're also working on services on our existing brands, for example, where you walk up to the shelf, take a picture of the UPC code on your phone, and you can download information about the ingredients in that product, which you as an environmentalist may care about".
Thursday, 25 March 2010 08:35
Customised dog food
My new puppy is a rather picky eater, so this report from Springwise caught my eye:
The design-your-own customisation trend has come to just about every product category under the sun except dog food – until now. Springwise reports on Canadian RedMoon Custom Pet Food lets its customers design the food they buy for their cats and dogs.
Inspired by the recent rash of pet food recalls and the increasing incidence of food allergies in pets, RedMoon offers fully customisable dry pet food based on a variety of meats, produce and supplements.
Thursday, 25 March 2010 08:28
Domestic nuclear reactor
Endgadget reported Toshiba’s ambitions to develop a nuclear reactor for the home back in 2007. Now, a new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that another company, TerraPower, has opened preliminary discussions with Toshiba about a possible joint venture to make safer, smaller, more socially acceptable, and just plain better reactors.
Thursday, 25 March 2010 08:20
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