WHAT'S THE STORY
Do B e t t e r – O m n i ta i l
MARTIN LINDSTROM
“SPEND AT LEAST TWO HOURS A WEEK WITH A RANDOM CONSUMER” Martin Lindstrom has a surprising way of doing research for his brand consulting firm. He visits consumers at home, spending a lot of time with them. He even looks into their bathroom cabinets, under their beds, and flips through their photo collections. In his book “Small Data”, Lindstrom describes how lots of tiny bits and pieces of information turn into a concept to improve a business. We wanted to know how this approach can be applied to the fashion industry - and ended up talking about religion, privacy, and mirrors that outshine Snow White’s stepmother’s magic arsenal. Interview: Petrina Engelke. Photos: John Abbott
M
ister Lindstrom, your research means analysing the smallest observations, thus finding hidden clues to improve businesses. Let’s break this down so everyone can understand the process. I think the first and most important question a business owner needs to ask is: When did I last spend time with a consumer, a random person you don’t know? For most people, the answer would be: never. However, you cannot, under any circumstances, establish a solid impression of the consumer’s mindset based on a report. I’m pretty sure you would not select your partner based on filling out an excel spreadsheet and implementing a scoring system before deciding if you want to marry that person or not. But that is a little bit like what we are trying to do in a business setting. How does this insight relate to smaller businesses in comparison to the big brands you work with? The reason why small business owners and entrepreneurs are good in the beginning is because they typically had a need themselves and invented a solution to their own private need. But as the company grows, either that need may
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change or disappear, or the people in charge are too busy dealing with bureaucracy to remain in touch with recent developments. As a rule of thumb, I would say one should spend at least two hours a week with a random consumer, and your entire management team should do the same. This “small data” quite often sheds light on something completely different, yet still incredibly important, that no one else has found out yet. Whereas conventional research focuses on “big data”, which results in everyone finding the same answer. In fashion, one of the terms people are questioning is “authenticity”. First of all, let’s define authenticity. It has to be real, it has to be a ritual, it has to be relevant, and it has to be a recital, meaning part of a storyline. I think fashion has a tendency to very quickly grasp only one dimension of authenticity, forgetting about the rest. But the need for authenticity is not necessarily met when things look hand-crafted or a product has a piece of history or is one-of-a-kind. Authenticity is a whole package, just like there is a package when you go into a church. The church is the ambiance, the acoustics, the speeches, the candlelight - all those different things. What is the desire behind authenticity? People today are looking for something that creates a sense of belonging with like-minded people, because the world is too big. The issue in our world is too much transparency. The more transparency there is, the more I can see what other people have that I don’t have - the unhappier I become, the more I feel I’ve been losing out. That’s also the reason why “local” has become so big right now. In order to feel safe, we fall back on our local community, we create our own language which only a few people understand. As human beings, the more we are under pressure, the more we feel unsafe, the more we want to sink back to our roots. So we are seeing an increasing number of consumers adopting rituals now, because they create a frame of trust and safety around our world. All of that comes back to authenticity. And you cannot just take one dimension out of it. You have to understand the whole package, which is basically a religion. So, we have to start a fashion religion. Wait: in a way, fashion already is a religion! It is! Just look at United Colors of Benetton back in the days. They had a very strong view of the world, as did Diesel for a while. But some brands abandon that aspect the moment they are more inclined to follow where the revenue stream is, rather than being true to what they stand for. And this is what the consumer can sense today. They couldn’t sense it in the past, because in the past the logo and the design were the determining factor for why I would choose a certain fashion item. Today, many other factors come into play. They are equally important, if not even more important.
