9 minute read
Spend at Least Two Hours a Week With a Random
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
Mister 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 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.
Branding expert Martin Lindstrom is the author of seven books, among them “Small Data” (2016) and “Buyology” (2008). His team has visited thousands of consumers in their homes to get to the core of their needs and desires, working on behalf of brands like Maersk, Burger King, and the Dubai-based Mall of the Emirates for Majid al Futtaim.
Another recent development in fashion is that many retailers are trying to reduce waiting times by offering a self-checkout, telling staff to run around with tablets, or by offering one-hour delivery online. Do you think that will really make customers come back for more?
No, definitely not. To think that consumers want rational behaviour, or that they want a transaction to be over as quick as possible, may be correct when you buy socks, but it is certainly not correct when it comes to a lot of other categories in the fashion industry. Retailers have to understand one thing: You need to be true to the channel you use. When you want a quick transaction, you go online. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, use the strength it already has. You can explore, you can discover, and you have a sense of anticipation.
How would you use these strengths?
As a retailer, you can create a community feeling. We spend time with a lot of people with our thumbs up. I like you and you are my friend, but we all know that, in reality, it is not a community. In the future, fashion stores will be increasingly defined by building communities that allow like-minded people to come together. Their clothes will be one of the things they celebrate, but that just serves as an amplifier for the community to become stronger. Secondly, retail stores will become increasingly sensory, thus appealing to our five senses. I saw that in Dubai the other day, where there’s a bar and a restaurant that also happens to be a clothing store. And there, people like to have time to walk around, to explore, and to feel important while receiving outstanding service. There will be two types of transactions. One is when you can buy clothes that everyone else can get hold of online. The second is when you offer a special limited collection which is only available in the store and you can’t buy it online. It may come at a premium price, but it gives you access to certain locations in the retail environment that no one else has. Thus, you feel special.
How about technology that helps gather information about customers, especially when you combine online and offline channels?
In my view, privacy is going to be the number one factor in the future. At the end of the day, the successful brands will be those that have a very strong stand on this upfront - and act on it. There will be a phase when a lot of shortcuts based on data access allow you to serve customers quicker and more accurately, and you will make a lot of money on the back of it for a while. But at some stage the consumers will burn their fingers, because the data will be leaked, sold, or abused one way or another. Companies pursuing that path cannot dab into it for fun. They have to establish very strong ethical guidelines internally, which define the future of the brand. If you don’t and you just let the IT department dabble around in this and hope for the best, you end up destroying the entire brand.
What is your take on shops that use facial recognition to reduce staff, like Amazon Go does in the US or Jack & Jones/Vero Moda does in China?
These technologies will catch on, but only in very distinct pockets of communities and countries. We will see a whole new generation that is increasingly insecure. For example, the number of young people committing suicide in the UK has increased by 25 percent in the last couple of years. The fashion and cosmetic world is going to try to compensate for insecurity by making you feel that you are not alone and providing the answer for you to feel more secure. And I think that will then be linked with what we see in China now. A digital mirror will tell you that you have to change your look to be more accepted. It will earn you more “thumbs up” for your next Snapchat photo. This type of technology will be very prominent in certain regions of the world, for example in China, where the definition of privacy is very different from how you and I define it. It may gain some prominence in the US too, but it will really struggle to establish itself in Europe.
So, if that’s not really the best model for Europe, what would you say is crucial for customer relations management in European shops?
Well, I think it’s very simple. You have to build a culture. Today, the staff in offline retail stores couldn’t care less if they work at H&M or Zara. You need to build cultures that are so strong that you feel like you are part of a cult when you walk into the store, where the staff is really passionate about the brand, what it stands for, and its ethical guidelines. If I return and they say: “Hey Martin, welcome back! Look, I put this aside for you, because I know this is your style”, then I will return again and again. The online equivalent allows me to plug into communities; the brand helps me to connect with other like-minded people. And these two dimensions will have to merge. That’s why I think that a lot of retailers will become community centres in the future. Instead of us going to church or whatever, the clothing store actually could be a community centre where you buy your drinks and so on, as well as where you buy the uniform for your community or tribe.
At least in the US, many so-called minority groups say: “representation matters”. One can see a slight impact in Hollywood, for example. Is that also something that will affect the future of the fashion industry?
Definitely. Fashion needs to have very strong views about what is right and what is wrong. Fashion brands that try to be everything at once will die. They cannot survive. There will, of course, always be exceptions, but people want to buy things that reflect a strong opinion about life and who they are. Because people desperately need an identity…
