The motivation to protect what’s unique to a specific community, a region, or a particular street has come as a reaction to the mass influx of generic chain stores in the last 30 years. In fact, if you go to the modern American suburb there just isn’t any unique local business to buy from. The Target store, Trader Joe’s, Radio Shack, Burger King, Game Stop all may be real choices consumer’s want but they are literally the only choices they have. The irony is that the branding of these stores, the types of experiences they create  are what consumers look for otherwise they wouldn’t be in business. Malls and chains will always be part of the mix but when a Memphis mall is the same as suburban Detroit and the same as Orlando it’s all too cookie cutter – where are the original thinkers, the innovators and risk takers who create something new?

Food Wagon Vendors in Portland

The creative bubble of new retail is on the edge

Having just come back from Portland I was struck by the city’s unbelievable focus on small business and local small retail. And I mean really small. In central Portland one of a kind has really taken off with the food wagons. Unlike other cities that have tried to limit the food wagons that show up at lunch and beep their musical horns Portland has opened up parking lots and allowed these food merchants to set up semi-permanent shops. It’s awesome! Right next to Portland State University in a virtually useless parking lot there are at least 20 food vendors packed side by side selling everything from chicken and waffles to falafel to Vietnamese fried noodles.

Across the river on Mississippi Street, once a marginal neighborhood with little retail is now exploding with amazing new businesses: green coffee bean retailers, beer gardens with sand patio’s, bike repair shops, used book stores, recycled housewares and bike bags made from used banners. It’s a virtual mecca of entrepreneurs trying new ideas, new products and new ways of doing business. These more marginal neighborhoods are where exciting and interesting things are happening. Cities like Oakland with an explosion of new restaurants in the once empty downtown. Brooklyn NY where both food manufacturers and retailers are staking out new territory things are really happening.

I don’t think chain stores will every go away and they actually shouldn’t they serve a specific purpose and give lots of folks options for cheap stuff but they also will not take the big risks to be in these areas on the urban edge. This is for the start ups, the innovators who look for what they can bring to the community. Local means champions of innovation and taking a risk where chain stores don’t see opportunity. This is where local really takes off and Darwin was right with evolution: it’s the small niches where opportunity thrives and grows.

Fiat’s announcement this week that they are looking to open 200 new dealerships that sell only Fiat cars is a very smart move and as I said in an earlier posting on the Fiat acquisition of Chrysler, this gives Fiat’s brand’s access to the American market again, with  small, nimble, fun cars that represent a new mix in the American driving market that’s been missing for near 30 years (when Fiat left the U.S.).

Ciao bella!

Their super popular Fiat 800 and the Panda will be instant hits here if properly introduced and marketed but not with the big truck and SUV crowd. Access to the larger urban markets with a fun, Italian small car will be similar to the relaunch of the Mini by BMW. They relaunched an all new, very sporty Mini and it really took off with the urban Gen Y demographic.

I’m looking forward to the new Fiat dealerships, how Fiat will spin their ad campaign and what their approach to launching Fiat brand in the US will be. This is a great opportunity to bring some well positioned, energetic, European vehicles into the lives of younger hip professionals looking for something new. The big question is will they get it right?

And, if this works, maybe Alfa Romeo will bring back their sports car and there will be a relaunch of the Fiat Spyder brand that died in the 1980’s. I can’t wait!

What Palm did wrong? - just about everything, but most of all was to launch a campaign with a creepy Alice in Wonderland type ad Go with the Flow featuring the fair haired Tamara Hope sitting on a mushroom surrounded by tiny folk all responding to her actions on the phone. The implication being, she could “command her world” to do what she desired. This ad was both confusing and disconnecting from what the competitors where saying about their brands. Apple only needs to show you someone’s hand going to the iPhone clicking on aps and you see a world unfold that’s completely clear and connected to your personal experience, from driving directions, to finding restaurants to looking at pictures all with the touch of a finger. The Blackberry is all about email connectivity. The entire brand is built around how you are in touch with those important emails.

The Pre? It’s about a lovely blond lady commanding her minions. That is way too abstract for a consumer to understand the real value of this phone in less than ten seconds.

An article in AdAge tried to explain the campaign. Mr. Koepke from the agency didn’t quite understand how creepy the ad was and defends the Tamara Hope spots saying:

“We weren’t trying to creep people out, but one thing I have learned now in this digital age is   people can be as rude as they want as long as they don’t have to look you in the face,” Mr. Koepke said. “The Pre is probably being talked about more than other phones right now because of the marketing and advertising, and that’s a good thing. Could the ads work harder to show exactly how the phone works? Yes, but we knew it would be polarizing people to have a woman not shout at them and tell an interesting story.”

Now that’s the weirdest justification for an ad I’ve hear. Because everyone is talking about how bad the ad is it’s good for the product?

Palm revisited it’s strategy in December of 2009– one last chance to jump in there and grab sales and market share. The new campaign, with a new agency launched in print, TV and just about everywhere online said you can be connected to all the busy things in your life with the theme – Life Moves Fast, Don’t Miss a Thing, a much better, more grounded campaign but still what’s different between what a Pre can deliver and the iPhone, Google Nexus One or Blackberry? Each of these products could say the same thing.

Now with a new owner: HP, it’s clear that the Palm Pre will be built into a broader brand spectrum of the HP world, It will be one of many devices in the HP digital landscape. Exactly how the Pre will be positioned is unclear but HP is big enough to figure it out and do it right.

Check out the two ads run by pre through this link to the IntoMobile Forum –

http://tinyurl.com/3×3m86u

When you read all the hype about the damage to Toyota it’s really about the saintly giant among automakers having the unthinkable happen– a mistake, it’s first ever slip up. And you can guarantee the media will always amplify a fall from the top. Yes, Toyota will loose over a billion dollars from these issues and an untold temporary loss of reputation but you need to look at this brand in the context of the other players. GM the once high and mighty global leader fell even more dramatically from grace. In the last two years they were bailed out of complete disaster through one of the largest bankruptcy reorganizations in history, killing their Pontiac line and selling off Hummer and Saab. This along with Chrysler being virtually kicked out of its partnership with Daimler and the complete disappearance of the Saturn brand makes the auto industry look more like a battlefield wasteland than glimmering car show room.

This presses the point that through all these embarrassing recalls Toyota does not exist in a vacuum. Brands exist in parallel to each other in a consumer driven market place. When consumers have choice they still must rank their preferences. In this case Toyota still looks very good compared to GM, Chrysler, Nissan, Kia and even Honda, their closest but smaller rival. Consumers will shift buying habits, temporarily but they will come back to Toyota.

The big winner in the last two years from this disruption in the American auto industry has been Ford. With an ongoing commitment to a quality product both in the U.S. and abroad they’ve actually practiced very much what Toyota has done for years: keep making better quality cars, limit your line, have great styling and focus on customer needs. This, in addition to the Ford’s financial prudence, preventing their need for bailout money resulting in a growing positive reputation among consumers in the U.S. and abroad.

As for Toyota, they are still the same organization and they will recoup from these embarrassing events over time. Wait and see how they turn this slipup into an even higher focus on product quality and an improved customer service.

Does this make sense? Are all multiple store brands and all formula retail bad? Are they all fake and inauthentic to local needs? And, do they universally destroy the character of neighborhoods or do they, in some cases, provide a spark that may ignite a renaissance of a dying shopping district or bring a much needed service to an area with limited diversity?

I don’t think all multiple store chains are killers of authenticity. It’s not as simple as local, good, vs. multi-store national, bad. Fundamentally, the real question is, what does a retailer provide that’s not being served to the local consumer? And is it real in how it connects to consumers’ experience?

It’s not about corporate or local it’s about what customers value

Brands that are loved by customers represent what customers seek; they represent a certain desired experience– where the customer ownership of the brand shapes how the store is designed, what it carries and its relationship to the community. This is why even some multiple store chains that are nationwide have incredible loyalty, such as Trader Joe’s or, at the high end, Nordstrom. If a brand, whether a multi-store chain or one store, claims to be exactly what they are then what’s the problem? This authenticity and promise to deliver to customers is not based solely on ownership but on standing behind a brand promise to customers. Peet’s Coffee, originally a local coffee started in Berkeley California over 40 years ago is now publicly traded with 160+ stores and more coming. They view themselves, as do their customers, as a high-end coffee purveyor who’s focuses on superior coffee and tea products with a knowledgeable and helpful staff– this is exactly what customers want. Peet’s is customer-centric, gives great service, provides a vibrant gathering place and excellent products that would otherwise not be in many communities. What more could you want in authenticity?

It’s about what a brand represents to customers not the number of stores

Chain brands can and do serve a purpose. They say to the community “we represent a specific image, perceived value, a certain experience, a certain price point.” When the right store opens – like a Peet’s Coffee or a Trader Joe’s – it says something about the characteristics of the community it serves. In many cases it signals other independent retailers that it’s a good idea to open next door “because you will get some of the high-quality customers our brand generates” and before you know it you have a fascinating mix of stores. Both corporate brands that are authentic in their own right and local brands that draw from their value can promote their uniqueness and character. Both can fit together and build relationships to the same customers.

Good retail brand experiences build on each other

It’s the symbiosis of brands where local stores and big brands serve each other. They “live together”, serving their community with authentic experiences. It’s about what the brand represents and delivers to customers that builds value for a community and creates a fit – not whether they have 200 stores or 2. Brands need to be real, authentic and valued by their customers.

So ultimately all corporate chain store brands are not all bad – many brands that have a national presence DO fit into local neighborhoods. It’s this balance of products and services that the community wants: the big, the small, the local and the corporate chain representing what a community values. The authenticity of these brands is clear to customers who buy from them. This should be the benchmark of authenticity. Cities should not create some arbitrary ordinance that treats a Peet’s and Walmart the same. It’s about community need and what drives the creation of a retail mix that customer’s value.

Ask these simple questions –

1. Does the retail brand stand behind its brand promise?

2. Is store experience an attempt to be what it’s not?

3. Do the goods sold represent the brand quality they claim to be?

4. Are employees knowledgeable and committed to what they sell?

5. Does the retailer offer something unique and valued to that community?

Target is the ultimate brand in cool retail. The store that has instant brand recognition is now launching a mini-market grocery store concept, a store-within-a-store, that will be expanding throughout the U.S. over the next two years. They are adding to their limited line of food and cold case items to be a true mini-market. The name is P-Fresh.

These stores are not the first on the block with this concept. British-based Tesco launched Fresh & Easy convenience markets about two years ago and now has 126 free standing stores. And what about the pioneer in this field, Trader Joe’s, with 356 stores, which invented the whole going-small-with-fresh-stuff grocery concept? Is there room for one more small store brand?

Target’s entry with P-Fresh will add substantially to the already glutted grocery store square-footage in the United States, where more and more retailers are competing for the same number of consumer dollars. How does a retailer differentiate its brand and attract customers?

These mini-grocery stores offer a limited range of fresh foods and grocery items and operate on the concept of convenience-oriented grocery shopping with a heavy dominance of in-store branded products. The big difference is the P-Fresh markets are a store-within-a-store concept. They will all be inside a Target. So will they really exist as a separate brand to consumers? I don’t really think so. The Target brand has such equity and value, why try to create another brand? Why not sub-brand this as Target-Fresh and create a connection through the parent brand? But the name P-Fresh– what are they thinking?

As for Fresh & Easy, they have highly visible freestanding stores. This adds brand presence to the shopping experience. With a focus on healthier foods, fast shopping experience, and smaller stores this brand is already doing what Target wants to do and is more recognizable as a brand.

Trader Joe’s is the ultimate in distinctiveness, it’s reinvention of the small convenience store concept, the advantage of being more established, quirky and outside the box of conventional grocery retail makes them very memorable. Their unique environments and tropical themes announce that they are not the same as other retailers. And being small, they can fit into many more locations than a Target and thus provide more convenience to customers. Their brand is unique, effective and builds customer loyalty by its sheer presence (it’s claimed by realtors that a TJ’s increases the neighboring residential real estate values). I don’t think P-Fresh will ever do this.

They changed the beer names from a generic category identification reflecting a specific style and taste—Hefeweizen, Red Ale and IPA—to names more evocative of a quartet of comic book superheroes– Haywire, Audacious, Juggernaut and Thunderhead. I’m not totally against this, but what kind of experience are they trying to communicate? How does this connect to the legacy of the brand? These new names don’t really mean anything to a craft beer consumer other than sounding like they belong in Marvel Comics. And they don’t reflect anything unique about the brand position or strengths. Would someone actually say “I’m going to have a Juggernaut tonight!” I doubt it (by the way juggernaut means unstoppable crushing force which leads me to believe one might be inspired to destroy the drinking establishment).

The actual design of the new labels along with the methodology to change the names is disjointed and confusing with busy sports illustrations that look like a collage gone bad. There are so many activities I can’t really figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. The visual images are more evocative of an energy drink than a beer. It’s as though the marketing directive was “make it cool to the younger crowd, throw in a bunch of action sports then they’ll buy it, oh, and somehow fit the pyramid theme in the background” (this could just as easily be on a bottle of Gator Aid).

I ask, where’s the connection to their past, their history? After all, Pyramid is a 25-year-old craft brewing company, one of the oldest brewers from the early days of craft brewing in the 1980’s. They grew up along with Sierra Nevada and the venerable and even older Anchor Steam Brewing Company of San Francisco. I’m lost at where the brand equity is in this complete reinvention of the packaging and it’s abandonment of its older look and history.

I strongly feel brands can migrate, change and evolve design but the goal is to re-invigorate and enhance the connection to the brand, its history and its loyal customers. You may get a big jump in sales from a sudden change, but will it last over time and are you losing customers who feel no connection to your brand? What do you want to communicate that’s unique and ownable? These are key questions that need to be asked.

However, there is one redeeming element in this entire redesign–the new Pyramid logo: I think it’s actually very well done. In fact it’s the only item that seems to be iconic, simple and sustainable over time and it fits perfectly on the pyramid cap. But be prepared for a package redesign within two years. You can bet on it.

Will this really harm the brand? Well, it limits Flickr’s potential and evolution since it mixes up the brand perception of Flickr. The opportunity for Yahoo to actually evolve into a family of brands is obviously off the table.  But this obviously is not their strategy. They still think Yahoo is the central brand with enough brand equity and positive image to go somewhere. That’s why the new management at Yahoo is  attempting to reinvigorate the brand as hip and cool. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the case. In my opinion, Yahoo is still perceived as the old online brand and has consistently suffered, as AOL has, from being a legacy online property stuck in the past, in the first big Internet wave of the 90’s. (why does AOL even still exist by the way?)

Neither brand has been able to reinvigorate its original value and become something that offers more to users, especially to the younger crowd that’s into social networking tools and sharing. Even with Yahoo’s $100 million marketing campaign launch in September– about “Y!ou, it’s hard to see Yahoo taking a major leap in brand equity and positive consumer vibe.

And to top it off, Yahoo’s parent affiliation with Flickr prompted many loyal Flickr users to respond with negative comments about this “brought to you by” connection. Comments on the Flickr site as well as on Twitter and other online media and forums are popping up all over and Yahoo is not really responding other than pushing it’s marketing campaign. This is a big mistake.

You can’t control your brand. You can manage and influence it, respond to comments on it and include the voice of your customers with it, but you can’t ignore what’s being said about it. Engagement is what it’s all about. Yahoo is doing a pretty lousy job at all of this right now.

When you carefully look at Apple’s brand—what they represent in the market—it’s not about duplicating the current competitors’ approaches to product categories with faster, cheaper, better. When Apple dropped “computer” from its name it made a bigger commitment to what people do with their products not what the products are. By reinventing existing approaches to technology and functionality, understanding it’s all about connectivity to what customers want, Apple has focused on the real value in the technology market –how media connects you.

For example, look at the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s been an amazing and unbelievable success with over 30 million sold because Apple was not introducing a phone. They created a device that extended the iPod into direct downloads from the web with real time connections that allow for email and interactivity. On top of this, they created a model of shared revenue with third party application developers (similar to iTunes) that allowed users to download applications and customize the iPhone to their personal interests. There are over 30,000 applications for the iPhone now more than any smart phone on the market and now one of the fastest growing gaming platforms.

The missing piece of their equation is something like a souped-up iPod Touch, flexible, more than a netbook, something with a bigger screen but extremely portable. And given Amazon’s success with the Kindle, which downloads books and magazines, this opens the door for Apple to copy the Kindle model with book downloads. Now add in third party developers and bingo – a thin, simple-to-use interactive tablet you can customize, take anywhere, surf the web, play games on, watch a movie or just download the latest New York Times.

Looking at the rumor mill and the images that are out there, I think Apple will be coming out with a simple tablet that does what the Kindle does – but with color, the ability to rotate horizontally or vertically, and a touch screen key board, all at a price point of about $700 or less.

The point being, this is not a direct competitor to the netbook. This is something much more. It all adds up to a brand continuing to define itself by making devices for connection, sharing, communicating and downloading– not just making faster, cheaper computers. If I had two key words to define the Apple brand it would be mobility and interactivity– what humans are all about.

The key to the iPhone brand is several very important things: The iPhone was the first device that created a really strong mobile computing platform by integrating the super popular iPod with an Internet connection, texting, email and oh yes, a phone. Then they opened up the development of the apps to outside developers and presented the incentive of a shared revenue model that insured a growing dominance for the iPhone and more apps for the user. They basically copied what Microsoft did 30 years ago – create a basic platform, some key apps and then let everyone else build on it. Now there are 30,000 downloadable applications for the iPhone. Lastly, lets add the Apple cachet. Apple is not just a computer company – it’s a mobile-device platform that allows people to expand and connect to all the key areas of their life – entertainment, video, music, friends, family, business associates, places to eat, shop and go. Thus all the products they develop are about sharing, entertaining, and connecting people’s lives and lifestyles.

The Google Android is a great phone that’s more affordable with dozens of major corporate development partners and an open platform that may survive and gain momentum (after all Google needs something it owns to put its browser and “cloud computing” apps on so users can access them anytime and anywhere.) But the developer leverage isn’t there. They have these big but often slow moving, not very creative partners. Keep in mind the best apps are simple, fast and innovative. This does not come from HP, Microsoft,  IBM, or Oracle.

So where does this leave Palm and the rather cool Pre? Not very safe in my opinion. Their product, feature wise, is good but the brand is old, with a creaky legacy and not innovative enough. They did hire the former Apple iPod exec Jon Rubinstein as the new CEO to add some juju to their brand. But sales are proving me out. They are far below their expectations from their launch on June 1, while Apple has had to shut down orders online to catch up with over 1 million orders with postponed activation for the iPhone 3G S in 3 weeks.

The key to building a brand like the iPhone is both simple and hard to execute: have a great brand like Apple and bring your most successful product into the one, open the door to new developers and keep ‘em coming (they are far, far ahead of any other smart phone out there) and have a slavishly loyal customer base that loves their brand and sees it as the leader, if not the creator, of the mobile computing world.