Architect David Rockwell: Broadway to Brand

David Rockwell, the award-winning architect and Broadway set designer who made his name creating minimalist interiors for sushi restaurant chain Nobu, has moved into an unlikely corporate role: brand consultant. Big companies such as JetBlue (JBLU), Coca-Cola (KO), Starwood Hotels (HOT), and Gap (GPS) are hiring his 240-person architecture firm, which consults on everything from store decor to software engineering, to help them come up with ways to broaden their customer appeal in retail and other high-profile environments.

Business Week

When a diaper isn't just a diaper

The purpose of Pampers, conceptualized through cross-department meetings and P&G's vaunted consumer research, is to be a partner with mothers in the physical, social and emotional development of their children.

High-falutin' stuff for a diaper.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Just did it

The Nike Sportswear store in Soho introduces its new Bespoke program today, allowing customers to choose up to 80 individual aspects of the Air Force 1. (In case you're wondering, it takes the old NikeID concept to the next level.) Sounds daunting,I know, but it was fascinating when I tested the process over the weekend.

men.style.com

A New Odd Couple: Google, P&G Swap Workers to Spur Innovation

Now, this odd couple thinks they have something to gain from one another -- so they've started swapping employees. So far, about two-dozen staffers from the two companies have spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out. The initiative has drawn little notice. Previously, neither company had granted this kind of access to outsiders.

Wall Street Journal

Book Club: Outliers: The Story of Success

Life is unfair, as even the bible acknowledges ("Unto every one that hath shall be given … "). We can't all hit a baseball like DiMaggio or sing like the Beatles. But how much do we understand about those who can? Not enough, says Malcolm Gladwell, in his new book, "Outliers: The Story of Success."

Newsweek

Rebuilding the Brand

The sun-drenched waterfront hotel in Miami is glitzy, with swaying palms out front and a glittering fountain in the lobby. But the mood inside Wednesday was dark, as the Republican governors Association gathered to try to rebuild a brand badly tarnished at the polls.

Newsweek

The Brand Bubble

Through extensive research using brand and financial data on thousands of brands, I and my colleagues at Young & Rubicam have found that the multiples that markets place on brand valuations far overstate actual consumer sentiment. This means that the value creation most brands are bringing to their companies, and ultimately to their shareholders, is greatly exaggerated. Put simply, most businesses and the financial markets think brands are worth more than the consumers who buy them.

changethis

Buying Binge Slams to Halt

Suddenly, our consumer society is doing a lot less consuming. The numbers are pretty incredible. Sales of new vehicles have dropped 32 percent in the third quarter. Consumer spending appears likely to fall next year for the first time since 1980 and perhaps by the largest amount since 1942.

New York Times

Sweet Surprise

Goodbye Seduction, Hello Coupons

As the economy rapidly deteriorates from flourishing to floundering, marketers are scrambling to remake their advertising so products seem affordable and sensible rather than indulgent and fabulous. For many big marketers, including automakers, retailers, consumer product companies and even financial services, a major shift in consumer psychology spells an end to the aspirational advertising that has dominated their campaigns for the last decade.

New York Times

Disney, by Design

But now the company also sells $3,900 designer wedding gowns — no characters in sight — and women’s cashmere sweaters “inspired by Tinker Bell.” Interior design offerings include $2,800 leather club chairs and $6,000 chandeliers patterned after the Art Deco décor in Mr. Disney’s former office. One of the company’s new products: couture soap.

Welcome to Disney, the “lifestyle brand.”

New York Times

What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign

"Better" never works in marketing. The only thing that works in marketing is "different." When you're different, you can pre-empt the concept in consumers' minds so your competitors can never take it away from you.

Ad Age

Thinking by Design

While marketers have appreciated the value of distinctive design for some time now—at least since Apple and Target started making it a key differentiator about a decade ago—design thinking is something else. The premise is that if you tap a designer, or a designer's problem-solving approach, to tackle standard business problems, you will get game-changing results.

That's why Procter & Gamble credits DT for the company's successful turnaround of its Herbal Essences shampoo line. It's also why Bank of America points to DT as the catalyst for its "Keep the Change" program, which automatically entered "rounded up" figures on checks and payments into savings accounts. Ninety-nine percent of customers who opted for Keep the Change stayed with the program, according to BofA.

BrandWeek

The Pitfalls of Nascar Blindness

So it's been fairly amusing (to me, anyway) to listen to many of my adland friends react in horror and utter amazement to the news that John McCain is not all that far behind in the polls. Or maybe even closing in. (It all depends on whose polls you listen to.) Because after all, no one they know is actually voting for McCain -- so who, they're curious to find out, are all these people in the GOP column?

This reaction is a common symptom of something that greatly afflicts people in the advertising community: Nascar blindness. This disease is the strongly held belief that if no one in your little bubble of upscale, artsy Bobo friends is into something, then clearly no one else is, either.

Ad Week

The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to 'Simplifiers'

Tomorrow's consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home.

Harvard Business Review