No bite in Big Apple

I just got back from The Big Apple (Store). After spending a few hours playing with i-Pads, i-phone 4’s and the new MacBook Pros, I took a walk down Fifth Avenue. Last time I was there it was early 2001 and the Mac store was an excellent pub and restaurant. The Genius Bar sold only ice-cold Boston lager and the place closed early at midnight. Now there’s no last orders and you can prop up the bar 24/7 any day of the year and listen to the Mac people go all Yoda on you about their products. Whilst listening to them PC bashing it did cross my mind that if Apple were to decide to start an airline, launch a new fizzy drink or form another country, as long as it’s prefixed by ‘i’ it would of course be a resounding success.

Back to New York. As anyone who has been to the City knows, it’s a great place to have your money stolen. No more though by the stealthy pickpocket on the MTA or the knife or gun wielding junkie in Times Square. Mayor Rudy Giuliani put paid to this unpalatable part of the NY experience in the mid 90’s through zero tolerance policing. Now the guilty parties have a more sophisticated weapon of choice. It’s called branding. And it’s far more effective than any assault by an armed assailant who is desperate for a couple of dollars for their next fix. Now as consumers we’re the ones going cold turkey, not the bad guys down on 42nd Street.

As Apple Inc. has demonstrated the real genius behind their success has been to create an almost religious emotional connection with their brand and well, people like me. As a pathetic i-Phone 3G user I am already feeling the need to break it to my trusted little friend that, it’s time we both moved on. Me to a higher social standing with a new 4G Supermodel and the little fellow to a place called Mazuma. Even SmartPhones don’t seem that clever when they’re always one ‘G’ away from total obsolescence. Remember ‘I-Robot’ and wonder where the concept came from? Call Will Smith we might need his help to stop global i-domination. Or perhaps not. I like it too much.

It’s not only Apple who are remarkably top of their game in the art of separating us from our hard-earned cash, even in the worst recession in modern history. Just one block away from the Apple Store you’ll find Abercrombie & Fitch. If the heady scent of success emanating from their store doesn’t get your attention, or could that be Lotion après-rasage d'Abercrombie? You won’t fail to miss the endless queue, or should I say, the line of customers, many of whom are already attired in A&B and Hollister. Every one of them patiently waiting to be efficiently ushered into their flagship NY store by bare chested male models. Whilst joining the line with the other middle-aged blokes who were soon to be humbled by the lithesome physiques of the male dominatrix on the door, I thought about the poor folk from the once mighty and now regularly half-empty GAP store just a couple of blocks away as they wandered past their nemesis, quietly crying into their Starbucks Skinny Latté and saying “Where did we go wrong”? I don’t know better ask your agency.

Now whilst I was essentially only shopping, my obsession with all things brand deems that this was more like a sort of field study. In fact my observations start in the airport and even before I get to the final destination. As my all knowing associate said. If you want to see real marketing at work, just park across from any McDonalds. I took his point even though he was indirectly admiring his own work, as they were his clients at the time. Trust me though. Any students on marketing degree courses should take a gap year or two, save your tuition fees and don’t go back on campus. You’ll learn a lot more hanging around in shopping malls. Look and learn. Look and learn.

Closer to home and on another shopping, sorry make that field trip, I found myself in more humble surroundings than Fifth Avenue at a factory outlet near Castleford. The stark contrast of prevalent footfall in the enduring brands’ shops such as Nike, Adidas and even M&S was killing the other retailers off, with many units empty and some up for let. I realised how vital a great brand was in a recession. Not just a logo. Whilst there is no shortage of information on any conceivable thing we think we need through the Internet and in the past decade plenty of design studios create smart-arse visual frippery, it’s reality time. That’s reality time for anyone who likes creating art at his or her client’s expense. The power of the word is back and so is accountability. Yes we’d all like to have a Clio Award and a couple of Abercrombie & Fitch’s in our portfolio, but most of us haven’t. Still there's no excuse for not trying on the next brief. No matter who it’s for. Even if it's a couple of brave souls who've just mortgaged their houses to start their own business or an established company whose been through numerous hard times and are looking for a bit of magic. Let’s all remember who pays our wages.

Also remember at some point in the past Nike (Formerly Blue Ribbon Sports), Abercrombie & Fitch, M&S and McDonalds were all business start-ups. Nike has been ‘Just doing it’ since 1962 and McDonalds Lovin’ it even longer from 1955. A&B’s interiors are probably just as dark they were in 1892 when David T Abercrombie made his first sale in a gas-lit store and you can still spend a penny and buy sensible knitwear in M&S even though they’ve been around since 1884. At some point though they all will have needed ideas from their agency to create an initial brand proposition to get them on the road to making their cash registers kerching. ROI wasn’t invented yesterday, even though most CIM graduates think so. They call it ‘Brand Metrics’ now. Perhaps ROI was the pre-decimal version when every penny spent had to make a shilling and not a Euro or Dollar.

Where are we now? Yes some of us will miss the regular income from public sector projects, even if we had the mind-numbing experience of winning the contract on a 30-way pitch, but the real survivors will value the opportunity to work with the Ray Koch’s and David T Abercrombie’s of the future, even if we don’t know exactly who they are right now.