value proposition

Jan 20, 2015

Did Target ever really come to Canada? Not according to their Mission Statement.

Leases in less than optimum locations, a weak supply chain and runaway ambition in opening 133 stores may have all ganged up to doom Target in Canada.  But, there’s one corporate failure that intrigues me even more.  Target ignored its own mission statement. ‘Our mission is to make Target your preferred shopping destination in all channels by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional guest experiences by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.® brand promise.’

Target must have known, before coming to Canada, that it wouldn’t be able to offer U.S. price points or U.S. selection.  It also must have known that those were the two things Canadians loved about shopping at Target south of the border.  So, here’s the $5.4 billion question… if you can’t get those two fundamental promises right, why bother coming to Canada at all?  The cheap chic appeal of Target didn’t travel well.

Maybe more than anything else, Target’s ungracious exit from Canada shines an uncomfortably bright light on the whole exercise of creating mission statements in the first place.  I think for many companies, mission statements and the accompanying brand promise are just corporate accessories that they feel are a mandatory part of a website or annual report.  Leaders and managers only seem to pay attention to them when it suits them and ignore them too often and too hastily when a shiny new opportunity arises. The result, yet another announcement in the media of a shuttered company. In this case, one that was ill-fated from the start by it’s seemingly altered promise of expect more, pay more and receive less, in Canada.

At Spyder Works, our brand promise is encapsulated in Building Business by Design®. Design, of course, referring to the thought and intention behind the creation of a new idea or direction. Whenever we are creating something for a client, we test it against that statement. Ensuring that whatever we create is single-mindedly focused on our client’s own promise to their customers.

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Category: Business, Spyder Works

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Jul 23, 2012

DayBreak USA: Ken Tencer Talks Constant Innovation

constant-innovation-retail

Retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, Nancy Liu recently told the Dow Jones News wire that “there’s a dichotomy among retailers.  If your middle class you’re not going to spend freely across stores because you’re concerned about money.  This makes for a more competitive environment for retailers.”

The model remains “how do you best get your goods to the customer?” Retail is not just about the boxes.  Retail is really about making those small transactions and getting your goods into the hands of the customer.   Best Buy has continued to innovate by looking at rebuilding their foot prints while adding new formats for mobile and on the go express kiosks in airport terminals; all attempts to be more convenient and customer friendly.

Retailers need to rethink the retail model and figure out how to get what the customer wants from them where they want it.  Though Amazon is challenging Walmart for leadership in non-grocery retail sales, there are still a lot of items people like to touch, feel and try on.  Bricks and mortar can become smaller and online larger but the brand experience needs to remain consistent across all platforms.  It’s about being willing to constantly innovate in response to consumer trends.  Understand what’s made you successful in the past and translate that message to your online brand.

If you’re worried about being left behind as your competitors engage in constant innovation, listen to my radio interview with Jay Young, DayBreak USA.

For more, read Innovations Aren’t Us and Best Buy in a Small Box.

Jay Young is the host of DayBreak USA, radio’s first national morning magazine show.  For the past 25 years, he has let his voice be heard in radio broadcasts and morning talk shows across the country.

DayBreak USA is a live, fast-paced morning magazine program packed full of interviews, dollars and sense financial information, intelligent insights and positive features.

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Category: Marketing

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Jun 6, 2012

What is a brand and why should it matter to you?

Branding Insights
One of a series by John Paulo Cardoso, Spyder Works Chief Creative Officer

Brand-why-it-matters

As Michael Eisner says, “A brand is a living entity — and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.”

I love that quote because it takes branding out of MBA seminars and puts it directly in your loading dock or on the desk of your sales rep or in your next e-mail to a supplier.

Brand is the culmination of everything an organization believes in, stands for and aspires to be. It must have real value and meaning for customers… and for everyone else. In essence, a brand is what you believe in (values), what you do (offer) and what you say (message).

A brand is not a logo. It exists in the minds of the marketplace. The visual aids like a logo, colour, typeface and design are the visible cues of your brand that ignite your customers’ emotions and how they feel about your business. A great brand is the consistently positive feeling that your customers, suppliers and employees enjoy when they deal with your company.

A more concrete way to think of it is to replace the word ‘brand’ with ‘reputation’. Through the process of creating a brand, we’re personifying a company. Why do we need to attach human characteristics and behavior to a company?  Simply because we want our customers to have a real relationship with our business so that they will have positive feelings when they think about our products, services or stores.  In other words, ‘branding’ is the management of our reputation in the marketplace.  It’s how we manage those thousand small gestures.

 

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Category: Branding, Icicle, Spyder Works

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