{"id":6553,"date":"2019-05-03T14:20:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T14:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=6553"},"modified":"2021-01-11T22:11:21","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T22:11:21","slug":"the-elegance-of-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/the-elegance-of-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"The elegance of nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What ever happened to details? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The red sole<\/a> of a Louboutin shoe, or the elegant tag on a pair of Tom\u2019s? The sweeping fenders of a Porsche 911 or the needless complications of a fancy watch\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, a certain kind of customer is using a Muji notebook, or wearing a plain Everlane t-shirt. Is this what we\u2019ve come to? One might come to the conclusion that consumers have rejected all the effort that designers and marketers have produced in a statement that rejects design. Not so fast.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

Design is \nthe new marketing. It is the product itself, not the ads or the slogan. \nDesign is the supply chain of Patagonia, the ethics of Purple Carrot and\n the customer service at Union Square Cafe. It\u2019s design, not \nadvertising, that turned Apple into the most valuable luxury brand (and \nthe most valuable company) in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But design \nrequires a point of view. The confidence to make an assertion. And the \nskill to turn that assertion into something that resonates with the \nperson you seek to serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s probably easier to \ncreate heavily adorned mash-up than it is to produce a Field Notes \nnotebook. Stripping away the artifice doesn\u2019t always leave something \npure. It often creates banality, the simple commodity that\u2019s easy to buy\n cheaper one click away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elegant nothing brands<\/em>\n aren\u2019t about nothing. Not all. They merely have a different, more \ndifficult sort of artifice. The artifice of no artifice. The elegance of\n leading with utility as its own form of style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \nwhat is a brand? It\u2019s not the logo, certainly. I have no idea what \nEverlane\u2019s logo is. The brand is our shorthand for the feelings that an \nexperience creates, the promises that a product or service brings with \nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Nike announced that they were opening a hotel, \nyou\u2019d have a pretty good guess about what it would be like. But if Hyatt\n announced that they were going to start making shoes, you would have NO\n IDEA WHATSOEVER what those shoes would be like. That\u2019s because Nike \nowns a brand and Hyatt simply owns real estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a \ncompany that stands for few details to become a brand, then, there needs\n to be a promise associated with what they make and what you\u2019ll get if \nyou engage with it instead of buying the cheaper commodity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases where brands have been built, the brand has:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\n Served users who care about origin and elegance. They resist the idea \nof buying the cheaper commodity, because telling themselves they have \nthe real one creates personal value. Beyond that, these users have the \nsensitivity (or taste) to be able to tell the difference between the \nreal one and the knock off. Cayce Pollard (the fictional heroine of \nGibson\u2019s Pattern Recognition<\/em><\/a>) only wears an authentic MA-1 jacket (you can buy a real life version right here<\/a>).\n Her narrative about sensitivity, origin and authenticity makes the \njacket worth the $675, even though she knows she could buy the knock off\n for 10% of that artificially high price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Served \nusers who care about status. The status of \u2018people like us do things \nlike this.\u2019 These users know that their peers will recognize the \ninvisible products they\u2019re carrying, and this recognition is worth far \nmore than the product itself costs. Seeing a designer with a genuine Uni-ball Signo UM-151 Gel Pen<\/a>\n in her hand (from Japan) is to see someone who is better than you \n(perhaps). Better in the sense that she cares enough to go to the \ntrouble. That she cares enough to know the difference. That she cared \nenough to pay a bit extra in time and money, because it matters\u2013to her, \nand perhaps to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Found the intestinal fortitude \nto play a longer game. There are shortcuts everywhere, corners that can \nbe cut, profits that can be taken. Once you get a small head start, you \ncan license your name to others. You can cash out with a vodka or an \naffiliate deal of what sort or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invisible \nbrands that last, though, realize that the artifact is only an artifact.\n It\u2019s not the point. It\u2019s a souvenir of the point. The point is that \npeople like us do things like this. Our tribe, our group. That when we \nsee the others, we see ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will the momentary \nmania among a small group who is busy measuring just how invisible they \ncan be in their design fade away? Of course, it will. It always does. \nThe cycle moves because the very people who drive the market, the \nneophiliacs, are in search of something new. Because something new gives\n them a new chance to tell a story, to earn status, to engage with that \nwhich is scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the brands that matter are voices \nthat choose to matter. Voices that make assertions on behalf of their \nusers. Who market with people, and for them, not to them or at them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work that matters for people who care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seth Godin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What ever happened to details? The red sole of a Louboutin shoe, or the elegant tag on a pair of Tom\u2019s? The sweeping fenders of a Porsche 911 or the needless complications of a fancy watch\u2026 Today, a certain kind of customer is using a Muji notebook, or wearing a plain Everlane t-shirt. Is this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,1451,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-thesocialcmo-2","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6559,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions\/6559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}