The difference customers pay for is often the part competitors fail to replicate. In our business, several of us use the Apple Studio Display. I’ve tried not to. (Oh my gawd, how I’ve tried…) On paper, it IS hard to justify. There are plenty of cheaper monitors that claim UHD resolution, wide color, and pro performance. So I’ve bought them. And every time, they fell wa-aaay short. The difference isn’t any single spec. It’s the accumulation of details, on a product I spend hours daily staring...
2 days ago • 2 min read
A strong brand turns an incident into global participation rather than embarrassing damage control. A massive shipment of KitKat bars goes missing ahead of Easter. Over 400,000 bars, 12 tonnes, tied to a Formula 1 promotion in Europe. That could have been an awkward logistics problem. Instead, it became one of the biggest social media events of the year. The brand posted an official statement on Instagram. Within minutes, the comments filled with variations of the same joke. “Drivers needed a...
3 days ago • 1 min read
What happens when a fake product reveals a real need? Every April 1, brands invent ridiculous products. If you got up wondering who would ever buy the Matcha Mayo Heinz revealed a few hours ago, there you go. Most, like Matcha Mayo, will disappear by the next day. (Hopefully.) But sometimes, on rare occasions, the reaction is different. People say something surprising to the brand: “Hold on … I’d actually BUY that.” A few years ago, Nvidia joked about an AI assistant that would help gamers...
4 days ago • 1 min read
If you’re going to make a claim, please be sure it means something. A visit to the toothpaste aisle delivers a boatload of confident claims. “Strengthens enamel.”“24-hour cavity protection.”“Designed with dentists.”“Sugar free.” Recently we bought several tubes of Sensodyne Pronamel Kids toothpaste at Costco for our girls. Sensodyne makes solid products and has a legitimate position around sensitivity and enamel protection. That’s a real functional benefit where the brand grew by standing way...
5 days ago • 2 min read
It’s not that LEGO “grew up.” Better: it learned how to package therapy, nostalgia, and display status, and sell it in a box. Trot through a toy aisle today and you’ll see strange things indeed. A LEGO bonsai tree. A bouquet of plastic flowers. Maybe a 9,000-piece model of the Titanic. None of these “toys” are designed for kids. They’re all made for big’uns. Seriously, the toy industry calls these buyers “kidults,” and they’ve managed to become one of the fastest-growing segments in toys. I’m...
6 days ago • 1 min read
The brand collaborations that explode online usually amplify something consumers already love. Walk through the snack aisle lately and you’ll see products that look like high-speed shopping cart crashes. Skippy peanut butter inside a Milk Bar dessert pie. Or Pop Secret popcorn paired with Kraft cheese flavors. A few years ago these mashups might have felt weird or gimmicky. Now they regularly generate headlines, social chatter, and lo-oong lines of curious buyers. The obvious explanation is...
7 days ago • 1 min read
The companies winning with AI aren’t bolting it on, but are already built for it. A recent set of predictions from Gartner points to something you probably don’t want to hear. AI is set to blow up a $58 billion productivity software market. But not in the way many expect … The winners aren’t gonna be the companies that “add AI features.” Nope. They’ll be the ones whose products, data, and teams are already structured to work with it. Gartner is super blunt on this: AI will not compensate for...
8 days ago • 1 min read
The new place where customers discover (and buy) products is a chat. Shopify had a HUGE week, but one update blows the others away. Your products can now be discovered and purchased directly inside AI chats, including ChatGPT. And that changes the shape of commerce . Instead of searching, clicking, comparing, and navigating a storefront, a customer can ask a question and move straight to a product. No tabs, no browsing journey. From conversation to checkout, just like that. (Like chat?)...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Most product language comes from inside the building, not from the folks buying it. And that hurts you. I see this constantly: A company walks me through their positioning. They explain what customers value, how they describe the product, why they choose it. It sounds polished, confident and aligned. THEN we talk to actual customers. (And good thing we do.) Totally different words. Other priorities entirely. Sometimes a very different reason for buying. The gap is rarely small. It’s often...
10 days ago • 1 min read
