Visit Sweden shows how an overlooked product attribute turns into a compelling reason to buy when it connects with the right customer need. Visit Sweden has opened a travel agency for introverts. The Introvert Travel Agency promotes Sweden to folks who want more personal space, fewer obligatory conversations and the freedom to explore without constantly interacting with strangers. As an introvert, I SO get this. Some days I’ll happily chat with an Uber driver on the way to the airport. But...
1 day ago • 1 min read
Apple’s new product burst is a useful reminder that the loudest reaction to an unfamiliar product rarely predicts what buyers will do with it. John Ternus has been running Apple for barely six weeks, and already the place is lookin’ busier. Since September 1, Apple has introduced its first foldable iPhone, HomeView in tabletop and wall-mounted versions, plus a whole family of smart-home cameras, thermostats, sensors, a doorbell and deadbolt. Obviously, this stuff was underway before Ternus...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Polaroid’s latest camera makes creative techniques easier while leaving the pleasure of experimentation in your hands. When I was a kid, a Polaroid camera was a delight at parties. Someone took a picture, and there it was… developing before our eyes. Compared with waiting two weeks for a roll of film to come back from the lab as prints, that was magic. Professional photographers I worked with years later had a more practical use: testing lighting before committing to their film shots. Then...
3 days ago • 1 min read
New research suggests customers experience craftsmanship through the people, timing and tiny gestures surrounding the product, beyond how it was made. When brands talk about craftsmanship, they usually point backward. You know, stuff like stitching all done by hand. Wood lovingly shaped by some grizzled artisan. Maybe it’s the chef who trained in obscurity for decades. Or the watch assembled from hundreds of teeny individual components. For sure, all that kind of thing adds value for the...
4 days ago • 2 min read
New research suggests tracking healthy behaviour might make you more likely to indulge elsewhere. I like the basic promise of a Fitbit. That was my first fitness wearable more than a decade ago. But any similar wearable, for that matter. So, you walk more, sleep better. Pay more attention to what your body is doing. And improve stuff by measuring it. Right? That logic is intuitive enough that self-tracking got built into watches, phones, rings and fitness apps everywhere. But a new study...
5 days ago • 2 min read
Selling online can expand a B2B company’s reach, but new research shows it can also weaken the consultation customers rely on. I’ve helped lots of B2B companies sell online, and one thing always surprises them: Putting products on a website is the easy part. The heavy lift is changing how the company thinks about sales. That becomes even more obvious when a traditional B2B seller adds a direct-to-customer or self-service channel. Now all of a sudden, the sales folk are longer the only route...
6 days ago • 2 min read
San Jose went and turned a familiar NHL nickname into a spectacle that makes the game-day experience unmistakably its own. My Edmonton Oilers visit San Jose this afternoon, and will have their hands full with or without Sharks superstar Macklin Celebrini on hand. But imagine looking down at your skates and seeing a few great whites circling UNDER the ice. The Sharks have recently added a creepy underwater illusion to their pregame show at SAP Center: Animated sharks swim through rippling...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Jaguar’s inherited fame gives its reinvention a huge audience, but customers will decide if its EV deserves a future. The internet rallied to defend the old Jaguar with an enthusiasm its showrooms sure coulda used. Annual sales had continuously fallen by roughly two-thirds between 2018 and 2023, before the infamous rebrand. Keeping everybody happy with the OLD Jaguar would have been plain stupid. And now the Type 01 has arrived: an electric grand tourer starting at £130,000, with orders...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Snuggle’s Peanuts partnership connects its product to a meaning customers learned long before they bought fabric softener. I wonder what Charles Schulz would make of “peak Peanuts” in 2026, with his characters turning up on everything from Starbucks merchandise to cake mixes. When I was little, my older sister had a security blanket she called her “Linus.” That ragged, love-worn thing probably could have used a hit of Snuggle. Back in the day, the comic strips featuring characters like...
9 days ago • 1 min read
