Apple stores are so popular that they increase sales by 10% in the malls where they’re located.
Business & Brands
If you’ve ever picked up a Bang and Olufsen remote you’ll know they’re surprisingly heavy. But that’s nothing to do with function – it’s designed to exploit our assumption that heavier things are better quality.
If you look past the hype, BeReal is actually pretty niche: it has 2 million users in the UK, far less than Pinterest or even Nextdoor, and 70% of them are 18-24.
Transport For London temporarily renamed Bond Street station to ‘Burberry Street’, as part of a partnership with the brand during London Fashion Week. They seemed to forget that passengers rely on station signage to get around, and the stunt left many confused (and at the wrong station).
Booths, a British supermarket, got rid of its self checkout machines altogether because customers deemed them to be unreliable and impersonal. It turns out that the ‘hassle’ of human cashiers is actually their main benefit. As managing director Nigel Murray put it, “we pride ourselves on great customer service and you can’t do that through a robot.”
Most marketers understand the importance of long-term brand building, but the real challenge is convincing their seniors to buy into it. Helpfully, Mark Ritson outlines seven tactics to improve the chances of success, from sourcing case studies (“pick big impressive brands, in your sector or outside it”) to explaining the why (i.e. what’s in it for them).
Jim Stengel, ex-CMO of Proctor & Gamble, claimed that the 50 brands with the strongest purpose outperformed the stock market. But as Richard Shotton has pointed out, the data doesn’t stack up: Stengel picked the top 0.1% of brands – period – so purpose has nothing to do with it. Plus, his definitions of purpose were vague at best.
British Airways make a quarter of their profit (£320m) from Avios points.
At age 22, Whitney Wolfe helped launch Tinder, but left a few years later before filing a lawsuit against the company alleging sexual harassment. The ensuing attention from the media – and cyberbullying from strangers – prompted her to launch Bumble, a dating app where women make the first move.
99% of UK businesses have fewer than 250 employees, and 75% have no employees whatsoever.
Car brands create status. In a study on dating website HotOrNot.com, three pictures showed the same man with the same background – the only thing that changed was the car he was next to. The more expensive the car, the higher his rating.
The online mattress brand is now no stranger to physical retail; it has over 50 stores worldwide, hosted a glamping trip during the last total solar eclipse, and even set up a pay as you go nap hotel in New York called the Dreamery.
Cazoo’s £6 billion valuation hinted that all car buying would be done online. But the company has now gone into administration, after generating losses of £700 million in 2022.
ChatGPT gradually spits out information as if it was thinking and responding in real time. In reality, the code was instantly ready when you clicked the prompt – but it presents the illusion of effort.
ChatGPT may dominate conversations on LinkedIn, but it’s still relatively niche: even among 18-24s, its biggest audience, only a quarter use it at least weekly.