In her book The End of Competitive Advantage, Rita Gunther McGrath argues that any individual advantage in the marketplace today is likely to be fleeting, and that companies therefore need to be constantly investing in their next-generation business model and new capabilities that will differentiate it.
The key competence around building shareholder value in retail used to be location.
Visually, you can only see what’s in front of your eyes, but auditory sensations can come from above, below, behind and all sides. Today, with multiple screens competing for the focus of their audience’s eyes, brand marketers need new ways to stand out.
The pressure for brands to own unique value in the mind has never been greater for the simple reason; choice is the enemy of customer focus. A growing adversary, choice is the brand nemesis of our times.
Our gut instinct as marketers is to go with what is working, because everything in the corporate rewards system is geared towards that: lack of risk appetite; the quest for short term results; even performance incentives. The irony for brands of course is that the more you embrace what works for others, the less likely those ideas are going to work for you.
