In order to stay relevant in a fast and continuously changing environment, you need to be market driving rather than market driven. Market driven, no matter how responsive, is a reactionary stance. In contrast, market driving is proactive, creating spaces of lifestyle enrichment that did not exist before. Take, for example, sportswear pioneer Lululemon that originally started out as a “yoga-inspired” grassroots company in Vancouver to an international retail phenomenon.”
From Canadian Business:
Selling an emotion, as well as an actual product, is a strategy that has worked for decades. 'People don't really buy a product or a service. They buy a solution to a problem," says Ken Wong, a professor of marketing at the Queen's School of Business. Charles Revson knew this well. As the founder of the Revlon cosmetic company once said, 'In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope." The Lululemon logo now represents an impulse to exercise and be healthier; wearing it announces your membership in an elite club of enlightened people. The company may have been founded on yoga principles, but Lululemon's real genius lies in what some analysts call the 'Blue Ocean" strategy — the ability to foster new demand in an uncontested market instead of competing for pre-existing customers.
[Image via Google Images.]
