If Truman Capote was like a semantic Paganini, then Malcolm Gladwell is undoubtedly a Paganini of anecdotes. Much has been already written on Gladwell’s recent Outliers: The Story of Success. If a summary can be made before the book is actually written, then the best one was given by Richard St John in his 3-minute TED talk: “8 secrets of success”:

Treating Outliers as a purely motivational book is obviously utterly shallow, as the book popularizes several sociological and cultural theories. Yet, in a typical Gladwell’s manner, the book is garnished with an extra chunky sauce of anecdotes.

Entartaining as he is, Gladwell still manages to convey some substantial content. Unfortunately, after poring over Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath, I’ve got to admit, that the shake-and-bake recipe for book writing definitely has reached its limits. Anecdotes work perfectly well, unless the subject AND the content of the book can be summarized in a single sentence presented at the very beginning. In case of Made to Stick, the sentence goes like this:

“Here’s our checklist for creating a successful idea: a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story.”

The following 250 pages are there to charm the reader with urban legends, stories and so-called “Idea Clinics” i.e. examples. Great book for a 2-hour train ride sold as a manual for creating successful ideas. Urgh.

A store has 3 distinct aspects: design (the premises), merchandising (whatever you put in it) and operations (whatever employees do). They’re closely intertwined, interrelated and interdependent, so changing one of them will affect the other two as well. Their correlations are thoroughly covered in Paco Underhill’s analysis of an evolving shopping culture. It’s one of these books that in addition to substantial advice on customers’ tastes and habits is able to entertain us with witty anecdotes and gripping details.
The book has been incredibly well summarized by Malcolm Gladwell in his New Yorker article: The Science of Shopping, so instead of writing a mere ersatz of Gladwell’s review (which definitely is a must-read), I’ll focus on the book’s guidelines for designers.

To begin with:

“Display designers apparently never go into stores to see their creations in action, so they don’t have a firm grip on what happens in the real world.”

The main criterion for whether the sign is of any good is an in-place assessment. It’s not just about displays, but actually any piece of so-called commercial design. Whether it’s a logo, a display, a graph, a banner, or even a website, check whether it works in the actual environment. Am I able to find your product while walking or does it require a 5-minute gaze at the product shelf? Is it possible to find out what the purpose of this particular website is within few nanoseconds?

“The best sign in either case is one you can read fast, and positioned so you can read it while moving. And the only way to achieve that in most instances, is to break the information down into pieces and lay them out at a time, in a logical, orderly sequence as the customer gets farther into the store.”

So: Get your audience’s attention. Present your message in a clear, logical fashion. Deliver the information the way people absorb it, a bit at a time and in the proper sequence. If the information is too complex to be explained in just a few words, change the information, as in some case even the best design will not make it easier to comprehend.

“In a second and a half you can read like 3 or 4 words. Putting a sign that requires twelve seconds to read in a place where customers spend four seconds is just slightly more effective than putting it in your garage.”

The faster people walk past your display, the shorter the information has to be. Even when people actually have more time to stop and ponder, putting the entire message at once is not sexy at all. It’s like a stripper who takes off all her clothes before you even enter the bar. No tease, no desire, no buy.

“Every store is a collection of zones, and you’ve got to map them before you can place a single sign.”

Pay attention to the sign position. People are less likely to notice something BEFORE completing the task they are to fulfill (for example: ordering a sandwich in a fast food restaurant or going to the toilet), but will share their attention AFTER (e.g. they’ve ordered a sandwich and are waiting for it). Same applies for instance to banking websites. If I log in to pay my bills, I’ll skip any information on my way besides login and password input fields. But I might actually read some advertisement while the transfer is being processed.

These are just a few rules, several others are implied in almost every chapter. However, the greatest advice from The Science of Shopping is: know your customers’ behaviour and adapt to it. If a promotion display placed at the very entrance is missed, put it 3 meters farther into the shop (you’d be surprised how often it worked). If a particular link buried somewhere in your website is getting 80% clicks, don’t hesitate to put it on the frontpage. If customers have problems finding your product, redesign the packaging. Simply pay attention to customers’ behaviour, context and results. And never stop to improve.

“The Culture Code is the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing — a car, a type of food, a relationship, even a country — via the culture in which we are raised. The American experience with Jeeps is very different from the French and German experience because our cultures evolved differently (we have strong cultural memories of the open frontier; the French and Germans have strong cultural memories of occupation and war). Therefore, the Codes — the meaning we give to the Jeep at an unconscious level — are different as well. (…) It is obvious to everyone that cultures are different from one another. What most people don’t realize, however, is that these differences actually lead to our processing the same information in different ways.”

However trivial the starting point of Clotaire Rapaille’s “Culture Code” may seem, the marketing (and cultural) guidance deduced from the anthropological study is quite puzzling. The analysis of several fundamental archetypes (ranging from shopping to sex), abundant in examples from Rapaille’s practice, seems to assure consistent results in any commercial endeavor.

While finding unanticipated needs of the customers might be a useful hint to differentiate whichever product or service, the great part of archetype revelations disclosed throughout the book seems naive and shallow, though well wrapped in catchy slogans. I could not resist the notion that the selection of the exemplified cases is preposterously biased toward supporting “The Breakthrough Code” revealed in each chapter.

There’s nothing revelatory in the concept of cognitive schemes, even as applied to marketing practice. Nor is treating a brand as an expression of a cultural archetype.

Apart from questionable conclusions, there’s one part I’ve found particularly entertaining (and a good sample of the tone of the book):

“We want someone with a highly developed vision who makes us pay attention when he speaks. We want someone with a strong reptilian side who can take care of our problems and lead us into the Promised Land because he knows what is wrong and how to fix it. We don’t want a father figure. We want a biblical figure. The Culture Code for the American presidency is MOSES. (…) a rebellious leader of his people with a strong vision and the will to get them out of the trouble. Moses also made his people believe they could do the impossible. This is a skill great presidents possessed, beginning with George Washington himself. (…) They inspired us to act by convincing us to share their transcendental vision. They gave us directions out of the desert and into the Promised Land.”

So know you know why Obama is going to win the forthcoming elections:).

“One of most difficult things to understand is the dynamics of marketplace. Why some companies win and others lose. Why some consumers prefer one brand and other consumers prefer another brand. Why a brand that is hot today can get cold tomorrow. Charles Darwin provides the theoretical concepts to understand the dynamics of the marketplace. The laws of nature apply equally as well to brands and categories.”

The idea behind Al & Laura Ries’ “The origins of brands” is quite simple: take Darwin’s idea of evolution and apply it to the branding process. Captivating as it is as a purely intellectual pursuit, the analogy results in four basic rules to follow:

1. Divide and conquer
   Categories of products and services diverge. Think of computers: started with so called mainframe computers. Now desktop computer, home computer, laptop computer, PDA, wearable computer and so on are widely available. So instead of converging several features into one (f.e. camera with a mobile), the opportunity lies in divergence. Create a new category, be the first in it and move the minds. When you’re first in the marketplace, your brand is just another brand; when you’re product is the first recalled by consumers in a given category (energy drink — Red Bull), your brand creates a powerful emotional connection with consumers.
2. Exploit divergence
   Nature favours extremes. When the category is dividing into two or more subcategories, don’t try to fit in between. For instance, a laptop computer might be a full featured, heavy machine or Apple’s Air. If you think of the customer as a single identity, the computer needs to be full-featured AND ultralight. Obviously, it’s hard to differentiate such product between two strong competitors, not to mention that it will be neither ultraportable nor powerful.
3. Survival of the secondest
   If you’re not first, you can still become a strong No. 2 brand by being the opposite of the leader. Coca-Cola was consumed by older people, so Pepsi-Cola became a strong No. 2 brand by appealing to younger people (the Pepsi Generation).
4. The power of pruning
   If a brand tries to cover every aspect of a diverging category, it’ll almost certainly forge to lose its dominant position. The brand should stand for a single idea in the consumer’s mind.
   Emerging new brands might need the support of the core brand, but when the branch grows bigger and stronger, it separates itself from the core branch and then a line extension name becomes a severe disadvantage.

I’ve got to admit though, that the greatest part of the book is a fiery philippic against convergence, brought up as The Curse of the Clock Radio (a.k.a Swiss Army Knife Thinking — every macho male has one, but when was the last time you saw actually use the scissors on a Swiss Army knife to cut something?). However convincing it gets, personally I’d rather refrain from conceding, bearing in mind Google Mail/Cal/Reader as one of many counter-examples.
Evolution might be a useful analogy for branding, still the authors’ bias towards coherence leads to sticking the “brand label” to every success or failure just to support the idea, which might not necessarily be the case.

“I heard a nice little story the other day,” Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait.
Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air — until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. ‘My God, this is terrible,’ the wave says ‘Look what’s going to happen to me!’ Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, ‘Why do you look so sad?’ The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’ The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.’”

[Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom]