What Is The Story Here?

We talked about the story that Macy's tells.

What story does Patagonia communicate? Be honest!

Patagonia is asking you to watch a video before you even consider purchasing merchandise.

I'm not saying this is good/bad, how could I possibly know, right?

I am asking you to think about different possibilities. This is pretty much the exact opposite of the Macy's example. Any trained monkey can throw discounts and promotions at a customer, that doesn't take any marketing expertise whatsoever. But to put together a compelling brand story that a customer cares about? That's hard, risky work. If you succeed, and "if" is they key word there, you differentiate yourself.

We're heading toward a world of sameness. Same products, same companies, same channels, same prices, same promotions. The industry is demanding sameness - it helps vendors sell solutions, no doubt about it.

But we're going to have to do something different, aren't we? This is one example. We each need to come up with our own version of being unique, or we're all going to struggle with tepid repurchase rates.