#markettracking

We'll have a scouting team in the melee of Austin. If you're there and looking to be inspired, seek out Jason's session on creative destruction.

Smart management team at JW Marriott Dongdaemun elevating standard hotel bar to private club status. Complimentary bottles of 15-year scotch. Bottle privileges. Spa discounts. Member rates on rooms. And the ever-elusive feeling of exclusivity you'd never expect from a chain. - JAA

We have a team in Seoul this week scouting for a client immersion next week.  We're here as it's one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world.  We tripped over this.  Perhaps Seoul is also home to the most progressive parenting culture in East Asia?

(image: courtesy of DV, featuring CP, MC and CB)

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Source: PSFK

Amazon will open its first physical shop this holiday season, in an iconic location, with no doubt an extravaganza of brilliant bundles: buying and shipping + physical and digital + credit card and Prime sign-up. As we explore the future of retail with some of the biggest consumer product companies in the world, we'll watch Amazon's brick-and-mortar play with interest and amusement. But we'll also watch for the response from suppliers, such as the publishers and authors on which Amazon's retail success was founded (many of whom are a bit dissatisfied). One great thing about being a digital retailer: no physical footprint your enemies can graffiti. Amazon's entry into storefronts will be a huge success, we're sure. But it will also be an invitation to hold a handmade sign in front of one of the most recognizable brands in the world. 

Yesterday morning I took the stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair, surrounded by fellow book enthusiasts, to talk about marketing books in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. A few hours later one of my favorite clients took the stage in Las Vegas, presenting a deck and script we built together, in front of a crowd of fairgoers interested in products of another kind. Connecting our two presentations, half a world apart from one another, is a concept that’s undergoing serious revision: the idea of competitive advantage. A phrase that once suggested a long-term sustainable edge, you can’t use it in that context with a straight face these days. Competitive advantage must now be a way of doing strategy: Thinking about your product development plan and marketing playbook as agile realities, in a state of constant revision and refinement. My client knows this, and was presenting a suite of modular tools that will allow her to adjust easily to new market realities. Meanwhile, I was publicly exploring a particular case study: a traditional publisher supporting “intrapreneurship” in order to create solutions and uncover new opportunities while protecting their core business. However you’re doing strategy planning these days, I hope you’re doing it this way. If you are, tell us how it’s going. If you’re not, call us in. We’ll go halfway ‘round the world for you.