Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JULY 2023 14 Author: Allen P. Adamson is a noted industry expert in all disciplines of branding. He has worked with a broad spectrum of clients in industries ranging from packaged goods and technology, to health care and financial services, to hospitality and entertainment, as well as brands in the non-profit sector. Allen is Co-founder of Metaforce, a team of "special forces" that help organizations identify and activate the right growth strategies. Prior to Metaforce, Allen was chairman, North America of Landor Associates, a global branding firm. Under his leadership, the company partnered with a wide array of iconic brands, including Accenture, GE, Johnson & Johnson, FedEx, HBO, Marriott, MetLife, P&G, Sony, and Verizon. Before Landor, Allen was an executive at Unilever, responsible for leading marketing for a number of major packaged goods brands. Publisher: Matt Holt F rom shampoo to SUVs, cereal to toaster ovens, the meaningful difference between one product and another, in almost every category, has been diminishing for years. As product differentiation matters less and less, where have marketers been looking for growth opportunities? What defines successful innovation and enables sustainable competitive advantage? More and more marketers are finding success by "zooming out" and looking at innovative ways to disrupt the things we do every day – identifying how to make them easier or more convenient. Businesses that focus on experience disruption – initiatives prompting a significant shift in consumer behavior – have become the fastest-growing segment of the market. Why? When consumers discover that any one of their daily routines can be made significantly better, they opt in, in a very big way. Fundamentally different from adding a layer of experience to purchasing a product – for example, Nike sneakers – experience disruption is about taking the activities of daily life – shopping, traveling, investing, getting healthcare, eating in or eating out – and transforming them in once-unimaginable ways. We work from home on Zoom, set up meetings with Calendly, stay in Airbnbs when we travel, ride in Ubers, call up our favorite tunes on Spotify, click on DoorDash when too tired to make dinner, read with eyeglasses purchased online from Warby Parker, pamper our pets with help from Chewy, pay our bills on Venmo, and refresh our wardrobes with Stitch Fix. Representing a spectrum of categories, the list of businesses becoming successful as a result of seeing and seizing opportunities to transform how we do things, not what we buy, only continues to get longer. How these businesses do it – and how others can see and seize opportunities for experience disruption – is what Seeing the How is about. Seeing the How brings together data-driven research on consumer behavior, behavioral psychology, marketing analysis, and storytelling to provide a framework to help identify the methods by which business leaders can make these experience disruptions possible. Successful experience disruption is the de facto new competitive advantage across all categories. With Seeing the How you'll have the strategy necessary to bring your disruption to life, command market segments, and cultivate consumer loyalty. B O O K R E V I E W SEEING THE HOW Transforming What People Do, Not Buy, to Gain Market Advantage RO

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