Does Whole Foods run any risk at all of testing a bar concept at its stores?

Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid

Short answer: No. USA Today reported earlier this week that Whole Foods is opening bars that will serve craft beer and local wine at its stores in a test before a wider roll-out. 

It seems to me like a perfect fit and something that will only help to build up the ambience of the store and its reputation as a friendly place to shop and a good place to buy wine and beer. In fact, I think there's still some way to go along this path. Last year, I visited the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid and there you have a place that's selling and serving a whole variety of food and beverages to the point where it's difficult to even classify what kind of place it even is.

Not to say that this new concept might not run into some localized difficulties. It appears, for example, that there could be challenges with local liquor laws in some locations. Maybe it won't work in Utah? But, longer answer, no real issues and, in fact, a plus for the brand.

In contrast, I do see some risk for Starbucks which is also testing serving wine and beer in some of its Seattle locations. Perhaps this is just lack of imagination on my part but I think that this is a much higher level of difficulty and that the Starbuck's experience would be significantly changed, and not for the better, by adding alcohol to the menu.

Thoughts?

SOTB: There's a lot going on edition

SOTB is back, finally. So much going on in the world and my world that it's been hard to find the space and time:

1) Understanding Japan's Nuclear Crisis: Wired Science
The definitive guide to what's been going on at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan. Meanwhile, wear red for Japan (My faded, almost pink, Manchester United shirt was the best I could do) and donate to one of these donation sites.

2) 7 Billion: Are You Typical? National Geographic Magazine 



You are not the world's most typical person.

3) Is no evidence more persuasive than no evidence? Barking up the wrong tree
Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the answer is 'yes'. People react to a little evidence by poking holes in it and seeing its deficiencies and end up less convinced than if they saw no evidence at all.

4) Heinz: Innovating the core to make a leader even stronger: brandgym

Heinz Beanz have a 65% share of a $500 million plus category in the UK. Beans on toast (with lashings of butter on the toast), yum! Anyway, Heinz has come up with a real innovation in this category, one that may well help revive the fortunes of other canned goods as well-- a re-closable plastic fridge pack

5) how to hack video screens on times square: BITcrash44 (via brandflakesofrbreakfast)



There's been some debate about whether this is real or faked. I call "real" and it'll be interesting to see the (probably nefarious) ways in which this technology will now be used. Also a business opportunity for those who can come up with ways to protect screens from unwelcome intrusion.

6) Chatroulette love song: DoneRightJr



One in a million. Occasionally Chatroulette dlivers. Love song to Diana.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy and vaguely related topics.  More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

What do you mean that camera doesn't automatically add your location?

The W Mexico City (An Instagram photo)

While I'm in a change-is-happening-faster-and-faster way of thinking after my chat with Daniel Burrus earlier this week, here's a quick example.

I've been enjoying using Instagram. It's a photo sharing iPhone app that includes some filters for you to jazz up your crap photos and make them look artsy. It also allows you to share your location by picking from a list of nearby places. When I was in Mexico City recently, I started to use this feature just to add a location to my photograph so I had a record of where I was for each photo. Surely it's only a matter of time before all smart phone cameras will include this functionality? Another example of something you didn't know you wanted becoming a necessity that you can't live without.

So, not only does my poor old digital camera have to justify the extra space it takes up in my bag vs. my iPhone camera (which it might do on the basis of slightly better quality pictures), it now has to overcome the fact that it's not wifi connected and won't ever be able to tell me where I am and what places are nearby.

If I was a manufacturer of lower-end digital cameras I'd be worried. The end for that end of the market may be very near.

Flash Foresight by Daniel Burrus: The world is changing fast. Are you ready?

whirling people machine by joiseyshowaa (Flickr)

Change used to happen slowly enough that companies could do without effective forward planning and react to changes as they happened. But change is now happening so fast that this type of reactive approach is starting to fail. We have now entered an era of transformational/disruptive change where more and more companies need to reconsider and reinvent how they operate their business or risk getting left behind.

Daniel Burrus' new book Flash Foresight offers help to those who are starting to feel the impact of the faster speed of change. He lays out principles that can help companies develop a clearer picture of the future so that they can plan ahead and take advantage of the opportunities that change brings rather than become one of its victims.

I spoke to Daniel earlier this week as part of the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour (tour dates below). We started our conversation by talking about the inevitability of change and how that challenges human nature which likes to protect and defend the status quo. As human organizations, companies often find it difficult to deal with change. They lock into business models that reward short-term thinking--models where quarterly performance comes at the expense of investment in the future. When companies are faced with transformational change, their fatal tendency is to react as if it's a storm that will pass (i.e. baton down the hatches, cut marketing and limit R&D) rather than realizing that it's time to radically change direction.

So how can companies prepare themselves for an era of transformational change? Daniel believes that it's important for companies to develop a "futureview," a term he coined to describe the mental picture we hold of our future existence. Companies need to embrace the reality of a radically different future and then do what they can to shape that future in their favor. After all, as Daniel pointed out: "The future is where they're going to make most of their money."

We also talked about branding and how brands can help companies adapt to change. Daniel believes that brands can be a source of inspiration in this new era, helping companies decide how they are going to change. But that only works if brands themselves have a futureview and derive their equity from attributes that will continue to be relevant in the future. Brand managers should ask themselves whether their brands are giving them strong enough guidance on what actions they should be taking to prepare for the future. In this new era, brands need to adapt so they are part of the solution and not contributors to the problem.

A great chat with Daniel and one that only touched on a few of the many ideas in the book. I recommend checking out the posts of the other bloggers talking to Daniel this week. The Post2Post Virtual Book Tour itinerary is:

Monday, March 7th: Jeff De Cagna: Principled Innovation @pinnovation
Tuesday, March 8th: Chris Wilson: The Fresh Peel @FreshPeel
Wednesday, March 9th: Brand Mix @martinjbishop
Thursday, March 10th: Phil Gerbyshak: Make It Great @philgerb
Friday, March 11th: Rajesh Setty: Bringing Ideas To Life @RajSetty

Earlier Post2Post book tour author Brand Mix visits:
Seth Godin: Meatball Sundae
Erika Andersen: Being Strategic

Thanks to Paul Williams (Idea Sandbox) for inviting me to participate and organizing the book tour.

Flash Foresight author Daniel Burrus to visit Brand Mix

The Post2Post Virtual Book Tour returns to Brand Mix on Wednesday, March 9th. The author on this visit will be Daniel Burrus who will be talking about his new book: Flash Foresight.

Subtitled "How To See The Invisible and Do The Impossible" (who wouldn't like to be able to do that?), Flash Foresight is about how to use strategic foresight and certainty to drive innovation and growth. It's a good read. Here's an excerpt of an excerpt that Dan himself used in a recent article in Fast Company talking about how the best business strategy to deal with a huge problem may be just to skip it altogether:

"Here is an exercise I often do with my clients. "Close your eyes for a moment and ask yourself: In my work, what is the biggest problem I'm facing right now? Keep your eyes closed until you've come up with an answer."

Their eyes invariably pop open again in just seconds; our biggest problems have a way of sitting right on our shoulders, ready to jump in and make their presence known at a moment's notice. Try this yourself; to get maximum benefit from the exercise, you may want to jot down your answer. Now, with that biggest problem firmly in mind, here's what we're going to do: we're going to take that problem . . . and skip it.

The typical approach is to grab that problem and attempt to solve it. The problem with trying to solve your problem is that in order to solve it, you engage it, and by engaging it you embrace it-- which often leads to getting your wheels mired in the mud of the problem, stuck in crisis mode and unable to move forward.

Flash foresight takes a different path. Rather than engaging with your biggest roadblocks by confronting them, often you'll find you can simply leap over them. This is not a philosophy of denial, avoidance, or procrastination. It is a powerful kind of conceptual jujitsu that teases previously invisible crises out into the open, where we can take decisive action to address them. The key to unraveling our most intractable problems often lies in recognizing that the problem confronting us is not our real problem; the real problem lies hidden behind the distraction of what we think our problem is. Skipping your biggest problem means stepping outside the flat plane of the existing situation and gaining a clearer perspective, and this often triggers flash foresights that lead to new opportunities far bigger and more productive than you could have imagined based on the original (incorrect) problem you were trying to solve."

Daniel will be visiting four other web sites as well. His itinerary for the week is:
Monday, March 7th: Jeff De Cagna: Principled Innovation @pinnovation
Tuesday, March 8th: Chris Wilson: The Fresh Peel @FreshPeel
Wednesday, March 9th: Brand Mix @martinjbishop
Thursday, March 10th: Phil Gerbyshak: Make It Great @philgerb
Friday, March 11th: Rajesh Setty: Bringing Ideas To Life @RajSetty

Earlier Post2Post book tour author Brand Mix visits:
Seth Godin:  Meatball Sundae
Erika Andersen: Being Strategic

Thanks to Paul Williams (Idea Sandbox) for inviting me to participate and organizing the book tour.

Sun Chips keeps on trying

I've been a big fan of the work that the Sun Chips brand team to build its green credentials and take advantage of its eco-friendly name. Back in 2009, I commended the team for a series of initiatives it had taken to build the brand's green credentials. These went way beyond a single promotional tie-in or superficial gesture and included taking its Casa Grande manufacturing plant off the grid running it on solar power and recycled water.

But, last year, the brand team's commitment to the environment got them into trouble. They launched a new fully compostable bag which was an awesome idea but had one fatal flaw--the bags were really, really loud: "Noisier than a jetfighter cockpit," as one commentator put it. After a flood of criticism, the brand team took the bag off the market to give them time for a rethink

They promised they'd be back and I'm happy to report that now they are with a bag that reclaims the environmental high ground. The new product is still fully compostable but adds a new adhesive that functions as a noise barrier and dampens the sound to hopefully acceptable levels. They are planning to introduce the new packaging gradually to make sure it's OK from the consumer perspective.

I'm just as guilty as anyone else in having some tweeting or blogging fun at the expense of marketers who've tried but failed with some ad, promotion, design or other initiative. But, in this case, I hope the new bag succeeds in the market and quietens the critics.