How to Mine the Crisis

From an inter­view with Patrick Rod­mell, CEO of Watt Inter­na­tional, in Monday’s Globe and Mail on what retail­ers can learn about brand­ing in the recession:

“One of the core chal­lenges, par­tic­u­larly in North Amer­ica, is over­com­ing the devel­op­ment of strate­gies from silos. Mar­ket strate­gies are often done with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for the over­all retail envi­ron­ment. Adver­tis­ing can be done in the absence of look­ing at the actual store. How many times have you been to a store and then seen the TV ad and felt like they could be two dif­fer­ent busi­nesses? They have to bring that inte­grated mes­sage together or it gets lost in the noise.

“The win­ners in retail after this reces­sion will be those who oper­ate from a truly brand-​​centric point of view. [This means] the core essence of an idea that trans­lates into all the touch points of your customer.”

Fur­ther, he iden­ti­fies that cus­tomers are seek­ing “the right choice” over “every choice avail­able.” Per­son­ally, I believe a curated prod­uct line is impor­tant, and would add—and firmly believe in—attention to detail and an unre­lent­ing com­mitt­ment to quality.