Going Digital is a new way of life

The Internet has forever changed how we work with innovation. 

For the last five years I have gathered my musings on the Internet, innovation and startup tech companies. I have blogged about these topics part-time at the same time I was working as a strategy consultant and taught innovation courses. On the fifth anniversary, I started screening and sorting out the notes. It was then that I grew conscious there was a common thread that connected the notes.  In the span of five years from 2010 to 2015 the Internet and the digital wave have impacted innovation, the world and your business.

There were 22 impacts that most of us (me included) didn’t know about and that show how profoundly digital innovation has shaped our businesses and our world. Here are the impacts on: the origin of ideas, the new unicorns, competition, transformation, and the valley of death.

The new theory about origin of ideas

1. It’s the innovation, stupid!
To innovate is to exploit an idea commercially. Any idea that is new. Ideas in isolation are never to be called innovation but creativity. New means advance for consumers. Some examples: Technical advances are Internet, broandband and smartphones. Non-technical advances are non-traditional distribution and low cost models.

2. True innovators
True innovators act like giraffes: they emerge from the forest. True innovators can think without constraints from the market or their current customer base.

3. Ideas, the good and the bad
Ideas can be selected 1) By hygienic attributes 2) Like an entrepreneur and 3) Like an intrapreneur. A good hygienic idea is one that solves a problem and is applicable, relevant and deliverable. A good entrepreneurial idea is original, uses technology and is profitable. A good intrapreneurial idea is one that has a big market a sound margin and has been tested with clients.

4. One of the three
For your business to be innovative you must be one of the three: 1) Better, 2) Easier or 3) Cheaper.

Great life to new unicorns!

5. Disruptive
Google glasses, 3D printers and big data are often thought of disruptive innovations. But disruptions can only be verified in retrospect. If five years from now any of these great technologies 1) has changed the strategy gear of other companies and 2) has put an entire industry upside down, then they have proved disruptive. No losers, no disruption.

6. It’s the value, not the price
Here’s an experiment: Some parents come late every day to to pick up their kids from school. Tweak the experience: Tell them next time they are late they will pay a 10$ fine per each 30 minutes of delay. At the end of the week I guarantee you’ll have a big piggy-bank and a full class of kids waiting. The important lesson: consumers are eager to pay any price worth value.

7. The simplest format of a business model
A good business model must solve a problem, have customers, generate income, as well as be scalable. In short, a good business model is one that creates true value to a customer. There is no business model in bringing water where there is water.

8. Pizza rule for market size
Your market size is always much smaller than the total available market. I called it the “pizza rule”: never expect a big pizza but a small pizza. You must feed from your potential market not the total available market.

Changing competitors

9. The pricing problem
Paying for what you want is okay. Paying for things you don’t want is not okay. Welcome to the context of abundance in Internet! We were 6 billion people in 2011. Then: 3 billion had a smartphone and 1 billion had Internet. Now: We are over 7 billion and 2 billion have Internet. Joichi Ito (MIT and Creative Commons) says “in the future consumers will be like sponsors”. Till then a problem remains unsolved: how to price consumers?

10. Fear is good in innovation
You choose the ideas you want to work on. Innovation is a game of resisting fear. But fear is also good. Fear helps you with “your (business) first times”: starting a project, dealing with the irrational… Innovation is a path of uneasy moments. You need to pass those steps to (hopefully) get to transformation.

11. Competition DOES exist
Most entrepreneurs and innovators would rather not look at their competitors.  Finding there is a competing innovative idea is bad news. But knowing it is good news. Innovators can learn about 1) diseases similar failed businesses died from, 2) what is a good growth rate in their area, 3) who is competing with you outside your business.

12. A tech trend victim?
Most people feel they are always late for big tech trends. Here are three possible strategies. “The academic model”: go and make lists of influential people to follow. This includes investors, startups, tech news journalists, Stanford and MIT professors. “Against the tide model”: go and look for unsolved problems. Mark Cuban says: “Look where others are not looking”. Finally, “Being late but nailing it”: better to be the best than first like Facebook, Google, Apple, Ford, Boing, Quora and Tumblr.

Transformation and the valley of death

13. Valley of Death
You start your idea between the 19th and 22nd months as the curve of interest stagnates. Fresh ideas are like TV show scripts: episode one thrills and early adopters get interested, but then you have to probe the idea’s worth to the mainstream.

14. Your product is “fiction”
Lisa Gansky says “any new idea you start is a fiction product”. To create an original thing means doing a puzzle. There are technology pieces. And there are non-technology pieces: Do customers want it? Does a market exist for it? Pricing? Did early adopters tell you any clue for adding new customers? Who I should partner with? Many people use a shortcut “The bestseller strategy”: they launch many short and low cost projects hoping that one of them will make it.

15. At your service
Here is a new customer service paradigm. Prior to social networks clients were at the service of a company. With social networks it is the company that is at the service of the customers. Customers now click the search box. If they like the opinions they find… they will trust you.

16. On Pivoting
Making decisions is not for dumb people. To pivot to a new model is not a piece of cake. It takes loads of courage. Sarah Lacy (Pando) says: “I criticize euphemisms like to pivot. Few startup leaders are able to recognize they made an error”.

17. On cockroaches
Startups should be like cockroaches. A famous quote by Paul Graham (YCombinator) says: “Apparently the most likely animals to be left alive after a nuclear war are cockroaches, because they’re so hard to kill. That’s why you want to be as a startup, initially. Instead of a beautiful but fragile flower that needs to have its stem in a plastic tube to support itself, better to be small, ugly, and indestructible.”

18. The F Generation
Hackers are the new heroes to a generation of millennials that enter the workforce. Gary Hamel called them “the F generation”. Instead of hierarchies, fixed tasks and closed groups the new employees will demand open companies. Users (and not the bosses) will have the power.

19. Students for a lifetime
Sebastian Thrun saw it first: “the very pattern of employment is changing. A few generations ago, a single job often lasted for a lifetime. In 2012, the average job tenure was a mere 4.6 years. Tech start-ups like Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber are using freelance employment models to disrupt hospitality, transportation, and many other industries. As a result, workers are under increasing pressure to keep their skills current. This has enormous implications for the educational needs of the global population.”

20. Crucial Imbalances
Kodak had on its peak over 140,000 employees. Instagram had 13 employees when it was sold to Facebook. Technology and Internet has been good for our society and our world. But new voices from Internet skeptics are arising. 

21. Innovating on the move
Ideation is an important but insufficient part in innovation. “To act in innovation you have to ideate new things”, we were told. But innovation means solving problems. Innovation is more than that unique time that you started your business. Innovation is not sole harvest.

22. Design is the new black
Design thinking is like Lego bricks: blocks to work on original concepts. Map, Explore, Built and Test.

Altogether, one can look at these 22 changes as a new wave of thinking that is revolutionizing the way we work with and integrate innovation in our companies. And it all started with the digital wave.

Fundamentals of Branding

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does "branding" mean? How does it affect a small business like yours?

Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors'. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.

Are you the innovative maverick in your industry? Or the experienced, reliable one? Is your product the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? You can't be both, and you can't be all things to all people. Who you are should be based to some extent on who your target customers want and need you to be.

The foundation of your brand is your logo. Your website, packaging and promotional materials--all of which should integrate your logo--communicate your brand.

Brand Strategy and Equity of the Brand

Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering on your brand messages. Where you advertise is part of your brand strategy. Your distribution channels are also part of your brand strategy. And what you communicate visually and verbally are part of your brand strategy, too.

Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command. The most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product--and customers will pay that higher price.

The added value intrinsic to brand equity frequently comes in the form of perceived quality or emotional attachment. For example, Nike associates its products with star athletes, hoping customers will transfer their emotional attachment from the athlete to the product. For Nike, it's not just the shoe's features that sell the shoe.

Defining Your Brand

Defining your brand is like a journey of business self-discovery. It can be difficult, time-consuming and uncomfortable. It requires, at the very least, that you answer the questions below:

What is your company's mission?

What are the benefits and features of your products or services?

What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?

What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Do your research. Learn the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don't rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.

Because defining your brand and developing a brand strategy can be complex, consider leveraging the expertise of a nonprofit small-business advisory group or a Small Business Development Center.

Once you've defined your brand, how do you get the word out? Here are a few simple, time-tested tips:

Get a great logo. Place it everywhere.

Write down your brand messaging. What are the key messages you want to communicate about your brand? Every employee should be aware of your brand attributes.

Integrate your brand. Branding extends to every aspect of your business--how you answer your phones, what you or your salespeople wear on sales calls, your e-mail signature, everything.

Create a "voice" for your company that reflects your brand. This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Is your brand friendly? Be conversational. Is it ritzy? Be more formal. You get the gist.

Develop a tagline. Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand.

Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials. Use the same color scheme, logo placement, look and feel throughout. You don't need to be fancy, just consistent.

Be true to your brand. Customers won't return to you--or refer you to someone else--if you don't deliver on your brand promise.

Be consistent. I placed this point last only because it involves all of the above and is the most important tip I can give you. If you can't do this, your attempts at establishing a brand will fail.

Branding Defined

You got a business and you’re ready to push your branding online and offline. You are face with the question of How to go about with branding of your products.

You probably think branding involves the following:

● Logos, color schemes, and website design

● Brand identification, links, and social popularity

● SERPs visibility, ad campaigns, and other promotional efforts

You are completely looking at branding the wrong way if you consider the aforementioned as what defines your brand. What I have mentioned are all marketing tools and strategies, and they only scratch the surface of branding.

Difference between marketing and branding?

Marketing is the set of tools and processes promoting your business. This includes SEO, social media, PPC, local search, mobile, and traditional promotional methods and tools. Branding, on the other hand, is the culture itself, the message that permeates and rules all the process of your business.

Misconceptions about Branding

Mixing up marketing and branding is only one of the most common misconceptions about branding that you will encounter. Many businesses and marketers handling branding tasks also make the following misconceptions:

Misconception #1: Branding is marketing / advertising / promotion / anything to that effect.

This is a misconception because branding goes deeper than marketing. Marketing, advertising, and other promotional activities only communicate your brand personality and message. Your brand is comprised of your personality, your voice, and your message; branding is the process of establishing these traits.

Misconception #2: You are the ultimate authority when it comes to your brand.

This is a very common misconception, especially among first-time business owners. The truth is while you set the tone and get the ball rolling for your business, and you set the guidelines that your organization will follow and live by as they work with your brand, this does not automatically make you the ultimate brand authority.

Your customers are the ones who ultimately define your brand. Their perception of your brand is what sticks with the people they influence. This is why it’s very important to select your brand values carefully; otherwise, your brand may be taken the wrong way – or worse, it may fail when you don’t see repeat customers.

Misconception #3: There exists a formula for success when it comes to branding.

Just because everything in online marketing can be measured doesn’t mean everything has a formula. No two companies are alike. While a similar process for developing a brand may work for businesses in the same field, for example, these businesses will still have unique identities and needs.

The truth is that there is no formula – branding is and will always be a customized experience. The good news is you can measure the success of your brand easily. What you should look at in this case is the behavior and the interests of your target audience.

Branding the Right Way

In order to create and establish a strong brand, you’ll need to ask the most fundamental questions behind its development. Before you begin to plan your online marketing strategies, you need to do the following first:

Find your Purpose

The first thing you need to clarify is why you do what you do. You won’t get the answers right away – you’ll need to ask yourself why several times before you get to the root purpose, the very core of your business. Start with questions like:

Why did I build this business?

Why do I want to help out this specific group of people?

Why does it matter to me that these things get done?

As you keep going, note the answers you are giving each “why” – these answers will form your purpose. Walt Disney answers this question very well, and is a good example of a company that knows why they exist: they want to bring joy to children everywhere. This permeates everything that they do.

Choose Your Personality and Voice

After asking why you do what you do, ask yourself: What is my brand? This will help begin to shape your brand, becoming a skeleton on which you will attach the rest of the ideas, values, and messages. At this stage of brand building, ask yourself the following:

What kind of voice do I want to use for my brand?

How do I want to be perceived – do I want to be approachable and casual, corporate and formal, etc.?

Will I be able to stay true to this identity throughout the existence of this brand?

The last question is specifically important because your audiences will be looking for a solid, consistent identity. Your ability to stay true to your brand is one of the most important elements that will earn you customer loyalty.

Outline Your Values

Once you finish asking yourself what you are, it’s time to ask yourself “Who am I?” The values that you get from the previous step will define who you are as a brand. List these down and define these values in light of your business.

Some companies does a great job of outlining and defining their values. They have core values that they live by, and if you go through their blogs and their website, you’ll see these values permeating every process they have. You’ll also notice the people following these values to heart, from the blog posts, to their performance, to their customer service. Defining a good, solid set of values will help you become consistent and serve as your company’s guiding principles for work.

Define Your Culture

Your integrity as an organization depends heavily on the culture you cultivate in your business. Happy employees are productive, passionate, and cohesive, making your business stronger and your processes more easily manageable. This is why it’s important to establish what kind of culture you want to nurture in your establishment.

Google’s culture is very famous for encouraging creativity and innovation by giving their employees time and resources to explore new things. Their 80/20 policy had paved the way for innovations like Google Glass and Android. Although it is not being implemented as a policy anymore, their engineers are still encouraged to take on side projects that allow them to innovate. You can see how the culture lives on despite the fact that the policy has been removed – that’s the power of culture.

Communicate Your Brand

Finally, you get to the point where marketing comes in – you now have to decide how you want to raise awareness about your brand. The previous steps, combined with market research and analysis, will play a huge role in determining how and where you communicate your brand to reach your target audience effectively.

The following will be the most important points to discuss when planning communication strategies:

Your company’s mission statement, which you can easily derive from your purpose;

The benefits your customers will get from your business, which is also answered at the beginning of this process (the answers to the why’s)

Your chosen platforms and the appropriate media for each

Your calls to action – what goals do you have, and how do you plan to entice your audience?

Branding : Target the Youth Market

As a Brand Manager myself, I always try to find ways to reach a certain segment of the target market, here I have come up with one of those bulk of the consumer market which is the youth, what makes them embrace a brand, recognize and gives preference over other brands.  The Youth market is a big chunk of the market pie and for brands and companies not to understand them is a complete abandonment of one brands goal of staying ahead.

So fundamentally, how can a brand be cool for the youth market? How can it successfully emulate and embrace the youth’s cultural codes of cool?  Here are what I have learned by doing a thorough research on the youth market.  Coolness is key to reach this broad spectrum of the youth culture.  Hope this will serve companies and brand managers to catapult their own brands into this cool, hip market.

1. Act, don’t tell

Brands’ actions will earn respect far more than their words. Channel V’s approach to improving women’s safety through an interactive app instills the brand with coolness, inherently communicating the safety message without being preachy. Cool acts like these are a shorthand that convey a brand’s principles to users.

2. Evolve: It’s the only constant

For the easily bored youth who gets the point in 140 characters or less, brands need to be fast and ever changing to stay interesting. Companies and brands has to do this remarkably well through its consistently evolving brand narrative that stays in sync with what’s top-of-mind for younger generations.

3. Stay true to your roots

While evolution is critical to survival, staying in character is just as crucial. Brands that step too far out of their zones to capitalize on a clever youth story will often face ridicule. Diet Coke tried to be hip with its You’re on Coke brand campaign but ended up with more trouble than it bargained for. Straying from a brand’s DNA is totally uncool.

4. Create tribes

The ideology of the brand combines doing good with looking good, inducing younger generations to sport the brand logo and demonstrate their belief in the brand. This creates a sense of belongingness to the youth culture that they can call their own and identifies to their generation.

5. Give customers control

Brands that act as a platform for youth to express themselves in unique, personal ways often have a distinct advantage when it comes to being considered cool

6. Don’t sell, integrate

Brands that become a seamless part of youths’ lives foster the strongest bonds. Condom brand Skore accomplishes this by connecting to the very progressive and experimental youth generation through its mobile app, providing tips and tricks to spice up one’s sex life.

7. Be humorous and have fun

Bring some fun into the daily lives of the young through adventure, surprise, and entertainment. Gamifying otherwise boring and repetitive activities is one easy way to do this. Brands can also use color and graphics to connect to the youth culture. We accomplish this through brand’s quirky, eye-catching, and bold look and feel.

8. Take a stand

If brands dare to say what others will not or take a stand on a topic that is uncouth, they often grab the attention of the younger generations.

Conclusion

Following the cool toolkit is not about prescribing to a firm set of rules. Rather, each mantra in the toolkit is meant to help brands guide their actions while also enabling them to remain relevant. By considering the mantras in tandem with a brand’s promise, products, target audience, and societal context, brand managers can help increase their brand’s cool quotient and gain new admiration from the youth market.

A word of caution: If you’re trying too hard, it probably isn’t cool.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Retailing

Having worked for some of the Philippines fast-growing E-commerce pioneers such as Lazada.com.ph, and had one way or the other communicated with top titans of Philippine E-commerce business such as the managing director of CashCashPinoy, Business Development Managers of Ensogo, Managing Director of Zalora.com.ph. Indeed the e-commerce landscape business in the Philippines has made some dramatic turn around from several years ago.  Filipino individuals and households now embrace convenience online shopping and has avoided the dreaded Metro traffic turns to online marketplace to get their essential needs and wants such as gadgets, mobile phones, kitchen appliances, dining wares, clothings, shoes, and even freebies on spa, skincare products and many more.

Online retailing is growing at an astonishing rate, with online sales now accounting for around one quarter of the total retail market. Retailers who ignore e-commerce may see their trade lessening as customers continue to shift to ordering products online. However, you need to think carefully and weigh all the advantages and disadvantages - backed by good market research - before deciding on whether or not to trade online.

Advantages of online retail

The benefits of retailing online include:

·         Easy access to market - in many ways the access to market for entrepreneurs has never been easier. Online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon allow anyone to set up a simple online shop and sell products within minutes.

·         Reduced overheads - selling online can remove the need for expensive retail premises and customer-facing staff, allowing you to invest in better marketing and customer experience on your e-commerce site.

·         Potential for rapid growth - selling on the internet means traditional constraints to retail growth - eg finding and paying for larger - are not major factors. With a good digital marketing strategy and a plan a scale up order fulfilment systems, you can respond and boost growing sales.

·         Widen your market / export - one major advantage over premises-based retailers is the ability expand your market beyond local customers very quickly. You may discover a strong demand for your products in other countries which you can respond to by targeted marketing, offering your website in a different language, or perhaps partnering with an overseas company.

·         Customer intelligence - ability to use online marketing tools to target new customers and website analysis tools to gain insight into your customers’ needs. For more information on driving sales through online advertising see how to develop an e-marketing plan, and for advice on improving your customer’s on-site experience.

Disadvantages of online retail

Some negatives of online retail include: 

·         Website costs - planning, designing, creating, hosting, securing and maintaining a professional e-commerce website isn’t cheap, especially if you expect large and growing sales volumes.

·         Infrastructure costs - even if you aren’t paying the cost of customer-facing premises, you’ll need to think about the costs of physical space for order fulfillment, warehousing goods, dealing with returns and staffing for these tasks.

·         Security and fraud - the growth of online retail market has attracted the attention of sophisticated criminal elements. The reputation of your business could be fatally damaged if you don’t invest in the latest security systems to protect your website and transaction processes.

·         Legal issues - getting to grips with e-commerce and the law can be a challenge and you’ll need to be aware of, and plan to cope with, the additional customer rights which are attached to online sales.

·         Advertising costs - while online marketing can be a very efficient way of getting the right customers to your products, it demands a generous budget. This is especially true if you are competing in a crowded sector or for popular keywords.

·         Customer trust - it can be difficult to establish a trusted brand name, especially without a physical business with a track record and face-to-face interaction between customers and sales staff. You need to consider the costs or setting up a good customer service system as part of your online offering. 

Amazing Amazon

In recent months, after joining a company that does business at Amazon.com, I get a bigger picture of what the world’s largest online retailer in the US has been doing differently that attracts millions of people to its website and sells alot of books, and merchandise.  Amazon has turned out to be the world’s profitable retailer even beating Walmart.

From its humble start in 1995 selling books online to expand into a more diverse range of home improvement products, toys, kids stuffs, electronic gadgets, jewellery, watches, sporting goods, lawn equipments and home care equipment products and available in many other countries such as Canada, UK, France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, China Japan and India. This remarkable company has grown into a behemoth of retail worldwide.

Many upstart entrepreneurs who even big companies have joined the fray in setting up an online store with Amazon, the best part is, you get your orders promptly when ordered at Amazon within 2-3 days time.  Much of the customer’s review also reveals an honest to goodness customer feedback, at times these are solicited in exchange for a free product or a discounted coupons.

Every online seller at Amazon has been clamoring to gain a foothold on the top page of Amazon when certain keywords are being type in the search bars by the customers looking for their product of choice.  These valuable keywords are imbedded within the product titles or descriptions that makes the search searchable.  Getting into the first two pages of the search result is one thing, and staying on top is another matter. 

If Amazon targeted towards home use buyers and retail customers is not enough, Amazon also offers, In 2005, Amazon announced the creation of Amazon Prime, a membership offering free two-day shipping within the contiguous United States on all eligible purchases for a flat annual fee of $79 (equivalent to $99 in 2015), as well as discounted one-day shipping rates.   Amazon launched the program in Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom in 2007; in France (as "Amazon Premium") in 2008, in Italy in 2011, and in Canada in 2013.

Though considered to be a retail powerhouse, Amazon constantly evolves and conceptualizes new things such as coming up with Amazon Fresh and Amazon Business, This is one great company that never rest on its achievement but constantly comes up with better ways to help different customer’s needs and wants. 

This by far ensures Amazon will always be on top of its game, in an ever changing time and consumer preference.  A business model that will be hard to beat.

Brands you would wear on your T-shirt

Just a thought, since there are countless brands and products in the market today, and most of us have preferences and are even loyal to those brands, the question just came to mind is, what brands would we would wear on a T-shirt. We pay a little more to get them, go out of our way to find them, even wait in line for them.  Please note that what I am talking about are brands that are not related to any apparel lines that we can easily purchase in the department stores or clothing boutiques.

These non-apparel line brands that has endeared us if given a chance to be on a T-shirt, would we want to flaunt and walk around in them.  These can be our favorite online games, what we eat or drink, our favorite catsup, favorite energy drinks, electronic gadgets, beer, liquor, cigarette, automotive, hobby thing etc.  Some brands may be bizarre looking to be on a T-shirt, some may look cool and hip, others may be an attractive colorful design to be worn.  Whatever that favorite brands we have, wouldn't we be glad if we can wear them too.

It was interesting to discuss the reasons we would wear a T-shirt advertising a brand—particularly for people in the branding industry who, ironically, seem more hesitant to wear a branded T-shirt. For some it was about a niche product they were fans of.  The brand is almost like a tribal affiliation. For others it was the graphics. They liked the design of the mark and were not particularly interested in the product. For more than a few it was about the ironic value. For all of us it was a very personal story. When we wear a T-shirt advertising a brand, it means we have an emotional connection to that brand.

If we think about it, these are brands that defines us, that speaks best of our culture, our belief and most of the time it attracts us because of their colorful graphics and designs, thus we want them to be on our T-shirts that we can deliver the message of loyalty and our emotional attachment towards that particular brands.

So whether your T-shirt says Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Honda, Mercedez-Benz, Intel, Lotte, US Robotics, Walmart, Watson’s, Mitsubishi, Coke, Pepsi, Gillette, it means something to you. And the reasons may be ineffable. But one thing is clear: Whether it stirs a feeling or creates an association with a community, or something else entirely, the T-shirt signifies your connection to a brand that goes beyond a transactional product-consumer relationship. It’s branding at its best.

Weigh in on our social channels: What are your favorite branded T-shirts, and why would you wear them?

Using Cool in Youth Marketing

Youth Generation is not only driving the nation’s economy, but also its way of thinking. While many brands define the younger generations—Gen Y and Gen Z—as their primary targets, how many brands are actually able to speak their language?

To connect with this target audience, we recognized that coolness finds huge traction with younger generations. To comprehend coolness, it was imperative to understand the elements that make up the sensibility. We delved into the components of coolness, discovering that although one demographics definition of cool do not necessarily translate to other locales, there are quintessential ingredients—we call them “cool mantras”—that are widely accepted indicators of coolness for the youth. The cool mantras in turn infuse brands with their “cool quotient,” or degree of coolness.

To better understand this cool quotient, we looked to brands that have already decoded coolness and made it a part of their brand DNA. By analyzing these brands, we then established a “cool toolkit” to help brands that are still finding their way. Here is an introduction to the cool toolkit for marketers who wish to add a cool quotient to their brands.

The search for cool

After studying more than 100 brands to understand their histories, products, and communication styles, I’ve identified specific brands that are widely considered to be fundamentally cool. This was a relatively subjective classification based on empirical data: Looking at online conversations about brands, considered prior contributions by these brands toward shaping some aspect of youth culture, and determined which brands best resonate with a youth audience. These learnings were then distilled into the cool mantras and shaped into actionable points as part of the cool toolkit to help brands increase their cool quotient.

What makes something cool?

Cool transcends algorithms and logical definitions. Throughout history, cool has resulted from all sorts of different trends and lifestyles. But all things cool, when studied closely, can ultimately be condensed to a few common characteristics. In Asia, these include:

Cool is silent rebellion: Subtle hair highlights or hidden tattoos are symbols of nonconformity that make a statement without shouting.

Cool is a source of respect: Being cool means earning the respect of peers, and sometimes even their envy. Coolness achieves something extraordinary that’s difficult to replicate. Perhaps that’s why the stunt-driven, task-oriented reality show Roadies called its eleventh season “ride for respect.”

Cool seeks detachment but craves attention: Indian youth may plug in their headphones and update their profile pictures by the hour, but they inwardly crave attention while outwardly seeking to look detached.

Cool does more, but talks less: Many brands like Lenovo  bring this truth alive through initiatives that glorify an action-oriented, can-do way of life.

Cool is the equilibrium between individuality and belonging: Stand out too much and you’re weird, blend in too well and you’re inconspicuous. Cool is the perfect balance between these polarities.

Cool is paradoxically competitive: Cool is a ferociously competitive spirit disguised in a nonchalant, unruffled refusal to play the conventional game. Blockbuster movies like Student of the Year bring this duality to the forefront.

Cool creates its own causes: As a generation without central causes or great wars to unite it, India’s youth see movements like lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights or the Stop Online Piracy Act as causes to rally around.

Finding a cool positioning

Whether a brand is considered cool is also driven by how it is viewed by the people who are not its target audience. This group becomes “the others,” those whose reaction to and viewpoint on a particular brand drives the core target audience to adopt, embrace, or flaunt the brand.

When positioning a brand as the next cool thing, understanding how it will be viewed by people outside the target audience is just as important as considering how the brand will be perceived by the core target audience. These outsiders can love or hate the brand, they can accept it or consider it taboo, but either way, their reactions will impact how the core target audience feels about the brand.

To fully grasp the measure of a brand’s cool quotient and understand the cultural space it occupies, it can help to plot the brand on a positioning chart, considering both the target audience and the outsider’s perspective on the brand. Generally, the target’s perspective and outsider’s perspective are opposite one another.

Since cool is mutable, it’s important to note that brands can move across these quadrants depending on the cultural pulse of the moment. Strategic shifts from one quadrant to another can be brought about by specific activities that focus on reinforcing the brand’s cool image in the following ways:

From generic to distinctive

When a cool brand begins to become generic, it’s time for the brand to do something disruptive to align to its tribe. It’s okay to be hated a little by those outside the brand’s target audience, as this reinforces the brand’s cool image.

From niche to mass

When trying to maintain diehard fans, brands can sometimes become inaccessible to certain audiences, alienating them by pushing them too far outside their comfort zone. This is the time for brands to dial up their desirability and likability quotient with the outsiders.

From passé to the in thing

As culture evolves, brands may suddenly find that their edge has waned—what was once trendy is now ordinary. When this occurs, it’s time to have fun and be a little quirky to break from the sea of sameness.

From “young” to “youth”

There is a difference between those who have a young mindset and those who are young in years. A brand that becomes a symbol of youth often begins to trend with an older crowd. When this happens, it’s time for the brand to do something a little shocking or intriguing to set it apart as a youth brand rather than as a young brand.

The cool mantras: What do Indian youth consider cool?

In our exploration into the world of Indian youth, we discovered that their hyperconnected, socially active, and globally influenced lives have made them quick to judge and unafraid to voice their thoughts. In the process, we uncovered some uniquely Indian characteristics of coolness:

It is cool to pursue your dreams, even if you fail

Inheriting wealth, legacy, or tradition is not considered cool anymore. Youth want to break free and become the authors of their own destinies. We witness this in the rise of campus startups and alternate career options that young people are pursuing, leaving behind often-lucrative family professions for uncertainty and independence.

It is cool to take the lead and change the status quo

The days of Asian citizens being bystanders are coming to a close. There is a growing emphasis on taking the lead and remedying problems. From using technology in constructive ways to raising voices against injustice, the status quo is shifting. People are no longer accepting things as they are or have been, but are looking to the future and focused on change.

It is cool to break taboos

Indian culture has long been riddled with taboos and social distaste for deviation from the norm. But the current crop of youth in India is happy to embrace deviations, even breaking some long-held taboos themselves. Openness to divorce, acceptance of same-sex relationships, and acknowledgement of premarital and extramarital sex are all topics discussed more openly in homes across the country.

It is cool to be social; it’s even cooler to be on social media

Brands like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter have ousted soft drinks as the quintessentially cool brands in India.3 Today in cafés across the country, friends can be seen sitting together hooked into their own electronic devices. The only time the group actually converses is to discuss what was said or done on social media. However, while social media is cool, brands on social media are at best ignored, and more often, lambasted.

It is cool to be hedonistic

Unlike previous generations that believed in abstinence and self-restraint, young India is a hedonistic generation. Whether it’s eating out, going to the movies, or frequenting pubs and discos, the super-fast growth of categories like restaurants, hospitality, multiplexes, and lifestyle goods bears testimony to this fact.

It is cool to be tech-savvy

With a significant share of discretionary spending on tech and tech-enabled services like cellular data, Internet connections, and mobile phones, technology is a clear favorite among the youth. This is also reflected in the fact that Samsung was named the most trusted brand in 2016 and the most exciting brand in the mobile category in a study conducted by the Economic Times.

Market Adjust To Changes

Market systems are favored by Neoclassical economists for three primary reasons. First, agents only need information about their own objectives and alternatives. The markets provide information to agents that may be used to identify and evaluate alternative choices that might be used to achieve objectives. Second, each agent acting in a market has incentives to react to the information provided. Third, given the information and incentives, agents within markets can adjust to changes. The process of market adjustment can be visualized as changes in demand and/or supply.

Shifts or Changes in Demand

The demand function was defined from two perspectives:

A schedule of quantities that individuals were willing and able to buy at a schedule of prices during a given period, ceteris paribus.

The maximum prices that individuals are willing and able to pay for a schedule of quantities or a good during a given time period, ceteris paribus.

In both cases the demand function is perceived as a negative or inverse relationship between price and the quantity of a good that will be bought. The relationship between price and quantity is shaped by other factors or variables. Income, prices of substitutes, prices of compliments, preferences, number of buyers and expectations are among the many possible variables that influence the demand relationship. The demand function was expressed:

Qx = fx(Px, Pc, Ps, M, Preferences, #buyers, . . . )

Pc is the price of complimentary goods. Ps is the price of substitutes. M is income. Such proxies as gender, age, ethnicity, religion, etc represent preferences. Remember that a change in the price of the good (Px) is a change in quantity demanded or a movement along a demand function. A change in any other related variable will result in a shift of the demand function or a change in demand.

Shift of Supply

Remember that the supply function was expressed,

Qxs = fs (Px, Pinputs, Tech, regulations, # sellers, . . . #S)

A change in the price of the good changes the quantity supplied. A change in any of the other variables will shift the supply function. An increase in supply can be visualized as a shift to the right, at each price a larger quantity is produced and offered for sale. A decrease in supply is a shift to the left; at each possible price a smaller quantity is offered for sale. If the supply shifts and demand remains constant, the equilibrium price and quantity will be altered.

An increase in supply (while demand is constant) will cause the equilibrium price to decrease and the equilibrium quantity to increase. A decrease in supply will result in an increase is the equilibrium price and a decrease in equilibrium quantity.

Changes in both Supply and Demand

When supply and demand both change, the direction of the change of either equilibrium price or quantity can be known but the effect on the other is indeterminate. An increase in supply will push the market price down and quantity up while an increase in demand will push both market price and quantity up. The effect on quantity of an increase in both supply and demand will increase the equilibrium quantity while the effect on price is dependent on the magnitude of the shifts and relative structure (slopes) of supply and demand.

Should demand decrease and supply increase, both push the equilibrium price down. However, the decrease in demand reduces the equilibrium quantity while the increase in supply pushes the equilibrium quantity up. The price must fall, the quantity may rise, fall or remain the same. Again it depends on the relative magnitudes of the shifts in supply and demand and their slopes.

When supply and demand both shift, the direction of change in either equilibrium price or quantity can be known but direction of change in the value of the other is indeterminate.

Equilibrium and the Market

Whether equilibrium is a stable condition from which there "is no endogenous tendency to change," or and outcome which the economic process is tending toward," equilibrium represents a coordination of objectives among buyers and sellers. The demand function represents a set of equilibrium conditions of buyers given the incomes, relative prices and preferences. Each individual buyer acts to maximize his or her utility, ceteris paribus. The supply function represents a set of equilibrium conditions given the objectives of sellers, the prices of inputs, prices of outputs, technology, the production function and other factors.

The condition of equilibrium in a market, where supply and demand functions intersect ("quantity supplied is equal to the quantity demanded") implies equilibrium conditions for both buyers and sellers.