October 12, 2004

Up and To the Right

As you may have noticed, one of our favorite core strategies is the Best of Both Play, where two generally opposing values or trade-offs are brought together. Best of Both Plays make for great promises with examples like "Tastes Great, Less Filling" or "Power Made Easy" and the list goes on.

In business technology it seems that the process of "Best-of-Bothing" a category provides endless grist for the innovation mill. Key value seems to keep coming from bucking one of the following paradoxes and finding a way to have more of both.
Business Processes: Intelligence vs. Automation - smarts vs. speed in the process itself

Value Delivery: Specificity vs. Simplicity - depth/importance vs. simplicity/ubiquity of applying process improvements

Infrastructure: Control vs. Flexibility - in the core technology or platforms that deliver both of the above.

Each of these up and to the right trends are the ongoing focus in one form of another of tons of analysts, pitches to VCs etc. We always interested in other great Best of Both, Up and to the Right examples, whether in technology or elsewhere. So if you have em, let us know.

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September 28, 2004

Judy's Book

Nice description of Judy's Book as sort of a best of both on Seth's blog "sort of Craig's List meets Zagats meets Orkut" especially for parents like me.

We agree that it's all in the details, but we're glad that it's one one of our investments. It's a great team. Check it out. And stay tuned.

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September 01, 2004

Ikea - the same thing might not work everywhere

As you may know, I love Ikea - think it is a great best of both play. But interestingly enough despite great ads and the notion of "build it and they will come," Ikea may run into some issues in China.

You can see their huge logo and warehouses in Shanghai and Beijing and they are well trafficked. But according to local friends, there are some real issues. First, it is all the same stuff - nothing really Chinese all the way down to the meatballs. Also two ends of the China market shy away. The higher end folks who think its cool to buy Ikea designs do not ever want to put something together so the whole little wrench thing doesn't go over. On the low end of the market a whole cottage industry has developed that will clone and assemble any Ikea furniture for half the price.

I'm sure Ikea will figure it out and do great but it's always a good lesson not to take to much for granted about your marketing playing field.

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August 21, 2004

Extreme Best of Both Worlds

Aside from enjoying at least 10 different amazing, interesting, sometimes pretty mysterious forms of Chinese regional cuisines, I have really been having fun tracking fast food in China. Like everything else here the playing field is super competitive.

McDonalds here is different and really good. The McChicken is spicy and really crispy. The staff is fast efficient and helpful and, very importantly, the happy meal toys are cool and Asian.

Meanwhile, the venerable colonel is doing a roaring business here with similar menu adjustments for KFC.

Not to be outdone by foreign multinationals, a Chinese company has combined both concepts, menus, logos, etc. into one new company. The name, Maikenji, translates pretty directly into "McKFC". Now that's taking a best of both play quite literally.

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July 05, 2004

Ikea - another Best of Both Play

A while ago, I wrote about Target as a guilty pleasure, and a terrific Best of Both Play.

Well, here's another store/brand that fits both categories - IKEA. They re-positioned the home furnishings category the same way Volkswagen did German cars - young, hip, functional and affordable.

What's the story? How do/did they do it? Even this brand is not without controversy. For other Ikea lovers like myself, here are a number of interesting and amusing posts:
• Brand Mantra has two entries examining the passion of Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, its powerful influence on the Ikea corporate culture and it's potential downsides. He wrote "The Testament of a Furniture Dealer", setting out Ikea's "sacred concept" and expounding that "Those who cannot or will not join us are to be pitied ... What we want to do, we can do and will do, together. A glorious future!" Wow. Heavy-duty.
• Oliver Thylmann and others poke fun at the in store experience with a funny Ikea walkthrough guide.
• Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine waxes nostalgic for his Ikea youth.
• ZDNet has quite a funny spoof on what Ikea would be like if Microsoft ran it - you guessed it - security problems, not enough competition, and no to very little model choices.
• Jen at VeryBigBlog is so in love with Ikea, she has a whole category devoted to it (one recent post Project Big Blue has some very, very funny banner designs for an upcoming store in Ohio). Go Jen!
• Finally, Margaret Marks (eine Deutsche die Englisch auch spricht) has a great guide to how Ikea goes about coming up with all its funky product names. This is interesting and the comments are hilarious too.

Whatever you think of Ikea. It sure has been successful at establishing a global brand! And heck, the kids love the ballroom and the meatballs with lingonberry soda. What could be better?

Posted by johnza at 08:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 14, 2004

From Teapots to Toilet Brushes - TARGET

As much as I may hate to admit it, I, like Oprah, love Target. What a store. What a brand. They are a terrific example of a Best of Both play. They took the KMart category and made it cool and hip, while still being for everyone. How did they do it? I think they did it by paying attention to every element of their brand. From their simple cake and eat it too promise and positioning (expect more, pay less) to their imagery in all their communications (from the power of the red bullseye - as simple and uniform as the Nike swoosh - to their cool billboards). But above all they paid attention to one specific dimension - their product selection and in particular, it's design. Their stuff is cool. Period. For example, one of their top designers is a huge name, Michael Graves. He has done all kinds of terrific things. But one, particularly illustrative item is his bird teapot from Alessi. Which runs around $129. Nice, we had one. Well now, Target has a teapot from Michael Graves. And honestly, it's pretty darn cool. Oh yeah, and did I mention? It's 30 bucks. We just ordered one. And they don't stop there. They have a whole line of affordable, strangely lovely household items by Graves, including... a toilet brush. You're right Oprah. Target is terrific.

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June 11, 2004

PC+Mac = Best of Both?

Boing Boing: HOWTO skin a PC to look like a Mac According to Boing Boing, Engadget's recent guide actually makes your PC desktop nearly indistinguishable from a Mac OS X. Is this a kind of do it yourself Best of Both play? Where you get the best of nice, soft Mac UI and the price/performance of a whitebox from China? Not sure I actually WANT to go through all the steps to find out.

Posted by johnza at 05:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 11, 2004

The Best of Both Play

Best of Both is an ambitious Marketing Play. Many product and services categories have both high and low end offerings - and never the twain shall meet. In Best of Both you aim to gain dominance the whole category by collapsing both high and low ends into a new more compelling offer. You winning by offering "your cake and eat it too."

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May 04, 2004

iLife: Classic Best of Both Play

What a great campaign. Apple's iLife suite launched with a great slogan - "It's like 'Microsoft Office' for the rest of your life." This is a classic Best of Both. Take two things that you don't expect together, the professionalism and power of Office productivity and the fun and informality of GarageBand and bring them together. Great work, I think. All the way down to the logo. That said, it is not without some controvery. AppleMatters thinks this is BAD, too vague and gives too much to Microsoft. mBlog: The Apple Project hates it too. In part because they don't love Microsoft Office, it just plain isn't fun. Well having worked on that product for years, I still have a softspot. Guess I'm biased. And I still think it works for targeting working people who are trying to organize their increasingly digital personal lives.

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