I F**KING LOVE THAT COMPANY: How a New Generation of Brand Builders Is Defining the Post-Amazon World

As anything scales too effectively - from fashion to restaurants to music - the market opens for more non-scalable alternatives. Once Starbucks opens on every block, many of us crave the artisanal coffee shop. Once our favorite Italian restaurant becomes a chain of three, we grow tired of it. Why? First, so much of what we buy and do is tied up in ... See more

The idea is that it’s easiest to scale a product, harder to scale a service, and most challenging to scale a feeling. Here’s my take: while consumers might buy a product once because of a trend, they’ll buy a product twenty times because of a feeling. Ultimately, it is that ability to evoke a feeling in customers that creates the highest impact and... See more

“In many ways the magic of Patagonia comes from the constraints we place on ourselves which are grounded in our deep sense of responsibility to do right by the environment and society,” Stanley told me. “We can't go to the Fashion Institute of Technology library and choose from 5,000 fabrics for the spring line. We have a couple hundred we can choo... See more

Like all companies built around a cause, Costco has relied on their megaphone to help them grow. They don’t have a PR department and they don’t spend money on advertising. The Law of Diffusion is all that Costco needed to get the word out. “Imagine that you have 120,000 loyal ambassadors out there who are constantly saying good things about you,” q

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