Soon after the launch Free announced that more than a million customers had resigned from their mobile provider to switch to Free. Although the switch process is most of the time silent, Free seems to have unleashed the retaliation creativity of some customers. Look at this amazing example of a group of young Orange customers (the main brand of France Telecom) going into an Orange shop to announce that they will leave for Free.

Until recently Abercrombie & Fitch was a US-based brand and you had to cross the ocean to visit a store and purchase from them. Wearing a Abercombie piece of cloth was therefore a sign that you went there and a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. That’s why not only teenagers visit Abercombie in the US but also a lot of moms and dads who are there on behalf of their children.
This rarity has for consequence that strange situations can be witnessed; like the one I observed in Rome where I saw a store displaying merchandising and a few pieces of clothes for sale. As you can imagine it was not an “authorized dealer” in any way and I guess the owner made the trip to the US, bought some stuffs there and brought it back to Italy to sell it in his store.

This being said you may now realize that Abercombrie’s expansion strategy in Europe may end up  such situations but will push Abercombie in unknown territories. Think about it for one moment. It’s illusory to think that customers go to the stores only for the experience. Go in any US store and you’ll see a lot of tourists. Will those tourists still go there when the same stuffs can be found in Europe; probably not. And will teenagers, the end consumers of the products, still be interested in those products when they become available to anybody in Europe? That’s the big question mark.

I attended a publishing seminar by Will Mitchell, the editor of the Strategic Management Journal, where he gave tons of good advices which I think may be useful to other young researchers.

Will explained that he sees actually two approaches to structure and get a paper published.

First approach:

1. Use relevant theories
2. Find an important problem in practice and raise conceptual questions
3. Test hypotheses
4a. Observe and describe the phenomenon
4b. Propose a theory

Second approach:

1. Fill the holes and extend boundaries in existing theories
2. Show the relevancy to theory
3. Test hypotheses
4. Discuss the new boundaries of the theory

Will also shared with us the main reasons why papers get rejected (at least in the Strategic Management Journal):

1. Rejection at the end of the first paragraph (90%)
   • No clear audience (cite the right papers in the first paragraph to show who you are talking to)
   • No clear contribution
2. At the end of the theory section
   • No causal logic
   • No cohesive argument
3. In the data and analysis section
   • Research design biases
   • Measures that do not match concepts
   • Flawed methods
4. In the references: wrong journal

My take:

After I learned why papers get rejected I can assure you that I started rewriting my introductions again and again.

Firms, and SMEs in particular, are the first victims. This is especially worrying because Italy has twice as many SMEs as France. Entrepreneurship is a deeply rooted tradition but remains fragile because it is anchored in familial business very small enterprises of less than 4 persons. Familial SMEs remain fragmented and do not follow always the most modern business practices which put them especially at risk in times of crisis. I dare to say that most Italian SMEs are not well prepared to face an economic downturn.

The latest statistics show that 1 Italian firm out of 50 (2%) is currently subject to an insolvency proceeding. Early this year Italian newspaper announced that another 34000 firms were at risk of falling in the same trap, a worrying figure. The latter can be compared to the situation of Belgium where more or less 1000 firms go bankrupt each month.

Several countries (among them Belgium) had ruled on exceptional subsidies to limit bankruptcies. I’m wondering what the fate of these subsidies will be, given that budgets have to be cut and expenses drastically reduced. What is best? Sustain artificially with public money old-fashioned firms or let them die to promote a new generation of more modern firms on the middle and long-term?

My take:

I don’t have the answer to that question but I think there is no good answer. Eventually I fear that an arbitrary ruling, like in the antique Rome, will decide on whether those firms will survive or die.

I remained amazed by one display in particular which triggered all senses. I’ve no idea how it works but it’s just amazing to see how this product was literally put into light and its mysticism enhanced.

My take:

I’m speechless.

Untitled from Into The Minds on Vimeo.

I was not equipped to do a better video but I promise I’ll go back and shoot a better one.

They have enjoyed tremendous growth and success.

Here’s a picture I took of their “delivery van” in Venice, Italy. As you can see the company knows how to adapt in order to keep its promises.

The secret of Stradivarius has long been sought after. All possible kinds of analysis were done, for instance on the materials used, the veneer, the shape of the different parts, the wood origin, you name it.

Most violinists believe that instruments by Stradivari and Guarneri “del Gesu” are tonally superior to other violins—and to new violins in particular. Many mechanical and acoustical factors have been proposed to account for this superiority; however, the fundamental premise of tonal superiority has not yet been properly investigated.
Player’s judgments about a Stradivari’s soundmay be biased by the violin’s extraordinary monetary value and historical importance, but no studies designed to preclude such biasing factors have yet been published.

For the first time a researcher had the idea to study the consumer part (i.e. the musician playing the violin) and not the object itself.

On the occasion of an international music contest in Indianapolis in September 2010, she run an experiment with musicians and asked them to play and rate 6 violins (3 Stradivarius and 3 modern instruments). Musicians had their senses impaired on purpose (they had to wear welding glasses for instance) to avoid their recognizing the violin with any of their senses but their ears.

They were then asked to rate several “performance indicators” and in the end, you had already guessed, the “worst” instrument was a Stradivarius and the best one a modern violin.

My take:

This experiment is a classic one (applied however in a new and innovative way) and reminds us for instance of other studies which were carried out on the brand – price relationship or, most recently in the wine industry, on the link between pleasure (measured by Magnetic Resonance Imagery) and the price of the wine.

As most of you know already, pricing low is not always a good option because it shapes customers expectations and perceptions of quality.

The Christmas time is a renewed opportunity to witness the creativity of marketers and this year the Fendi crew did a really amazing job in their flagship store of Rome.

Each showcase was actually a painting in itself. All objects were arranged in a very lively way which reminded me of some Dutch paintings by Vermeer for instance. Even the frame of the showcase was here to mimic the similarity with a painting.

Pictures are worth thousands of words. Allow me to stop my explanations here and discover by yourself the beauty of the products.

We’ll start the year with a brief post about merchandising and brand alliances. While in Rome in December and January I was surprised to see that the top-tier streets around Piazza di Spagna, home of luxury brands, were decorated and kind of “owned” by certain car brands.

Via Frattina, became the Toyota street and was decorated with the Japanese car manufacturer’s emblem.

The main attraction was however to see in Via Condotti, a street parallel to Via Frattina (click here if you to see what the street looks likes in the early morning). Via Condotti was owned by Mercedes (or should I say Daimler) which had even decorated the Christmas Tree with its emblem. Mercedes made a partnership with the association of the representatives of the street. In terms of visibility one must admit that it’s very well done; Via Condotti is indeed not only attracting people around Christmas but also on Dec. 8th, the day of the celebration of the Immaculate Conception dogma, when the pope himself walks up the street.

Many people think that knowledge is power and that knowledge deserves to be protected. I can’t agree less with such a statement.

I do believe that knowledge does not exist if it is not shared. The purpose of knowledge is to enrich people’s lives and when I think about it, my take is that companies’ primary goal should also be to enrich people’s lives. This goal seems to be forgotten by many and I’m modestly trying to reverse the trend.

I’ve been posting on this blog for more than 3 years and have succeeded in keeping the posting frequency of 3 posts a week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday). This is actually the hardest part. Bloggers are usually very productive in the first weeks and slowly the posting frequency decreases. Thanks God I never lost the faith and sometimes blogging is even a therapy when it comes to pointing out firms’ failures and their resulting frustrations.

In terms of figures, although the audience went up 50% in the last 6 months I believe I can reach more people; at the same time however I realize that the topics I deal with are highly specialized and can’t interest as many people as, say, news on cars or smartphone.

Currently 50% of the readers are located in France and 70% of the readers read the French version of the blog. There is still potential with the English version.

I’ve set up for myself a few goals for 2012 :

Keep publishing 3 posts a week

Reach the parity in terms of audience for the French and English versions of the blog

Increase the total audience by 50%

Invite guest writers once a month

I’m still hesitating about the very content of the posts. In the last weeks I’ve tried to alternate highly focused and “technical” posts with more easy-to-read articles. In terms of visits I don’t see much difference. I guess the easiest way to get an answer to that question is to ask you: what do you want? What did you like to read in 2011 and what didn’t you like? This blog is yours and can only be fully successful if I manage to make you move, think different, and exchange ideas. This is actually the biggest challenge of all.