YOU THINK PEOPLE LOVE APPLE NOW? WATCH THEM SCREAM 25 YEARS AGO

You can find Steve Jobs' first big presentation from 1984 online. Hear the crowd soaring. When we at Fronteer talk about smart brands, we talk about Apple (sometimes). The thing is, this brand is built in a quarter century. It was carefully constructed and nurtured over the years.  

When you have people screaming for more at your first real introduction, and 25 years later still... what can we add to that?

We found the link at TechCrunch

CUTE CUTE CUTE

Japan is the country of Kawaii - meaning cute (amongst others). Doing some pretty serious retailing research in Japan we found out that even grown up businesses are heavily influenced by this miraculous little word. 

Women determine what is bought and what not. Men get pocket money. Cars, food, travel goods, clothes,  anything really, bought by women. What do women want? Colour and pretty curves basically. This means that entire categories have to adopt to this and that foreign brands have to be well aware of the impact it has on their ranges. This combined with a very strong hype culture makes doing business in Japan tricky to say the least.

In our specific research - travel goods - we found a market dominated by a few players well aware on the might of the retailer and consumers. Double or Nothing is the game. Once you're in, you're doing well. Once you're out, you're out for good. Quality problems? Say by to the brand. Not cute? Same deal. Made in China? Rather not. Luggage brands that did well managed to please everybody: curves, colours, coolness and country of origin. 

What did we learn? Interviewing in Japan is tiring - try to sit in the same hot blue cubicles for days on a row - but Japanese are actually open for business. The ones that have stamina and try to do everything right have a pretty good chance to actually making it out there.

And, don't forget to bring 'stroopwafels'!

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNETS

THE FUTURE OF INTERNETS

Last week, our partners XS4ALL (Holland's premier internet provider) celebrated 15 years of internet in the Netherlands. All subscribers were invited to take part in a conference called FIFI (hence the pink dog) which stands for Fear It or Fix It.

To comemmorate this special occasion, XS4ALL and Fronteer Strategy collaborated on an 'Inspiration Book' called ">5" : 26 visions of what the internet is expected to 'bring' us in the next 5 years. Rather than carting out the 'usual suspect' internet gurus, we decided to 'keep it real' by asking 'normal people' about their fears, hopes and expectations of the next 5 years online.

A primary school teacher, an Alderman, a police detective, the director of a Museum; this kind of people. A total of 26 different stories, from all walks of life, about what the internet will do to classrooms, democracy, profiling villains and interacting with science. What it taught me? That there really is not 1 internet - but many different internets all tied into one.

">5" is printed in Dutch only and so far, unfortunately it's not for sale. However, anyone who feels they would be inspired by it, please drop me a line at james@fronteerstrategy.com. We have a couple of copies that i would gladly share.