Everything has a silver lining

23rd Feb 2009 A passion and truth by Jacqui

Photo by gertcha

Jedi guru Yoda once said: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” But excellence is increasingly giving way to mediocrity, and it’s just – quite literally – not good enough.

Worse than that, people are beginning to get sentimental about the collapse of brands that are guilty of Nadaism – that art of doing nothing special.

It is easy to get bogged down in the doom and gloom of a downturn but great things have been spawned from negative circumstances. During the last recession, Apple focused on innovation in the face of adversity, creating and developing two ground-breaking concepts: iTunes and the iPod. Post recession, iTunes launched and went on to destroy Apple’s competitors, and that’s the kind of success story we need to keep in mind when faced with an economy that epitomises the sink or swim mentality.

With Zavvi finally disappearing from the high street on Friday, it’s interesting to compare its fate to its biggest competitor.

HMV took a big risk in the current economic climate, and paid £18.25m to the Mama Group for a stake in some of the UK's best-known music venues, including the Birmingham Institute and the Hammersmith Apollo – or the HMV Apollo as it’ll become. The deal means that HMV will now profit from ticket and merchandise sales, with the move designed to provide an antidote to the declining CD market. It will also increase brand awareness, build relationships with artists and fans and engage a younger demographic with the HMV brand.

While HMV channeled great ideas and backed them with investment to reach a wider audience, Zavvi hadn’t even got to grips with an online marketplace.

Mediocrity seems to have become accepted across the globe – a study by Professor Lamberson of the University of Michigan, one of the world’s leading business schools, demonstrated people would rather experience ‘consistent mediocrity’ than occasional sparks of genius.  I’d like to think that his sample was a little complacent – if Zavvi’s customers were happy with its consistently mediocre offering, HMV wouldn’t have snapped up most of its stores from the administrators.

Marketing has a reputation for being an industry packed with wacky and wonderful ideas, but sometimes it’s too easy to settle for less.

The economic decline should inspire us all to combine brainwaves with passion for the brands and products we represent, attracting the loyalty of a market place and the respect – albeit tinged with envy – of the competition.

Jacqui Lennon is managing director of WAA.

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