What do Banana Republic and Google have in common? 

By combining brand strategy with merchandising, these brands influenced culture. They grew by building a product universe.

In this excerpt from episode 2, Rei and Ana explore product pyramids of these brands, and how they grew through smart product-led branding.

Follow Ana here:

• Newsletter "The Sociology of Business"
• New book "Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture"

Follow Rei here:

• Rei's LinkedIn
• Newsletter "The Intersection"
• Rei's global innovation firm I&CO

So today we are talking about how to build a product universe tactics of product led branding.

So Anna, I'm going to hand over to you because this is one of the topics that you've been writing about.

You've been thinking about quite a bit.

So tell me about, you know, what you mean by product universe and, where your mind is.

So this is how it actually started.

It's based on my work at Banana Republic and Esprit.

When you start thinking that like, hey, you can, you can build brand through cultural products.

Which is merchandising, collaborations, events, creative partnerships, content, brand codes, and so on.

But what actually really needs to happen is for marketing and merchandising to work really, really close together.

And to actually have such a definition

of products, product ranges, collections, hero products, foundations, but then also classics, capsules, limited editions, collaborations, that, that becomes part of a brand's business plan.

And it becomes part of a brand strategy.

And what I mean by that, it literally, you can say, hey, if our entire output, product output, and most retailers, add, add, add, add.

Solution to more consumption is more products, you know.

So you end up with queues, which is, which are product numbers that are a really long tail, and you sometimes don't even know, you know, what's What is going on?

And when merchandisers look at their Excel spreadsheets, they look mostly at the product performance.

Did it sell?

Did it not sell?

So this is building upon that, but then also looking at what are the hero products?

What is the purest distillation, distillation of the brand?

Can we use that as a folder for collaborations?

Can we use special materials?

Can we have that?

It's something that we do year over year over year, but reissuing the different colors, different materials with different creative partners as part of different characters.

What is our collection?

What is the interpretation for seasonal, of seasonal trends through our filter?

And what are those foundational products that are, that go never out of stock?

They're always there.

And then, what is the cultural impact of all of those?

How do you build merch around it?

How do you build collaborations around it?

How do you build content around it?

How do you create, sort of, Structure that says, hey, we are going to use all those different products to start a conversation with different members of the creative class, with our key personas.

They're going to buy most of this.

And all of what I just explained is relevant because it really helps you fine tune your financial plan.

It really helps you fine tune how much money do you want to make each month.

each quarter, each year, and to go from that objective backwards and say we need x amount of hero products, we need x amount of collections, x amount of foundations, and this is how our promotional plan looks like.

Heroes never go on sale, for example.

Foundation goes on sale after three months, collections go after one month, never more than 30 percent.

So let's unpack this further, but I first want to hear your experience.

have

You know, one thing that was from the previous conversation that we had, and, Because you and I come from slightly different, career perspectives and backgrounds.

And in the past decade or so, you've spent quite a bit of time in the fashion, luxury retail world.

And my background, part of it is that, but I don't necessarily exclusively focus, in that industry just because, you know, we work with multiple clients, so we may have a fashion client.

We may have

a sports client.

this is applicable beyond it's applicable beyond the pedal.

It's applicable to all sorts.

So I'll let you get

Yeah.

So

just want, to say the expectations of the audience that actually, it can be, it can be applied to CPG as well.

Yeah.

So like the last time I want to unpack it from a non sexy non fashion perspective a

do it.

Yeah.

So where my mind goes when I, even before this conversation, when I was thinking about it.

And I want to sort of use this conversation as a way to unpack how some products or some brands that are more utility driven that can have cultural influence.

So an obvious sort of utility brand is tech and something that everybody knows about is let's say Google, right?

And Because a company like Google, because we talked about Apple and you know, everybody talks about Apple.

I want to stay away from Apple a

Let's Google,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cisco, Oracle, or IBM.

I'm kidding.

It's, it's got a universe of products that they introduce over time and they, they try to every sizable tech brand with scale, they try to trap you as much as possible into that universe, right?

So Google, which started as a search engine company.

And then they went into email.

They went into cloud computing, like, you know, drive and productivity tools like calendar and doc and so forth.

Right.

So they start with a, maybe this is what you, this is a slightly different perspective because it's not necessarily a hero product, but they have, they have a, a Trojan horse.

First, right?

Yeah.

And then from there, they find opportunities to quote unquote, invade into people's lives in different ways.

So in Google's case, let's say the Trojan horse was searched and then people became used to, oh, you know, let's quote unquote, let's Google it.

And then found ways or opportunities to expand what was a little.

Tiny speck in people's lives and found other ways to expand in that universe.

And then before you, well, maybe not before you know it, but over a course of decade or even two decades now, like I'm so embedded into Google that it's going to be very difficult for me to step away from that universe to go into, say, like the Microsoft universe.

Correct.

I think that's somewhat different, but I think let's, let's kind of connect those two things.

Because for me, what you're talking about is basically how tech companies create network effects and how they create modes, like how they create high switching costs, basically.

And for you, it's much, all those different products are more, more valuable.

the more products you use, each individual product is more valuable.

Google Calendar, Google Gmail, then search, then I don't know what else is there, AI now,

dogs.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Because the more data you share about yourself, the more tailored to you it is, you know?

So, it kind of fits what's really high, because not only all your friends are there, but also like, you spend so much time and effort, you know, on, on sharing that information.

So it's kind of more useful for you as you interact with it.

So that's number one.

But if you start looking at the product pyramid, I think it still can be applied because I can tell you there are some maybe AI is their hero product because people who use it are maybe not every day and it's priced differently or maybe their cloud services and there's certain services.

These are the products they make money.

Maybe those are B2B services.

Then their foundational products is what Trojan horse that you

Mm.

Oh, oh, I see, I

a play and drive and something like that, which they can be like, oh, their collection, they're always adding something because they need to compete with everyone else.

So this is a very blunt instrument, but I'm just trying to show you how.

But then what is, I think, what combines our perspectives is where the cultural products come in.

Which is, how does Google surround each of their tech products with merge, collaborations, events?

How do they go?

How do they attract new people to Gmail?

Not just to product led marketing, which is like, you know, at the beginning, it was like, oh, send, From iPhone or, you

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

like, or add five friends referrals, like that's product led marketing, literally, which was like, how do you get growth through those, but it's more about how do you actually participate in culture as Google?

What is your cultural pronoun?

How does like Gmail or AI or drive or any of that does merge, for example, limited edition, like, what does that mean?

And I'm not talking about those, like, stupid merch, those like balls that you can like, squeeze when

Yeah.

You know, it's kind of like, oh, go with Palace or, I don't know, Supreme or, you know, Heist Mobiety.

And, and he have, he have a line of, how would Google look if it was a t shirt or a pair of sneakers?

Mm.

When it comes to like more functional brands or functional utility companies like Google, right?

I think the way they become part of culture is through, behavior.

So for

we have your, your

Oh, no, no, user behavior, user

behavior,

user behavior.

Yeah.

So by, and then it, it can only happen to certain limited number of brands to have that cultural cloud, because I think in order for a user behavior to become culture, I think you need scale.

I think.

Absolutely.

I think that even now, I know, I like where you're going with that, but I think now you don't even need such skill.

You just need fans.

You need a niche.

of those, like, almost, almost needs a lot of subcultures, which is way more realistic, because look at the, there is no one mega trend.

There are a gazillion trends happening at the same time, and one of them explodes, but you could not, and then it dies down very quickly.

So I think the same sort of, social dynamic happens

in the youth groups, you know?

hmm.

you look at a Google, Facebook, you know, like certain actions that people take when using those products, right?

They are like searching or even just liking things or swiping,

Mm hmm,

those actions and behaviors become part of the cultural, vernacular.

So like, Oh, you know, do you swipe left?

Do you swipe right?

Wasn't a behavior that we used to have 15 years ago,

Correct.

And it's, it has a value judgment ethical component.

Oh, like swipe, like swipe left, like no, you know.

Or, you know, so I do think, but you know what it reminds me of?

You know how people always say, oh, technology is neutral.

It's how people use it.

I don't, that's not true at all.

Technology is never neutral.

It's always like a set of values is designed into it.

Like look at the AI now.

It has human biases designed.

You know what I mean?

So even with like Facebook designed privacy so there is none, and then Apple came and designed privacy so they're like, oh, look at us, we care about your privacy, unlike all those other tech companies.

You know what I mean?

That's not random, it's design, and that was by design was swipe left, swipe right.

So first we designed those values, aesthetics, judgments into technology, and then it influences us.

Yeah.

back.

One thing.

I mean, look at algorithms.

They're like, they're like sharing with us the most outrageous content.

Like they think that we are like, what works best is anger, hate, you know, like strong reactions.

I know that I mentioned that I didn't necessarily talk about Apple, but one thing, one of the things that, that came to my mind was that, and when you were talking about fans, right?

Way back when, when Apple introduced the iPod, right?

And then the, the headphones the product had a very iconic white look and at the time it was very rare and I mean, I remember this is like back in 2003, four or five back then when I bought first came out and.

People who bought the iPod had the white headphone and it kind of became a, not so much a status symbol, but like a, a visible community of people who were, because like at the time, like Apple was a small player, you know, it wasn't the dominant player that it's become since then.

no, absolutely.

And I would say it is a, it is a status symbol and it was the best advertising Apple could have

product led branding hope for because he met like even later when they were, when they stopped doing like, when they were like airpods, you know how people would walk around the office with that and you're like, why?

Like, what do you mean?

You know, so it became like, like, the first adopters were those.

I mean, I think now everyone does it.

But I think then we were like, wait, you know, like, you knew who bought it.

People

yeah, right, right, right.

first round, yeah.