You can’t imitate your way to innovation. Here’s a good example of a brand that imitates the strategies and tactics of one its biggest competitor. On my way to an Apple store, I walked by a Microsoft store. It was stunning how similar both stores looked. The one big difference: the Microsoft store was completely empty.

Microsoft copied the concept. Apple stole it.

Steve Jobs mentioned the famous Picasso quote (”Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”) many times because its at the core of Apple’s philosophy: Don’t just copy: steal and make it your own. Computer stores used to be messy and fairly uninviting. The inspiration for Apple stores didn’t come from those chaotic experiences, it came from the world of luxury boutiques: expensive materials, inviting street presence, bright lights and friendly employees. They stole and imitated; but not from their competitors.

There are scenarios where it makes sense to plainly imitate: Ask Zara, a low price imitator par excellence. When you have an expensive product and can deliver a comparable experience for a disruptively low price: That’s a winning strategy because you’re opening up new markets.

Generally, mindlessly mimicking the direct competition is a race to the bottom. Making ideas your own and transforming your industry can turn you into the most valuable company in the world.

The world is filled with advice how to seduce people. How to seduce to find a partner, seduce people to buy your stuff, seduce them to like you. Magazines are filled with advice, book shelves littered with publications that will give you that one advice that will change your life forever.

Marketers should be the masters of seduction. That’s their main objective. The one lesson about seduction you learn very early (mostly as a teenager): It only works when the other person is open to your seduction, ready for your “pitch” and willing to contribute on some level.

It is impossible to seduce a girl when she’s deeply in love with somebody else. It is impossible to seduce a conservative person with your progressive fantasy. You can’t seduce an avid non-smoker in trying our your cigarettes. You need to find the right people who are open to your seduction.

Some people were seduced by Obama. Many ignored him. Or hated him. It had nothing to do with his message, or his person. They just weren’t ready to open themselves up to his message. Just like the Windows phone will never be a big hit with Apple fanboys. Or Hyundai with drivers who admire German engineering.

Makes me wonder…

Why do marketers continue to treat everyone the same, please everyone, be admired by everyone, find the key to everyone’s heart?

KPCB Internet Trends (2011)

Advertising

While online advertising is booming, it’s still not on par with time investment by people per medium. Print is hugely overpriced, representing 8% of people’s time and 27% of ad spending. Contrast that to mobile: 8% of time spent and 0.5% of ad spending.

Content Creation

Content creation has become a commodity. Newspaper continues to decline while we experience the golden age of content aggregation.

Commerce

E-commerce now represents 8% of all retail commerce and will grow dramatically. Retailers beware: The #1 reason for customers to abandon the in-store purchase is because they found cheaper options online. #2 reason: They found a cheaper price at a different store.

Economy

We might muddle our way through it. Or the economy collapses. Nobody knows. This uncertainty is the biggest challenge for politicians, economist and people. Uncertainty might be the new normal.

Empowering people

More people have access to the wireless grid (85%) than electricity. Over 200 million farmers in India receive payments via mobile devices and they have become instrumental during disasters.

Globalization

While we talk in our echo chamber all day long about Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (and they remain global mega-leaders) Internet giants from China and Russia (Baidu, Tencent and Yandex) are catching up quickly.

Here’s an eye-opener: 81% of users of the top global Internet Properties are outside the U.S.

Identity

A big challenge for all of us: How will identify and authenticate the almost billion Facebook customers with the 1.4 billion mobile customers by 2012?

Innovation

The economy is down but U.S. mobile innovation is still the global leader: Made in the US-smartphone operating systems – Android, iOS and Windows Mobile – have increases market share from 5% in 2005 to 65% today.

Mobile

Mobile subscriber growth is more explosive than the initial Internet adoption, leaving TV adoption in the dust. Smartphone shipments have surpassed feature phone shipments.

Usability

Usability matters and it will become even more important over time to deliver complex services to people through a simple interface. The next revolution? Between your ears. Voice recognition, sound creation and sharing, and audio interfaces.

What is Instagram? A social network? An app? A community? Sure.

Actually, Instagram is a site built around a social object that connects people with shared interests. In Instagram’s case, it’s the opportunity for people to shoot mediocre pictures and make them look beautiful. On music sites like Spotify or Turntable.fm it’s a song or an artist. On GetGlue, it’s a TV show or a movie.

Facebook has such a huge audience because it allows people to connect over various social objects: Pictures, shared passions, music, video, books – almost anything that defines you as a human being.

Products can be social objects: iPhone, your new car, interesting clothing, a bracelet, the wedding ring.

What are social objects?

Social objects are the reason why people socialize. We’re social animals but we need to find a common ground to communicate with each other. That common ground is the social object.

Let’s say you’re at a party, you are shy and feel completely lost. You are not going to approach a stranger with “I really love Wilco’s new album and I’m reading Jonathan Franzen’s latest book. So fascinating.” The other person will call 911 and hope you’ll end up in a mental institution. In the good old smoking days, your first conversation revolved around the brand of cigarettes both of you are smoking. (Remember the days when you sat in a smoky bar, your social object “cigarette box with logo” right in front of you communicating to the world some part of your personality?) Now, we are focusing on phones, drinks or tattoos. Some social object that connects me with you.

Your product needs to be a social object. Or pack it in.

No worries, I’m not going to talk about Apple, Zappos, Ferrari or some other amazing brands.

No, let’s talk about German turkey sausages.

If you ever come to Los Angeles, don’t bother with Hollywood or the beaches. Head out to Alpine Village, a pathetic replica of a German village. Go to the market and buy packs and packs of turkey sausage. The best sausage you’ll ever eat. 200 calories less than a beef sausage. Perfectly spiced. Highly recommended to put the sausage on the BBQ, the fat will just disappear and will leave you with the perfect sausage. Add red cabbage, dumplings and a beer. Heaven.

I’m geeking out on turkey sausage.

The sausage is a social object. I’ve talked to many people for hours about that sausage. Just like you might have talked hours about wine, an airline experience,  Yankees, amazing service, your barefoot running shoes – whatever. We all are geeking out on objects: I’ve overheard discussions about laundry detergent, toilet paper and shoe laces. Everything can be a social object.

If you feel your product can’t be a social object, drop me a line. I guarantee you it is already. (If it’s not, we’ll look together for a new job for you.)

Stop creating messages. Start creating social objects.

We’ve heard it all before: the Internet changed everything, the customer is in control, it’s about connections, engagement, blah blah blah.

Here’s the one fundamental change: Advertising used to be about creating messages. Advertising in the 21^st century is about creating social objects.

Why?

Because social objects are the building stones of the Internet. Not Facebook. Not Twitter. These platforms only exist because people want to have conversations about social objects. In the best-case scenario, they’re woven into your product/service.

Some have to work harder and develop social objects surrounding the product/service. That’s where most brands get it wrong: They’re trying to have conversations with people about their product. Yawn.

Your job is to develop a social object people want to talk about. Once they start talking, get out of the way.