Buttons and Zippers, Right? (Hint: Not Exactly)
STRATEGY header image. It's time for some strat talk!
Bear with me now, while we start with a slight diversion.
If you have any familiarity with fashion design, you’ll know that sewing and tailoring are the main skills needed to:
bring any wearable piece to life.
repair a beloved garment or preserve it for posterity.
adjust a garment to conform to a specific, unique person’s body shape.
Precise seams, secure buttons, and perfectly tucked zippers all with no hanging threads or garish pin holes make a garment great. But great fashion is so much more than great garment construction. And great construction cannot save an unfashionable garment.
As per usual, the coterie of judges in fashion are the users - not the designers. Those who wear, those who curate, those who invest, and those who buy in bulk. However, the designers must be tuned in to the tastes of those audiences.
Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia, Law-Roach, and Christian Siriano. Project Runway Season 21 Judges.
Designer or Tailor? The Big Ouch.
Admittedly, it has been ages since I’ve tuned in for Project Runway, but one perspective has carried through the years about what makes a designer iconic and successful.
I’ll give you a hint: it’s often less about the seams and more about the shape.
No direct spoilers, but a complimentary comment put toward one of the contestants this season by one of the judges was particularly scathing for this reason.
They suggested the contestant makes an amazing tailor, but a subpar designer .
<cut to gasps, all around>
The implication is that the contestant has repeatedly spent most of the time for each challenge on making those details precise, rather than constructing garments that answered the brief and pushed fashion forward in their unique style. Because of this, their current entry does not have standout power, adding to a body of work that is uninspiring, leaving their overall brand as a stylist uncompelling.
And the thing is, you’ll have a hard time finding a fashion designer who yearns to sew on buttons and zippers, dreams of perfect seams and securely attached closures. The dream is iconic looks preserved in museums, having defined an entire fashion era.
The show casts a spotlight on the various ways one designer’s iconic style can shine through many filters, even with unforeseen challenges and pivots along the way.
Jesus Estrada Yuchen Han Joan Madison Ethan Mundt (aka Utica Queen). Project Runway Season 21 Contestants
More often than not, the details matter after the full garment sails down the runway in competition, impressing the judges into looking more closely at that construction work.
Then, the details make the difference between a piece that is truly impressive with the chance of becoming iconic, and a piece that was a poorly executed idea that would likely go on to draw attention for the wrong reasons.
Yes, iconic designers need impeccable technique and detail work. In concert with — not at the expense of — creative vision and audience delight.
Precision Matters. The Vibes are in the Details.
One thing every marketing strategy & ops professional needs in their toolbelt is KPI tracking. Look, it’s how you can tell if you’re truly making progress, and nothing is gonna change about that.
One area where MarTech is truly outstanding is…you guessed it, Tracking KPIs. Also, attaching labels to contextual data for future dynamic analysis.
Tracking KPIs is hardly half the objective of operations, especially when ops teams up with strategy, but it makes for such low-hanging fruit for tech because of the easy tangibility KPIs offer.
Label a spread of core data, build a snazzy container around the bits, weave in viewing windows and diagrams and simulations, and BAM - you’ve got a product to sell to the many marketing teams out there striving to “show results” and “chart milestones” to their peers.
KPI Tracking is an attractive rabbit hole, due to the extremely legitimate need for clean data that can be analyzed for multiple uses and filtered through multiple operational lenses.
There is a reason, however, that the best KPI Trackers in the world is a list of tools, and the best Marketing Strategists in the world is a list of people.
The Big Picture is the Whole Point.
Sure, “vibes” can only bring a brand or business so far.
And having precision in the details is the only way great strategy is born.
But make no mistake – while vibes alone cannot sustain marketing, VIBES ARE IMPORTANT.
“Vibes” is nothing more than unbridled brand, and as we know, business thrives on brand. Brand is the sum that is greater than the value of the individual parts. From the product to the people who plan, produce, push, and prune that product (or service, but I was on a roll with the p words).
If the vibe runs away without the precision to face end-user and regulatory scrutiny, you’ve got Theranos. That was a deep talent for the specific skillsets of delivering presentations and sales.
When the brand is a carefully constructed, muti-faceted, sturdy core with countless possible iterations within compliance and in-step with current RELEVANT trends? Babe, now you’ve got Adidas. That’s a deep talent for assembling market-leading skillsets to inspire and enable every expert around the boardroom table to produce (and back up) ever-more reliable revenue forecasts.
Tie it All Together, Girl (pun intended)
Iconic brands, like iconic style, can have a few frayed edges. But it can’t have bad vibes.
The Brand strategy has to blend with the Business strategy, which then lets Marketing Ops pull the right data to the surface to tie together a constantly-strengthening mix of Marketing, Product, Sales, and PR strategies for revenue pipeline success.
I know we are supposed to be tired of this word, but synergy between the vibes of big picture Strategy and the detailed precision of Operations is still the recipe for iconic business brands.
