“There is no love more sincere than the love of food,” said George Bernard Shaw, and that love echoes in the flavours of Armenian cuisine. It is the love of a full table in good company, the subtle and well-chosen ingredients, a wealth of the Mediterranean sun that transforms vegetables into beauty and fragrance and an afternoon spent cooking for your loved ones.
Aline Kamakian, a passionate cook and co-owner of Mayrig restaurant, is passionate about Armenian culture. She created her first restaurant in the Beirut suburbs, using the many finely-tuned recipes of her mother and grandmother. At the same time she learnt much about her heritage – when Armenia was a much greater nation, the impact of genocide, and how Armenian people still thrive on their history and traditions, despite now being spread across the world. Mayrig is about the culture, not just the food.
Kamakian and her cousin now has a thriving business, in the process of franchising her brand into new markets, whilst also having set up a more contemporary second brand called Batchig. There is also a new “boutique” foods-to-go business, selling everything from sandwiches to ready-to-cook traditional dishes. Behind these brands is an industrial kitchen, with over 100 employees following her family recipes, then distributing them to the different restaurants and stores.
“Mayrig was born on a Sunday lunchtime, when our extended family sat around the table for hours enjoying the delicious food” says Kamakian. We regretted that you could never eat like that in a restaurant. So my cousin and I decided that very Sunday to open an Armenian restaurant. For this we went back to the recipes of our grandmother. Besides our language and common history it is this practice of gathering around delicious, healthy and varied food that gives us a sense of belonging, of identity. In Mayrig we do not only want to share this delicious food, we also want to tell the world who we are and where we come from.
“It is about sharing food around stories, about being together and creating memorable moments. Our drive is our passion for food, for our family traditions and for the distant land of Armenia that we lost and recreate in every meal. It’s about simple, healthy food inscribed in our culture that we want to celebrate and share”“Mayrig is about people. If the one who serves you does not love the food, the place, the guests, he cannot put his heart into it; so it is about sharing this passion through people. We are about social and cultural responsibility. Our cooks are Armenian mothers, those who do not have a place on the job market and still have so much to give. They are the core of our story, of who we are”.
Her book “Armenian Cuisine” creates a platform to share recipes and stories, whilst social media actively builds community, particularly around meeting for lunch. Meanwhile, franchising authentically requires a more thoughtful approach “Mayrig recently opened next to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. “We started to work differently with investors who are more than just investing money. From different backgrounds (construction, banking, finance) they share with us their expertise. They visit the site and join us for the tastings for the menu. We are now exploring locations from Paris to New York, as well as un-thought-of locations such as Irbil”.
Pivot points for Mayrig in “changing the game” of the restaurant experience were:
- Think: Inspired by a vision beyond food, that brings a culture back to life through food
- Design: Recipes to dishes, multiple brands and business models, interiors and ambience that reflect Armenian life
- Resonate: Stories from her grandmother add humanity and relevance to each dish
- Mobilise: Tapping into a global tribe of Armenians, and those who enjoy their world
“Yang tao” or “Chinese gooseberries” as they were initially known, were taken from China to New Zealand in the early 20th century, by a Wanganui school mistress called Mary Isabel Fraser. In the 1950s they evolved into the green, furry “Kiwi fruit” which we know today and became New Zealand’s largest export. Today, Kiwis are still the second largest grower of their fruit (after Italy), and it is Lain Jager, CEO of Zespri who continues to shape the market.
“Fresh produce is a marketplace cluttered with commodities, where earning as price premium and sustaining customer loyalty is a significant challenge” says Jager. Recognising that overcoming this commodity trap is critical to building a profitable livelihood for New Zealand kiwifruit growers, Zespri has focused on establishing meaningful brand reputation through sophisticated marketing.
This commitment to sophisticated marketing is backed by a consistency of supply of a high-quality, high-taste product, a market-based payment method where growers are paid according to meeting demand and driving innovation. Most successful amongst the different branded varierties is Zespri Gold.
“Zespri’s success in establishing itself as the world’s premium kiwifruit brand is built on capturing two-thirds of the value in the global kiwifruit category, while only accounting for one-third of globally traded kiwifruit” explains Jager. “Despite kiwifruit only accounting for less than half a percent of the global fruit bowl, in markets where Zespri has invested, kiwifruit has become one of the top ten fruits consumed, with a large base of regular and loyal consumers”
The brand is owned by New Zealand kiwifruit growers, who fiercely protect their ability to capture value from the supply chain. “Unlike most fruit producers that are at the mercy of the traders the shared brand commands a price premium, supported by sophisticated marketing programmes to trade and consumers, the types previously only seen in the packaged goods categories, and maximizes the returns back to the grower”.
New product development in the fruit business takes time. Through critical selection of kiwifruit plant varieties and natural plant breeding methods, Zespri has the largest global selection of new kiwifruit varieties. It launched the immensely popular “Zespri Gold” to the market in 2000; and is working now on the next generation of sweeter, flavourful varieties to grow the category and cater to the range of tastes throughout Japan, Asia and European markets. New variety breeding and selection can take up to 15 years through to commercialization. Kiwi fruit is also celebrated for its health benefits “twice the vitamin C of an orange, low glycemic index for diabetics, accelerates digestion of proteins, and a natural source of folate”.
Zespri is also an advanced user of social media. These include a game application developed in China and launched globally where you can care for and grow your own Zespri kiwifruit in an on-line game, the 14 day Zespri challenge to feel healthier, local Facebook pages for each language and culture, and online competitions particularly seeking to promote the health benefits to older people.
https://youtu.be/1O_sYImbJ1U?list=PLrq1QRGfqfN91hidWYSlufZTGOP1vv2sm
Pivot points for Zespri in “changing the game” of kiwifruit were:
- Disrupt: Creating a new market space, built around a new type of fruit.
- Inspire: Building a premium brand, Zespri Gold, that defines the market
- Design: Product innovation that constantly evolves varieties, flavours and process
- Amplify: Promoting the fruit (not just the brand) globally for its nutrition and taste
Imagine if the barista making your macchiato started explaining that he and his colleague pick and select every grain of coffee themselves, from tree to cup, in the pursuit of the best taste you will find. Wearing his ethnic poncho he waves to his donkey tied up outside, and the pan pipes float over the chatter. Juan Valdez coffee, and its extension into cafes, is a sensorial and cultural experience straight from the Andes mountains.
In 1959, the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia wanted to capture the spirit of more than 500000 coffee growers and small local producers who made “100% Colombian coffee”. The federation set out to create a mascot, a character based on many of its members – they called him Juan Valdez, always with his mule called Conchita, and carrying a sack of coffee beans. The character became the stamp of authentic Colombian coffee around the world He is played by a real person, selected from more than 360000 coffee growers, most recently Carlos Castañeda from the small town of Antioquia in the Andes.
However the grower’s federation became concerned that Colombian coffee was increasingly regarded as a commodity, marketed by many brands and they needed to give Juan a stronger identity. In 2002, they launched Procafecol SA, a company to build the Juan Valdez brand. They started by branding their own branded coffee through an online star, which was quickly also stocked by supermarkets locally and across the Americas. Small brand extensions included coffee makers, cups and flasks, coffee-flavoured foods, and replicas of Conchita the mule. Sign up to Juan’s coffee-lovers club, and you can receive discounts and exclusive products. With the increasing penetration of cafes like Starbucks, Procafecol recognised the opportunity to do more. By 2007, there were 100 Juan Valdez Cafés in Colombia, and Starbucks retreated.
Pivot points for Juan Valdez Café in “changing the game” of coffee growing were:
- Inspire: Creating a brand from a commodity, with personality and humour
- Design: Developing a rich portfolio of branded coffees and accessories
- Enable: Delivering a branded experience with a hundred times the margins
- Mobilise: Connecting the nation’s growers to represent and promote the brand
Growth outside Latin America has been slower, as the company focus on establishing a local stronghold. At the same time, the Colombian economy is growing more strongly than most of the world, so it is proving an effective strategy. Juan Valdez has remained a local and authentic brand, in Bogata it is everywhere, making the most of its authenticity and local roots, riding on the growth wave of the Colombian economy.
Recent updates:
Juan Valdez spreads across America, opening in Miami, Florida:
Becoming a “zipster” takes seconds – register your details online for a $50 membership fee, and then whenever you need a car, for a quick 15 minute trip across town, or a two week vacation, just search your mobile phone to find the nearest cars to you, by GPS. Walk along the street of most cities and you will see Z spaces, reserved for Zipcars to be dropped off or picked up. Zap the door with your Bluetooth phone, turn the key and its yours for as long as you want, paying per minute.
Compare that to the cost of owning a car, particularly in cities where it might stand unused most days, depreciating in value with every days, and you suddenly have a good business case. It can even be cheaper than a taxi ride.
Zipcar was born in Berlin by Antje Danielson where “mitfahr” car-sharing had long been common, and then launched in Boston in 2000 in partnership with Robin Chase. Soon the concept spread across many cities. Early adopters were students, who in the past had dreamt of owning a car but usually ended up with a one on its last legs, and were far more attracted by a cool Mini Cooper for the weekend, at much less overall cost. As customers grew, the network was able to grow, becoming an even more attractive option.
Pivot points for Zipcars in “changing the game” of car ownership and rental were:
- Explore: Observing a trend in one market, and taking it to a bigger potential market
- Design: Innovating a better business model, attractive to customers, and business
- Resonate: Targeting niche audience to make the case in relevant, emotional ways
- Mobilise: Unlocking the “network effect” of more customers and more cars
The car-sharing concept grew rapidly. Many imitators emerge, some like Flexcar were acquired by Zipcar. Car manufacturers also woke up to the challenge, and launched their own versions like Daimler’s Car2Go. Car rental companies too realised that their future wasn’t in weekly airport hires, extending their business model with concepts like Hertz on Demand. In 2013 Zipcar, with over 800,000 members sharing 10,000 cars, was acquired by Avis Budget for $500m. In the meantime Robin Chase moved on to her next venture, Buzzcar, which is a car sharing network, where people with cars offer their spare seat to others.
Richard Branson was looking for a new challenge. Having conquered music and flight, retail and banking, he pondered where next. “To the moon?” suggested a helpful waitress. Like most new ventures, Virgin had little idea how to enter the market, but finding the right partners has always been a strength. And in particular, partners who can help do things differently, better for customers, and ultimately for business too.
“Space travel is absolutely, unbelievably exciting” Branson told me. “For a British company to be preparing to be the first to take fare-paying customers into space is phenomenal. We registered the name Virgin Galactic in 1991 and then spent a decade looking for potential engineers to build a reusable spaceship.”
“We explored mad, zany ideas, and then found Burt Rutan who’s the absolute genius in this area. He’d come up with the idea of turning the spaceship into a massive shuttle cock, to slow the vehicle on its dangerous re-entry phase. The whole project is almost carbon neutral. Each space flight will generate fewer emissions than a flight to New York, whereas NASA use the power of New York City to spend up the Space Shuttle” he said.
The spaceship takes off on the back of a larger “carrier” rising to around 50,000 feet, the cruising altitude of Concorde, where it is then launched horizontally into space requiring much less power (Branson’s vision is to use biofuels from his Caribbean algae farms). Accelerating from 170 knots in gliding mode to four times the speed of sound in six seconds, you are suddenly weightless. Indeed the cabin is designed with huge windows to look down on our planet, and space to jump around, to enjoy the thrill of space. Branson says he wants to turn an experience of only 540 people in 50 years into one shared by many more, and already has a waitlist almost as long.
Pivot points for Virgin Galactic in “changing the game” of space travel were:
- Think: Imagining new markets and shaping them in your own vision
- Design: Designing launch and flight solutions that enabled new experiences
- Inspire: Building a brand that reinvigorates Virgin, and inspires a waiting list
- Impact: Finding more efficient and less damaging ways to make it work
https://youtu.be/gZjvlMVEfTY
Watching the test flights from Spaceport America, deep in the New Mexico desert, it’s easy to dream of flights to Mars, or even jumping on-board for a one-hour tourist flight to circle Earth after being kitted out in your space suit and a short safety briefing. But the real ambition of Virgin is more terrestrial. The ability to launch and land efficiently makes frequent flights and fast turnarounds possible. Between continents, rather than just into space and back. Imagine flying from LA to Sydney, or Shanghai to London, in one hour … that is the real game-changing vision of Virgin Galactic.
Airbnb started out as the result of lack of accommodation for a major design conference in SanFrancisco. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia launched AirBed and Breakfast to help people who couldn’t find a hotel room – first in their own spare room with a couple of airbeds, and tasty breakfast, and then with friends too. They spotted the potential, but needed to raise some money to develop a website. Obama was fighting McCain in the US election of 2008, so the pair quickly designed and launched two new breakfast cereals, “Obama O’s” and “Captain McCains” raising $30000 to get started. The site quickly became a social movement helping people rent out their spare bedrooms for a little extra cash, and others to find a great place to stay.
Tired of standard hotel rooms? Airbnb helps you discover real places, and get closer to culture and normality. What began with two guys and a few airbeds now offers nights in everything from crusader forts to private islands. It is now a global marketplaces with ov
er 500,000 locations in 33,000 cities, and over 10 million booked nights. It has also become a serious rival to the leading hotel chains and travel companies.
Christopher Lukezic, CMO says “Airbnb has pioneered social travel and set the stage for the emergence of the sharing economy. The main reason for our success is that we’ve taken a very long-term vision and approach to building a brand – to build a company and community. If building a brand takes a few years, building a community takes decades. Early on we knew that the ultimate success of our business would come from building a community, not merely a brand. That would take a decade, without being distracted by short-term gains.”
Pivot points for Airbnb in “changing the game” of travel accommodation were:
- Discover: Identifying a niche market with a trend away from standardised hotels
- Design: Designing an attractive business model and online booking experience
- Resonate: Articulating the proposition through PR and contagious social media
- Mobilise: Building a community of travellers, and people with spare rooms
Brian Chesky says “The business always puts our users forward, often doing things that don’t scale and don’t have immediate returns. It wasn’t about putting up billboards to get lots of users very quickly, because we had to build trust with each members one-by-one. Not long ago, people wouldn’t have dreamed of staying at somebody else’s house, now they see it as positive experience.”
Blake Mycoskie spent 2006 doing volunteer work in Buenos Aires, when he noticed that most young people wore simple canvas slip-on shoes called alpargatas. The shoes have also been worn by Argentine farmers for hundreds of years, and he decided to start exporting them to his native North America. As he explored more of the city he also realised that many children wore nothing on their feet, unable even to afford the $5-10 for alpargatas.
Shoes for Tomorrow (shortened to Toms) was born, a for-profit company, making cool shoes in an Argentine factory for Santa Monica beach, but also donating a second pair to it not-for-profit sister company Friends of Toms. “One for one” took off, with 10000 pairs sold, and given away, in the first six months. By 2012 2 million pairs of shoes had been made, and an equal number given away to children in developing countries around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPiQNqbiZa0
Pivot points for Toms in “changing the game” of fashion have been:
- Think: Driven by a higher purpose, to make life better for poor kids
- Design: Creating a dual business model, where profit enables non-profit
- Mobilise: Building a global movement, an inspiring model of caring capitalism
- Sustain: Working with manufacturers and charities in developing markets
The brand has extended its “one for one” business model into eyewear and clothing, and now coffee, primarily through word-of-mouth advocacy. In the case of eyeware, Toms provides eye surgery or prescription glasses for every pair of sunglasses sold. Beyond charity, the Toms brand has become for movement for more caring capitalism, including volunteering, education and support to entrepreneurs in development markets.
T-Shirts are supposed to be cool, and the coolest t-shirts are not made by big companies with corporate logos, but designed and selected by cool people like you. Threadless was founded in 2000 by Jake Nickell and Jake DeHart, investing $1000 of their own money in a website that encouraged people to submit designs, vote for the best ones each week, from which they would then make the limited editions.
Around 1000 designs are submitted each week, and after an initial filter, put up for public votes. The winning designs are sold online, and through the brand’s stores and vending machines. Winning designers receive $2000 in cash a $500 Threadless voucher or $200 cash. Whilst every design has a time limit, with sufficient requests for reprints, the winner could get another $500.
The combination of crowdsourcing, frequent competitions and new editions, creates a 2.5 million-strong community who become actively involved in the brand, and between each other. They are supported by four “community ambassadors” who sustain the buzz and interaction, but also be specific groups. The “Threadless 12 Club” is a subscription-based VIP network with their own ultra-limited editions the annual “Family Reunion” brings people together physically. “Bestee Awards” recognise the best designers by category whilst the “Alumni Club” is for winners to stay in touch. Add to this are customers’ own networks ranging from local groups who meet to share their love of design, through cake-baking and clothes-making based on submitted designs.
https://youtu.be/cZzpuprg6ms?list=PLrq1QRGfqfN91hidWYSlufZTGOP1vv2sm
Pivot points for Threadless in “changing the game” of clothing retail has been:
- Design: Crowd-sourced designs through monthly competitions and prizes
- Resonate: Staying cool and topical through unique designs, with limited life
- Enable: People take part in submitting, selecting, buying and sharing their t-shirts
- Mobilise: Building a movement of young designers and brand partners
Stuart Brooke started running 5 years ago and was appalled at the poor quality of all the major brands. Having founded his own business 15 years ago making high specification products for other manufacturers, he knew that there were much better solutions. The reality was that most big brands were compromising on quality to hit key price points in the mainstream market. They each chose the same mediocre fabrics, and all looked the same. Other sports, such as Cycling and Skiing had far better technical products, and enthusiasts were prepared to pay more for them.
Stuart started life as a fabric designer, but quickly focused on sport, joining Pentland with brands like Reebok and Speedo. But he soon became disenchanted with the endless meeting culture of companies, and the lack of ambition. He wanted to create a brand that was fresh and distinctive. Ashmei was born, a name inspired by his Chinese wife, and an anagram of his daughter Meisha’s name. The Chinese lettering, interestingly also used in Japanese, means “ultimate”. He wanted to create the ultimate running apparel, the best fabrics, using the latest manufacturing technologies.
Ashmei focused on design, specifying requirements and then sourcing from the best suppliers and manufacturers around the world. Fabrics from France, Italy, and India are combined in China then shipped to stockists, mainly in Europe. The design is functional, but includes distinctive styling which echoes the Asian name. Initially using selective retailers, Ashmei carefully avoids working with competing retailers, and thereby discounting. It create enduring collections, rather than cosmetic seasonal derivatives, so there are no sales, and it can increase volumes quickly because of the large factories of its suppliers.
Ashmei is a premium, niche brand for enthusiasts who are willing to pay more, and also likely to become ardent loyal fans. Marketing is about building connections with core users, using social media and inspirational events, like the Ashmei Mud Race. Word spreads rapidly by PR and word of mouth within established communities. International growth is through exclusive partners, and then specialist retailers who can often create more buzz with Ashmei than they can on their own, or with ubiquitous brands. Partnering with a complementary shoe brand is likely, alongside growth into adjacent categories like triathlon.
“Ashmei was developed specifically to address the lack of good quality, high performance running apparel” says Brooke. “The market is full of average running clothes that all perform to mediocre standards, have similar features, made from identical fibres and look exactly the same. These are then sold in the same bargain driven environment that offers poor brand promotion.”
Pivot points for Ashmei in “changing the game” of sports apparel have been:
- Disrupt: Believing in better, that people will pay more for premium products
- Design: Focusing on product design, then bring together the best partners
- Inspire: Articulating a brand that captures the aspirations of serious runners
- Mobilise: Building a community that shares their passion, enabled by the brand
https://youtu.be/PYMio8C69EI?list=PLrq1QRGfqfN91hidWYSlufZTGOP1vv2sm
The niche and premium focused business model is working. “Many presume Ashmei is simply expensive running gear” says Brookes “but the percentage of repeat orders we see prove that once Ashmei has been tried, it becomes the runner’s favourite and soon becomes their entire running wardrobe. We believe in three words – performance, quality and style. Of these performance matters most. It’s why we started, and it’s why people love us.”
Whilst most people choose Spotify for free access to streamed music, co-founder Daniel Ek if focused on ensuring that the premium services, such as the ability to download and play the music offline for a monthly subscription, significantly exceeds the diversity of royalties it pays to record labels, collecting societies, artists and publishers.
When Ek first invited big music labels, he forgot to mention that they were all invited together, causing panic on arrival at Stockholm airport. Ek apologised for his naivity, whilst telling them he was about to change their world. Sweden was already home to the notorious Pirate Bay file-sharing hub, and Swedes had grown used to not paying for content. He therefore started with his home market, streaming music in a way that was faster, easier, and less risky than piracy.
Spotify is best known for helping to legitimize the “freemium” model: the tiered pricing strategy whereby basic services like music streaming are provided free of charge (with advertising, in Spotify’s case), but premium services like ad-free listening and direct downloads cost users extra.
A six-month free trial starts upon account registration allowing the user to listen to an unlimited amount of music supported by visual and radio-style advertising. After the trial, there is a listening limit of 2.5 hour a week. The “unlimited” subscription removes advertisements and time limits and a “premium” subscription introduces extra features such as faster, higher quality, and offline access to music. There is also a close partnership with Facebook, encouraging people to access through the site, and then share activity with friends.
Spotify now provides unlimited streaming access to 25 million songs. Around 25% of users pay $10-15 a month for a premium version, a fee that is shared with record companies whose royalties are higher than for many years. Around 70% of music revenues now come from digital streaming, and Spotify is at the forefront of a revolution that is spreading rapidly across the globe.
Despite controversy over artist pay and some musicians (like Taylor Swift and Adele) withholding their music from the service, Spotify continues to grow. Now with more than 75 million total users and 20 million paid subscribers in 2015 (double its paid number in 2014) as well as $3 billion in royalties paid to artists, Spotify has become a veritable music-industry powerhouse. Even longtime licensing withholders, The Beatles, have entered the platform’s massive library.
Much of Spotify’s success is due to increasingly sophisticated data collection, which allows it to keep releasing new products that captivate its users around a particular mood or moment in time rather than offering the same tired genres. Users can constantly change up and enhance their listening experience with data-powered features like a Discovery tool for new music that rivals Pandora’s capabilities, a Running feature that curates music timed to the beat of your workout, and Taste Rewind which tells you what you would have listened to in the past by analyzing what you listen to now.
Spotify, now based in London, has started using the fruits of its labor to expand, teaming up with Songkick to provide concert recommendations based on listening behavior and location. And now that Spotify has proved that people will pay for convenient, one-stop access to their tunes, all in the face of Apple’s marketing blitz for Apple Music, the next big move will be a transition into premium-only content.
Pivot points for Spotify in changing the game of digital music were
- Explore: Looking for deviant behavior in the margins of markets
- Disrupt: Making content free but in a way that is commercial
- Design: Continually evolving the business model to find a better solution
- Mobilise: Building a community of advocates, the cool thing to do