Something to ThinkAbout: Amusement

I recently returned from an enlightening branding walkabout in Australia for one of my clients. In this deep cultural immersion, I visited eight cities all across the country in eight weeks and met with over 60 of their brand stakeholders. We talked openly about the challenges facing this company’s existing product line, its present pricing structure, its future competitive arena and how it could adapt to the particulars of this niche Australian marketplace to be more customer centric.

After posing a question to one of these important stakeholders, she paused thoughtfully before replying, “I’d like to give that a thinkabout.” I smiled. Not only did I love hearing the Aussies’ expressions, I liked that she took my question seriously and wanted to answer reflectively instead of impulsively. I told her that “thinkabout” was a concept I wanted to take back to the U.S. Wouldn’t we all benefit from building more thinkabout time into our busy work lives?

As a follow-up to my first book, "BrandAbout: A Seriously Playful Approach for Passionate Brand-Builders and Merchants," (also inspired by Aussie culture!) I want to share more morsels of inspiration for your product line in this blog. This will include merchandise-driven ideas worth thinking about, whether you're a solo entrepreneur or a veteran merchant managing an entire product development department creating thousands of new SKUs a year. Here's what I have in mind:

• ideas that prompt you to think about your offer in a slightly new way;
• ideas that can be transferred across industries and target audiences;
• ideas that offer nuanced differentiations that will keep your customers coming back and possibly attract new ones;
• ideas that bring verve to your product brainstorming meetings; and
• ideas worth pondering.

So why not set aside a few undistracted minutes every other week and make time for a thinkabout!