WS Now Selling Compelling Narratives

Check out the August 2009 Williams-Sonoma catalog. It features "New American Chefs," pairing each chef's cuisine with the tools you need to make each dish. Less catalog and more magazine, these pages are nice to look at. They stop short of offering the recipes, instead teasing you to their ecommerce site to get them.

I would've preferred the full monty in the catalog, but still it's great to see cross-promotion among their departments. Too often great product stories are lost when items are broken up across different buyers - they don't like to work together to promote a story. But great narratives like these will sell product and hopefully Williams-Sonoma is translating this to retail as well.

Snobject: Trunki

Trunki brings great fun along on your child's trip. The UK company developed this fun rolling suitcase and has now rolled it out into a line of travel products. Yondi, a comfy padding pillow, finally puts an end to "broken neck position" on long car rides.

Ecommerce Hits Back to School

Very interesting reads here from the International Advertising Bureau. Topline summary: Ecommerce continues to be ahead of the game during this recession, while store sales remain stagnant. Interestingly, parents are also using online research moreso than ever to try to save money on Back to School purchases. The most popular/successful/$$$ ecommerce sites provide video, hi-res images, blog tie-ins and a real depth of info.

Add these two articles together and I wonder when someone will swoop in and offer head-to-toe online shopping for Back to School, and capitalize on the late-summer spending surge while saving parents time and money. Stuck on You has done this for label-making; someone will become a one-stop shop for BTS while the competition (Fiskars, Its Academic, Mead, Crayola) struggles to maintain an updated web presence, much less a comprehensive one.

Tools that Help You ENJOY Cooking!

Since when did cooking become purely about convenience? Cooking is more than just preparing food but it's hard to find the time to enjoy the process. I think the best kitchen gadgets these days help you cook quickly, but also with more satisfaction. As always, the best products surprise and delight consumers. You just might love to cook if you let yourself enjoy it. Here are some of my favorite kitchen helpers:

IKEA's Charm Cheese Grater, $5.99, with lid, fine & coarse graters, and compact storage. The perfect cheese grater, bar none.

Global Sanroku fluted knife, $99.95, your best friend that slices through anything like butter. Kuhn Rikon nonstick paring knives, $10, with a safety sheath that keeps blades perfectly sharpened. Sharp knives are joy.

OXO Salad Spinner, $29.99, drying lettuce in one quick spin is magical. Dry anything you can fit inside and save yourself from boring bagged lettuce.

Wilton Pastry Blender, $6.99, this is shameless self promotion because I designed this, and it's the best. Trust me.

Panasonic Rice Cooker, $29.95, yes rice is easy to cook, but never having to check on it is priceless. Think of it as a rice-crock-pot, which can make meals out of perfectly cooked rice all by itself.

Alessi Diabolix bottle opener, $15, an absolute pleasure every time I use it to open a bottle. Not only is it devilishly cute, it fits your hand beautifully.

The Magic of Smaland

As a parent, you have to love IKEA. Drop off your kids to play while you find your way through the maze of goodies relatively unencumbered. As a retailer, you have to wonder if this could work for you. In the spirit of McDonald's classic PlayPlaces, IKEA has found that the investment pays off. Parents buy more because they're happier and free to shop. They even feel obligated to buy more in return for the childcare service. On the way out you can also grab lunch for 2 for under $10. Every time you leave the house with kids in tow, it's an adventure. By serving every part of the adventure, IKEA gets more of my dollars.

Snobject: Nutcracker by Bruno Christensen for Menu

Falling soundly into the category of desirable objects, this nutcracker by Bruno Christensen for Menu may also work well!

"makes cracking even the hardest nut fun and easy. made by bruno christensen, the unique design makes it equally easy to use. just place the nut on the metal plate and cover it with the rubber dome. give the dome a light tap and the nut will be ready to eat, with the shell cleanly removed and ready to be thrown in the bin. the solid stainless steel base, domed top in black rubber and non-slip rubber bottom to protect against scratched table tops, all bear witness to attention-to-detail for appearance, quality and practicality. the real genius of this nutcracker is the ribbed metal fitting on the underside of the dome that ensures that only a light tap is needed to split the shell."

Storespy: BTS is coming!!

This year stores started getting ready for the Back To School promotional period in January! Retailers are desperate for this period of promotional-goldmines. I for one love the approach to retail at this time of year: get customers in and out as quickly as possible. Just look at how easy the temporary supply bins make it to find what you're looking for! If only this level of effort were put into retailing year-round, we'd have happier consumers and happier retailers.

Lesson 02: How to Think of New Ideas

I know I'm promising an awful lot with that title, but idea creation is what I do. Even when I'm not working, my mind keeping chugging away, randomly spitting out ideas every time I bump into an opportunity. Friends and family don't love shopping with me. After a decade or so of training your brain leaps happen spontaneously, even when you're just trying to pick out a toothbrush. Here are some basic techniques that can help you make a few leaps right now:

Focus: No need to re-invent the wheel if it's not broken! Write down your problem. Draw it. Break it down into steps, parts, and sequences. Think about the minute details and elements creating the experience with the product. Pick the most important element of the problem. Now we're ready to attack it without the distraction of all the other parts.

Example: My toothbrush isn't comfortable. Toothbrush = bristles, head, neck, handle, rubber pads, cover/case, stand, batteries, switch....The toothbrush feels OK in my hand, it's my mouth that's most uncomfortable. The bristles are scratchy.

Shift Your Viewpoint: If you just stare straight at the wall you'll never see the path that goes around it. You have to look at it from another angle. Take out the dictionary. Flip to a random page and point at a word. Take that word and ask yourself, how could my solution be like this word?

Example: Scratchy toothbrush bristles + egg = eggs have layers, yolk inside white, maybe the bristle can be layered, a hard core with a softer outside, firm for pressure yet gentle on the gums!

Pair your Problems: Trying to kill two birds with one stone requires you to find a new kind of stone. Take two elements of your problem and see if one solution will fix them both.

Example: Scratchy toothbrush bristles + inflexible head = if the head were made out of a softer material it could flex more, the bristles could be part of the softer head, maybe the entire toothbrush is a hard core with a soft covering!

Think Backwards: It's often easier to find your way home than to go somewhere new. You know what your problem is. So imagine the ideal experience and trace a path back to the problem.

Example: If my toothbrush is comfortable then it fits my mouth, my gum line, my teeth...a piece of gum fits my mouth and teeth...maybe my toothbrush head can squish and conform to fit my mouth just like a piece of gum!

There are many other techniques for thinking "laterally," as opposed to linear thought, which tends to take us down existing paths. To find a great idea you need to jump off the side. Check out Edward DeBono's classic books for detailed info on lateral thinking techniques.

OXO + Staples = $?

It's been a few months since OXO and Staples announced their collaboration. Now products are on the shelf. Gotta say, "office" was a good choice for expansion into a new product category. It's a close periphery to kitchen...everyone knows what to expect in the junk drawer, and half of it belongs in the office. Very easy to switch loyal kitchenwares customers over to purchasing OXO office gadgets.

The question I have is, will they go to Staples to get them? Target would've been a no-brainer, but luckily many Staples are right next door to a Target, right?

Article in Business Week's Innovation section

StoreSpy: WS Sandwich Cookie Cake Pan

On the shelves now at Williams-Sonoma, the next in a long line of super-sized treats. The Goldtouch Sandwich Cookie Cake Pan reflects the trend of giant baked desserts, which I helped launch a few years back with the design of Wilton's Giant Cupcake Pan. Can we guess which cake-sized dessert will come next?