A year or more ago, I read that Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, had decided to bring in some trendy designers and develop sharper, more “with it” clothes—especially for women. Rival Target, headquartered here in Minneapolis, runs rings around Wal-Mart in terms of trendiness. As a result, Target’s growth has been more vibrant and its image far more exciting. The powers that be at Wal-Mart had decided to copy Target’s strategy and techniques.
It didn’t work. The higher-fashion strategy was a dud at Wal-Mart and is reportedly “being re-evaluated.”
This comes as no big surprise. The history of retailing is filled with failed attempts to copy someone else’s successful formula. What the copiers inevitably fail to take into consideration is the spark, the creative genius, the special inspiration that the originators brought to their idea. Those ingredients can’t be easily defined—or easily emulated.
I wish I had a dollar for every person who’s ever looked at a Jackson Pollock painting and said, “Big deal. I could do that.” Several years ago, Audi came out with a sleek, beautiful design for its cars and people went crazy over them. Other carmakers followed with the same general look, but there was almost always something wrong—some awkward, less-than-perfect element. The spark of genius resided at Audi headquarters, and try as they might, the copiers couldn’t quite do it.
Thirty years ago, I got involved in a venture that turned out to be a copier magnet. In a moment of—in hindsight—unmitigated madness, my wife and I bought a pathetically weak, essentially bankrupt city magazine called Mpls., changed the name to Mpls.St.Paul, and set about making it successful.
Along with phony circulation figures; a couple of staffers who had absolutely no idea what they were doing; bills, bills, bills coming out of the woodwork; and a former owner who flew off to Istanbul and ended up in jail on drug charges, I also “acquired” an editor and a sales manager. They were very young and had been on the job a very short time. Anyone with an ounce of good business judgment would have immediately replaced them with more experienced talent.
But they both seemed to have that special spark, and the more we talked about what the magazine could become, how it could serve the community, how we could make it both responsible and helpful, fun to read and profitable, the more I was moved to place our hopes for the future in their hands. We all believed if we could translate our dream for Mpls.St.Paul into reality, it would be a great success.
And it was, and it still is. The young editor, Brian Anderson, had and has that rare, rare ability to sense what readers want—just before they realize it themselves. The advertising director, Gary Johnson, through persistence and vision, built our advertising support to levels we never could have imagined possible. Incredibly, 30 years later, they’re still doing their thing: Brian still as editor and Gary as president of the company.
But you know what happened. As soon as the magazine began to succeed, the copiers descended, decided our work was a piece of cake, and came out with their own “city magazines.” Over the next 20 years, according to my records, no fewer than 19 competitors have started up. Some lasted for an issue or two; some lasted a year or two. Some were pretty good, and some were pitiful. But they all died, even the better ones, because they didn’t have the special creative spark Brian managed to inject into each issue, and they weren’t able to replicate the effectiveness Gary presented to advertisers.
When Wal-Mart first announced that it was going to out-Target Target by getting more trendy, I asked a senior Target executive if he was concerned. He smiled and said, “No, no. First of all, we’re 15 years ahead of them. And by the time they catch up to where we are now, we’ll be so far ahead again they won’t know what happened.”
Copiers of the world: It ain’t as easy as it looks.
