Musings of a Marketing Maven

I love strolling and window shopping in Paris. There’s a special mystique that window dressers in Paris employ that brand teams and marketers everywhere would do well to emulate.

Shop windows in Paris do a wonderful job of conveying the idea of what’s being sold — of conveying the brand essence, helping you envision how you might benefit from the products or services on offer. For a moment or two, you’re experiencing the dream, fantasizing about how you might look better, happier, healthier or whatever, based on the nature of what’s being presented for your delectation…

The most powerful windows don’t crowd the display area with a representative sampling of everything inside the store (as you sometimes see in America). This is not a functional or utilitarian approach to marketing what the merchant has on offer.

The power of simplicity. I love the idea — but it’s so hard to put into practice, given all the factions and stakeholders that marketers must contend with.