Hybrids

We all know that hybrids are everywhere (and I'm not just talking about the cars). You take two popular movies like “Roman Holiday” and “The Prince and the Pauper” and you get “The Princess Diaries.” Soft drink companies take two flavors--one tart and one sweet--and you get (neither tart nor sweet) pomegranate-kiwi tea. Geneticists have grown the fuzz off of peaches and (although I don’t know how they did it) even crossed a firefly and corn on the cob to create a kind of glow in the dark ear. (Double yuck!) Granted, you take two great things to create one not-so-great item, but it has the allure of a two-for-one. Anyway, while hybrids are neither feast nor famine, everyone is doing it. Clever marketers try to convince us we’re getting something new and improved…sort of.

Retailers, slow on the draw, are now catching up to Hollywood and Madison Avenue. Today’s retailers are creating hybrid concept stores. The first sector that really has caught on to the concept are supermarkets, like Whole Foods, which has a spa in select stores, where you can get a pedicure, manicure, light facial or massage. All spa products are “not tested on animals” and meet Whole Foods' stringent organic requirements. Other supermarkets have eliminated food products from their shelves to introduce movie rentals, greeting cards, and expanded their take-out areas to rival most franchised chicken joints and sushi places. Frankly, if a date asked me out to have sushi and took me to the A&P, the romance would be over. Some clever menswear shops are installing barber shops where you can get a shave and a hair cut while the hem on your new pants is being altered. They’ll even shine your shoes. Unfortunately, ever since I saw “Sweeny Todd” I’m terrified of straight-edge razors.

Borders bookstores are integrating digital centers where customers can download music and books that might not be readily on their shelves. This in essence offers the retailer access to nearly every title printed without the need to stock it. Borders, cognizant of its techno-inclined customer, also has computer kiosks to research family histories and print out family photos. The first "hybrid" store opened last year in Ann Arbor, Mich. It must be successful, as 13 other stores are set to open in 10 states this year.

The Gap's Fifth Avenue store in New York has partnered with Pantone (paints), havaianas (sandals), “Pure Body Yoga Studios” and trendy French retailer Collette to create pop-up shops to draw customers into their adjacent store where their perfunctory T-shirts and jeans are sold. This ever-changing hybrid concept seems to support Gap sales and makes the Gap a destination spot to pick up something extra and unexpected--an incentive goes a long way these days.

The jury may be out on some hybrid concept stores, but rest assured it does seem to invigorate sales. I’m all for hybrids, with one notable exception to the book publisher (shame on you) who reported that they were taking two classic books to create a new fantasy series. Rest assured, I will not be reading “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein.”

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Borders photo credit: Laszlo Regos

Comments

[Ron Knoth]

Dear Jerry,

Take a look at Details Magazine (October issue with Clive Owen on the cover)page 65, it's a Givenchy ad with Justin Timberlake. The ad promotes the new fragrence "Play" which is designed to look like an ipod, and it's the first fragrence with an faux interactive feature, it looks like you can play it. It has a touch/click feature. It's sort of cheesy in the way Avon used to do novelty fragrences, but some smartypants (maybe me) will design a real bottle that comes with a micro chip feature so that you can actually plug in your headphones and play a musical "sampling". How brilliant is that? Hybrid!!!

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Ron brings up an interesting subject. From the time the first cave man started selling arrow head stones, the next retailer made a hybrid with accessories to hold the stones, long sticks to tie onto the stones and became the department store or weaponry.
Retailers live to be able to make the claims, new, innovative, improved, state of the art and so on and are always looking for new ways to legitimize the claims. So I applaud any retailer that mixes up the business plan to see if there is the next best item coming down the pipeline. Starbucks and music with a download aspect, or Target breaking the upstairs mystique by bringing in Isaac Mizrahi were all hybrids that worked. To survive, today's product mix might not be the only factor that keeps the retailer healthy. GM is giving a 60 day guarantee on their cars, try them and if you do not like them they will take it back. Sounds like innovative return policies, real price breaks may become the new combination of hybrid retailer pulling out all the stops
Jerry Birnbach F.I.S.P.
RDD Associates Inc