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  I knew, too, from my own studies that there was a direct correlation between commercial characters from movies, television shows and games in homes (including Homer Simpson, Snoopy and Hello Kitty) and lower rates of churchgoing. In one Salvador favela, I remembered a teenaged boy showing me a figurine common across Brazil: a small white glass horse and a rider. It was St. George, a Roman soldier and Christian martyr famous for battling a dragon with a sword. St. George was a symbol for victory, but not, it seemed, religious victory. Every week, the boy told me, he and his friends would ritualistically fill a small glass with beer and set it in front of St. George and his horse, ensuring that their favorite local football team, Todo Poderoso Timao, won that week’s game. More than religion, it seemed, a local Brazilian football team was fulfilling the desire for belonging, and a beer brand was now connected with good luck, belonging and camaraderie.

  In the northern city of Salvador, I also couldn’t help but notice the colorful local bracelets for sale. These were known as Bahia bands, or wish bracelets, whose origins are said to correspond and intertwine both with African gods and Catholic credo. In Brazil, wearing one or another color is said to bring out the color’s innate characteristics. Orange signifies joy and enthusiasm; green is said to impart money and growth; and hot pink represents friendship. Equally as important as what color you wear is how you tie a Bahia band, making a wish on each of the three knots you tie—no more, no less—and keeping the Bahia band on your wrist until it falls off naturally.

  If religion was declining in Brazil, what was taking the place of the human desire for belonging, and unity, and mystery, and ritual? What made Brazilians feel like they belonged to something greater than themselves?

  The answer, as prevalent in Hong Kong as it was in Italy and Brazil, was superstition and ritual. Keeping in mind the north-versus-south cultural divisions in Italy, and the west-versus-east rivalry in Brazil, I knew I’d found the start of a solution to reinventing Devassa for the twenty-first century. What stood out most about Brazil? Aspiration. The need to show off, to assert membership in a tribe. A countrywide decline in religion and churchgoing. Taking inspiration from the world’s religions, I would give Devassa three attributes borrowed from the world’s best-known religions: evangelism, sensory appeal and rituals.

  Once I’ve developed the beginnings of a hypothesis—in this case, that Brazil and Italy were, at core, similar cultures—I generally begin searching for additional small data that can either support or overturn my premise. For example, how do women wear their hair, and if they color their hair, what is the most popular shade? In Italy, women favor blond hair dye. (Flip through the stations on Italian television, and it sometimes seems that every second woman has hair so blond it’s almost white. In addition to getting rid of curls, blond hair dye is equally popular across Brazil, as blond hair is synonymous with wealth and popularity.)

  If Brazil had more aspirational consumers than almost any other country in the world, then quite possibly Italy, and Italian culture, could help me decode what Brazilians really wanted. In addition to how waiters and consumers held their bottles, and women colored their hair, there were other parallels between Italy and Brazil, including climate, high levels of governmental corruption and the influence of the Catholic Church. Italy and Brazil were even geographically divided in a similar fashion, with the south symbolizing “pleasure” and “easy living” and the north representing business, and efficiency, and order.

  To create a sense of belonging, the first thing I needed to do was link Devassa to the Carioca sensibility. I knew that the authenticity, casualness and freedom of the Cariocas was seductive to Brazilians living outside Rio. Along with its beers, Devassa also owns and operates stand-alone bar-restaurants in choice locations along the coast that offer Brazilian cuisine, free Wi-Fi and, of course, Devassa beer. Devassa’s bars were, in fact, my secret weapon. I would use them as “temples,” or places of worship, where members of the Devassa “brand congregation” could congregate.

  South America is known as a “high contact” culture, meaning that residents stand closer to one another, touch one another more and are accustomed to more sensory stimulation than residents in, say, northern Europe, with Australians and North Americans believed to be more moderate in their cultural contact level. In Brazil and elsewhere across Latin America, music matters, which is why it was important to create a tactile, sensory impression with the Devassa beer glass. My own research shows that if we “record” an experience using multiple senses, we remember it 200 percent more than we would if only a single track were involved. Add a social element, or a sense of belonging, and our memories engage even more powerfully with the experience.

  Just as French and Austrian glass makers have evolved the production of glass to a fine art by matching a specific wine to a specific glass—resulting in literally thousands of different wineglasses on the market—the new Devassa-branded beer bottle would enhance and soften Devassa’s taste. By emphasizing Devassa’s fragrance (60 percent of the taste of any beverage derives from its fragrance), the Devassa-branded bottle would become the new, exclusive way to drink Devassa beer.

  As a group, wine drinkers indirectly signal how much they know about the wine in front of them. They swirl the wine around in the glass. They air the wine out. They take a sip, and hold the liquid in one cheek. They talk about the aroma, the astringency, the body and the taste left on the palate, or the “finish.” It is almost as though they are persuading themselves that the more they know about the wine they are drinking, the more money they’re willing to spend. The rituals of airing wine, and swirling it in the wineglass, had become so synonymous with expertise that over the years I’ve caught people unconsciously swirling water and ginger ale in cafés and restaurants.

  The next step was to create a signature Devassa ritual.

  Broadly speaking, a ritual can be defined as a fixed sequence of behaviors or words that transport us from one emotional, social or physical state to another. Most rituals operate on two levels. The first is tangible, and sensory, while the second is symbolic and emotional. Ideally, like the lime in a Corona beer or Amazon’s one-click “Add to Cart” button, the ritual should be simple, memorable, easy to execute and anchored in reality.

  At heart, our new Devassa ritual—which will soon be rolled out across Devassa bars nationwide—is all about experimentation and “finding your own flavor.” Here’s how it works: Entering one of Devassa’s branded seaside bars, a customer orders a draft. The waiter or bartender is instructed to ask, “Would you like an extra flavor with that?” The staffer then produces a tasting tray on which rest four shot glasses whose rims are dusted with differently flavored powders, from salty to lemony to chocolate-infused, giving the glasses a frosted edge similar to the salt that hugs margarita glasses. (Our waiters are also expert at placing the exact amount of powder on the rims.) Customers test out the flavors, eventually ordering a pint of beer alongside their flavor of choice. So far, the new Devassa ritual has been performing very well, and I’m optimistic about how it will continue to do in the future. Most impressive is how much the new ritual stands out, and attracts attention, creating the best possible synergy with the beer itself, engaging consumers while also bringing in nonbeer drinkers, too.

  There was a second important dimension I also wanted to instill: transformation. Across the world, almost everyone fantasizes about sitting by the ocean, especially on hot summer days. Locally, though, access to Rio’s most popular beaches is reserved mostly for tourists or members of the upper classes, in the same way the skyboxes at the Hong Kong Jockey Club are for those who can afford them. Yet Jockey Club customers at every price level can catch a glimpse of what it’s like to perceive a horse race, and the world, through a skybox. To this end, we redesigned our Devassa bars to ensure the possibility of transformation. My goal was to whisk customers away from their everyday problems and complaints and into a parallel world wher
e “life is but a dream.” I might add that Devassa bars have their own set of rules. In each is a pen, a notebook and a black box. Customers memorialize and deposit all their work problems into the box before abandoning themselves to beer drinking and camaraderie.

  Transformation. Consumers wanted to escape the crowds, dirt, dust, poverty and relentless church of Rio. How could we help transform them into becoming freer, happier, sexier fantasies of themselves? To this end, we created a gigantic floating island—in effect, a Devassa-branded bar floating 200 feet off the shore of Copacabana, complete with deejays, surfboard-shaped tables and cameras live-streaming all the festivities to the mainland. The mission? To make the dream of lounging ocean-side “almost real”—but also tantalizingly out-of-reach. In the future, our Devassa island float will make appearances at the Rio Carnival, where Devassa will sell beer not available anywhere else, and at various street parties from Rio to São Paulo.

  Having addressed the national need for superstition and ritual, I was left with the topic of aspiration. Here, I couldn’t help but think back to what a marketing colleague told me once about working for Sabra, the hummus manufacturers. The hardest part of working at Sabra, she told me, was creating a transformation in the American diet from processed, unhealthy snacks to more wholesome, vegetable-based fresh foods. Her mission, as she saw it, was literally to alter consumer behavior. The fantasy she had of every American man, woman and child snacking on chickpea-based hummus seemed possible, exciting and even heroic—that is, until she began interviewing people one-on-one in cities and towns across the American Midwest. Sitting in homes, attempting to interest consumers in their first (free) taste of hummus proved to be surprisingly difficult.

  Among the first things my colleague found out was that for the uninitiated, the most common perception of hummus was a brown, boring, vegan, “hipster” food, one associated with aging hippies, acid trips and tie-dyed T-shirts. Most interview subjects told her they seldom if ever touched the stuff. The team then interviewed experienced hummus-lovers who ate hummus passionately and regularly. In common, most if not all of these people revealed that they had a memorable “first time.” Each had a very close friend—a person they knew well, and trusted—“concierge” them into trying out the dip amid a small gathering of close friends. In most cases, this trusted friend had given them hummus to sample along with a familiar snack they loved, whether it was baby carrots or potato chips, while also emphasizing that hummus was both wholesome and healthy.

  This “concierge” insight inspired Sabra to rethink their marketing campaign, and made them prioritize “experiential sampling” in ways they hadn’t before. Sabra began to understand the value of its most loyal consumers as future “concierges.” This insight, needless to say, would never have come about from survey data, but only as the result of ethnographic research and the search for smaller data.

  The Cariocas, I knew from experience, were less a specific demographic than a universal ideal. In common with beachside communities across the world, from Hawaii’s North Beach to the surfing communities of Malibu and Seal Beach, California, the Carioca symbolized informal living, physical beauty, wealth, freedom and lack of responsibility—in short, those characteristics we believe that southern Italy embodies.

  Two weeks later, my team and I had selected four visible, innovative, well-connected Cariocas whom we appointed as seeders and ambassadors for Devassa 2.0. Our Carioca ambassadors would use their distinct networks to present monthly cultural events—parties, sports activities, fashion shows, music concerts, art openings and charity events—that incorporated the Devassa brand, and gave our newly revitalized beer the opportunity to connect authentically with consumers. Our four Cariocas would have an enormous influence on the public perception of Devassa, their responsibility being to seed, or thread, the brand back inside Rio society at an aspirational level, and from Rio to the rest of Brazil. They were tasked not only to generate interaction through social media, but also to recruit ten additional “amplifiers” who could spread the word about Devassa online and off.

  More than a drink or its taste, we tend to remember the stories that surround our drinking. The better a beverage is at inspiring conversation, the more we feel that we, and the drink in question, are integral parts of the same tribe. It is still too early to assess how Devassa 2.0 will fare, but the executive team and I fully expect consumers to congregate around the beer’s new narrative—one that combines transformation, desire, sensory appeal and ritual to create an experience honed in Hong Kong, developed in Italy . . . and common to anyone who has ever craved transcendence—that is to say, all of us.

  Chapter 6

  The Case of the Missing Hand Cream

  How Selfies Smoothed the Way for an In-Store Fashion Revolution

  As far as products and brands are concerned, the world is no longer local. Two or three decades ago, tourists could come back from visiting a country 3,000 miles away assured that the souvenirs they’d brought home with them in their suitcases—the Sumatra-Indonesian Barbie Doll, the wooden salad tongs from Botswana with animal carvings, a sweater from French Gap with a neck zipper—were not only one-of-a-kind, but could be someday directly linked back to memory and experience. Today, there are few objects that tourists can store in their suitcases that aren’t already available somewhere, from someone, online, detaching the treasures we find while traveling from the context of experience.

  Still, just as there’s a wide array of Western brands and companies that Russian and Asian consumers would be surprised to discover exist, some stores and brands remain unknown to a majority of Westerners. I’ve already mentioned Picard, France’s frozen-food chain, but it’s also safe to assume most US and European natives have never heard of Mr. Bigg’s, a Nigerian fast-food chain with over 170 locations across that country serving local delicacies including moin moin and ofada rice. What about NTT DOCOMO—not AT&T, or Verizon—which controls approximately one-half of Japan’s wireless market? Won Hundred is an up-and-coming Danish menswear company, and a Chinese eyewear chain with the breathtaking name of Helen Keller sells frames and sunglasses at 80 Chinese locations.

  It’s also fair to say that few people outside of Europe are familiar with Tally Weijl, a leading Swiss-French fashion label headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, whose logo is the silhouette of an extremely pink rabbit.

  Tally, as its tween and teenaged female clientele calls it, has approximately 1,000 stores in 30 countries including Ireland, Italy, Holland, Poland, Germany, Greece and Russia. Similar to H&M or Forever 21, Tally’s low prices are similar to Target’s price points. So why did Tally Weijl need to bring in a branding consultant? The chain had a problem—namely unused, unsold merchandise. For years Tally had succeeded again and again in hitting the fashion nerve—the perfect length, the trendiest style, the hottest color—but the company’s warehouses still overflowed with millions of dollars’ worth of unsold inventory. Nor did the teenaged girls I interviewed in my preliminary Subtext Research seem to enjoy visiting Tally’s physical stores. The spaces were dense, cramped and disordered, they told me, and overloud techno music pounded from overhead speakers, as if the fashion and jackhammer industries had merged beneath one roof. It was sensory overload, and not in an exhilarating way.

  Why were twenty-first-century adolescent girls so fickle about fashion? Was it a worldwide problem, one caused by customers of all ages reluctant to pay full price for clothes they knew they could buy online instead at a discount? If the Internet had transformed the role of the bricks-and-mortar retailer and the definition of “social”—which it clearly has—were there any new ways of successfully combining the offline and online worlds?

  An issue troubling not only Tally Weijl but all fashion retailers is Fashion Week, which predates the Internet by half a century. Fashion Week debuted in Paris in the late 1940s and, as it still does today, showcases to buyers, customers, industry experts and the medi
a the latest fashions and designs for every season. Fashion Week still takes place twice a year in New York, London, Milan and Paris, and additional unofficial Fashion Weeks occur in Brazil, Germany, Australia and pretty much anywhere else in the world girls and women love fashion and new clothes.

  Obviously, segmenting fashion by season generates opportunities for consumer purchasing, which is why over the past few decades, the four fashion seasons have expanded to include subseasons like “pre-fall,” “resort,” “swimwear” and “ready-to-wear.” For adolescent girls who want nothing more complex than to blend in with their peers while subtly standing out from them, too, the “seasons” concept serves to remind them of the ephemeralness of their enthusiasms, as well as how easy it is to fall behind the curve.

  Outsourcing manufacturing overseas has been a boon for Western retailers and designers, with roughly 98 percent of the clothes worn in the West manufactured in China, with the rest coming out of Vietnam, Thailand, Honduras and elsewhere.1 Less welcome is a multiseason fashion year that obliges designers to keep abreast of trends, as well as to predict the vagaries of upcoming seasons as much as 18 months in advance. (Drug abuse, breakdowns and suicide are common in an industry dedicated to coming up with new, innovative ways of—there’s no other way to put it—making a shirt.)

  For most retailers, the process goes like this: After receiving specifications on cuts, colors and lengths, factory workers in mainland China manufacture the clothes, which are then loaded onto a container ship for their long transatlantic voyage. Once the clothes arrive at their destination, workers transport them onto trucks, which ferry them to distribution outlets and area stores. In the worst-case scenario, a fashion or style will pivot in an unexpected direction—blue has overtaken black, and the color green, for no good reason, repels buyers—when a container ship is in transit. In response, some retailers will go so far as to ask ships to return to port and destroy their shipments. (Rumor has it Zara, the Spanish-based retailer, and others have begun producing clothing aboard ships equipped with large production lines, allowing for dramatic turnarounds in taste at the last minute.)