This can be a dangerous inflection point in the life cycle of a category: when the proportion of comparative differentiators to non-differentiators starts to shift direction. Now, the category is composed of a shrinking number of devotees who are focused on differences that seem almost idiosyncratic, along with a growing number of customers who are

What this implies is that when it comes to our consumption preferences, what we want tomorrow is probably going to be informed by what we have too much of today. It is only when we are drowning in choices that we are going to feel liberated when someone takes them away. It’s only when we’re feeling suffocated by customer service that we’re going to

Reverse brands create a kind of tilt in the surface—of progress, of evolution, of expectation. They draw us down a divergent path by applying pressure in exactly the place where we least anticipate it.

In some strange respects, then, the companies that I am about to present to you can be thought of this way—as palliatives that owe their existence to the disease.

This is why, if you’re looking for a compromise solution, then yes—take a poll, conduct some research, survey the people. But if you’re looking for a unique solution, the last thing you should do is ask for a vote.

And so the reverse brand tries to concoct an unlikely brew, consisting of something less, but something more, too. It looks to create a symbiosis of elements that we’ve been trained to believe don’t belong together. The idea is to be an oxymoron, and an agreeable one at that.

The idea brands that I’m going to introduce you to represent the teardown approach; they offer a whole-scale rethinking of the value proposition in their respective categories. What this means is that they owe their existence to no insignificant amount of conceptual inspiration. Someone, somewhere, had to actually sit down and imagine what a radica

In a saturated world, there can be a fresh appreciation for the elimination of benefits, as long as that elimination is thoughtfully executed. When people are accustomed to having too much, they will luxuriate in the absence of things they’ve come to take for granted.

One of the easiest ways to acquire connoisseurship is through immersion. If every day were declared to be Halloween, it wouldn’t be long before we would all be authorities on candy. Easier still is to be introduced to a product category when it is at a relatively young age. The reason for this is that product categories tend to unfold in a cumulati