26. Eulogy

DISCLAIMER: This fictitious eulogy for Forever 21 is based on my personal experience with the brand. No offense intended.

Eulogy

The dark time has come – Forever 21 is gone now. It just passed away, but it will always stay in our hearts. We will always remember how great it was. Whenever you walked into the store, it always looked so polished and organized. Just a few rows with hangers – that’s all you needed to experience its magnitude. There were never any lines at Forever 21. Of course, not many people could afford such deluxe shopping, but the few that could surely enjoyed its unhampered and personalized atmosphere. And everything was so perfectly ironed, neat, and clean – not even a spot, not a tiny stain on its luxurious fabrics! In fact, Forever 21’s quality management was so unprecedented that they would always carefully inspect every single item to make sure that no damaged merchandise was on display. 

Talking about quality, even Chanel faded in comparison. No designer in the world used rarer and more expensive materials. And with what precision and dedication all its clothing articles were handcrafted! You could get only unique, one-of-a-kind sweatshop-free items at Forever 21, and all of them would fit like a glove. The highest-paid Chinese fashion designers worked on them for months, hand sewing them using golden threads and embroidering exquisite ornaments onto their surface. No one in the world will ever be able to recreate these articles. Their secret died with Forever 21.

There should be something special said about the customer service that Forever 21 provided. All customers were treated like gods – sales representatives would always run around them, catering to their every need. And whenever anyone had a problem or had to return something, they would always make a sincere apology and go out of their way to return the full amount paid in cash, even for jewelry and sale items. On top of that, they would even add a coupon to make the customer happy. No other living brand in the world has ever treated its customers better than Forever 21 did.

Of course, it will be hard for all of us to live in this world knowing that Forever 21 is not here any longer. It was a terrible, untimely death, but we will never forget how much value Forever 21 had brought into our lives. It will stay in our hearts forever. Amen.

25. Merry Baskin

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Merry Baskin, who can be considered one of the best account planners in the world, visited our university this week. I was lucky enough to go to both of her presentations and attend a discussion-based meeting with her. Merry has extensive experience working in the advertising industry, and her advice to us - young communications professionals and aspiring account planners - is more than valuable, especially on the threshold of graduation.

According to Merry, the prototype of a great strategist is Mr. Nosey - a fictitious character, who is always snooping around in other people's lives. As a planner, you have to be endlessly curious, maybe to the point where other people think you're weird. Going shopping? Don't forget to check out other people's shopping carts and follow them around, analyzing their shopping and buying preferences. Insights are everywhere, you just have to look for them.

Besides being curious, a good planner must have great listening skills, and empathy lies at their core. You have to be able be "put yourself in your consumer's shoes." And then walk in them. Only this way you can truly understand this person's feelings and experiences, which is the foundation for any great strategy. In fact, a good planner should know (despite what the client may say) that brands belong to consumers, not brand owners, so understanding your consumer is key here.

Most strategies can be divided into two categories: rational and emotional. It would be intuitive to say that a strategy must be rational, but it turns out that those advertising campaigns that utilize emotional strategies are more successful on average. People are highly emotional and most of the time irrational in their actions. Think about this: when shopping, you fall in love with a beautiful pair of shoes. Do you weigh all the pros and cons BEFORE you buy it or do you post-rationalize your purchase AFTER you buy it? Most people do the second, which proves that we are more emotional than rational, and as strategists, we should be aware of that. "It's all about an emotional response," as Merry puts it.

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As the owner of Baskin Shark, a brand planning and training consultancy, Merry claims that "like a shark, brands must move forward or die." As we know, sharks need to keep moving to be able to breathe. Similarly, brands need to be constantly evolving to keep up with the changing world and people's attitudes. That's why staying on top of culture and current trends is so important for an account planner.

One more interesting thing that Merry suggested everyone should do is take the Myers-Briggs personality test, like this one here. Self-awareness is very important in this business (actually, in any). The better you understand yourself, the better you know how to build stronger relationships with people, the better you know how to deal with problems. According to the test, I am the ISTJ type (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging), aka "the duty fulfiller" or "the inspector." Can't but agree with that. While I'm figuring out my strengths and weaknesses, take this test to learn more about yourself! (You can read about each personality type here and here).