Gap. Starbucks. Apple.

From the lighting and display to the merchandise and employee uniforms, everything is exactly the same.

Herein lies the charm of Anthropologie, a clothing and home goods retailer that has completely turned its back on the mass-experience approach most retailers have chosen. Anthropologie, owned by Urban Outfitters, Inc., isn’t a small company. However, they use many business-branding techniques that can work for small businesses.

#1 The cheapest way isn’t always the best way.

We all kind of “know” this to be true, but we don’t necessarily believe it if you look at our actions. Cheap advertising, cheap content, cheap site design… it’s all too tempting when you’re a small business trying to make a (small) splash.

Anthropologie doesn’t do things the cheap ways. There is no “standard” for their retail stores. Rather, the décor in every single store is carefully curated by local designers, found objects, antiques, and other eccentricities.

No doubt, it’s more expensive than shipping display packages out to every store just before the season turnover, but it creates a sense of authenticity that resonates with the brand’s devotees.

#2 Don’t advertise… ?

Anthropologie doesn’t advertise. Not at all. They send out a catalogue to subscribers. They operate a Facebook page, Twitter handle, etc., but they don’t have any paid, traditional advertising strategy.

And they don’t need it.

How do they make it work? Anthropologie understands its target demographic so well, that they don’t have to chase down customers and pull them in the doors. The fan base is practically lining up to get in.

Obviously, this isn’t some winning strategy for building your brand. However, it’s definitely a lofty goal to reach for. By carefully honing in on a specific customer, you could save yourself thousands in advertising later on down the road.

Which brings us to lesson three…

#3 Don’t be afraid to get specific.

Specificity doesn’t necessarily refer to a product or product category even. Rather, Anthropologie focuses on a specific customer. The brand then caters a wide variety of products (from clothing and towels to books and gifts) to the specific customer.

The company culture refers to the customer as “our friend,” a term which, you get the sense, is probably somewhat true. Anthropologie really does know its customers on this “friend” level. Even more impressive, they aren’t so much “trying to sell” to their friends, as they are trying to create a full, shopping experience.

#4 Know thy customer.

Former Anthropologie CEO, Glen Senk, told Fast Company, “In my experience, retailers spend most of their time looking at things from the company’s perspective or the marketer’s perspective. They talk about trends and brand but rarely about the customer in a meaningful way. We’re customer experts. Our focus is on always doing what’s right for a specific customer we know very well.”

Wendy Brown, who has held various leadership positions at Urban Outfitters, Inc, echoes Senk: “We have one customer, and we know exactly who she is. And we don’t sit around a table and say to each other, What do you think she’d like? We’re out there. We’re in the stores, we’re in the marketplace. We live where the customer lives.”

What are your thoughts on Anthropologie? Any takeaways for building your own brand? 

How It Works

Every Sunday, CrowdCases selects a social cause and issues a design challenge. Graphic designers have the week to create a design for an iPhone and Samsung Galaxy case highlighting the cause. Once the submissions are in, the winning design is selected, and the designer receives $500. The winning design is available just a few days later as a limited edition iPhone/Samsung Galaxy case, and sold for $34.95, with 20% going directly to the featured non-profit. Here’s an example – this week’s contest:

I had the chance to pick Dwight’s mind on crowdsourcing, non-profits, online marketing, and more. Check out the interview below…

The Interview With Dwight Peters

CEM: How did you first come up with the idea of CrowdCases? 

CC: CrowdCases is actually a pivot from my original tech accessories startup called Slate & Stylus, which was launched last summer via a successful Kickstarter campaign we had. We were always socially conscious, even from the very beginning. With Slate & Stylus, we sold cool but very regular/plain iPad and iPhone cases. We teamed up with TheSupply.org, and for every case sold we were able to provide a child in Kenya with school supplies. It was a great experience, but it wasn’t scalable; we didn’t have [many] products to offer. However, some of our fans on Facebook started sending us images that they would have loved to see turned into cases.

After months of brainstorming, tinkering and getting feedback – finding the right local manufactures – the CrowdCases model was created.

CEM: Crowd Cases seems to me to be a mix between 99designs (and similar sites) and non-profit work. Everyone wins: the cause is promoted, the designer has a unique opportunity, and the public can buy an original, limited iPhone case. It’s not “charity.” Everyone that’s involved works and benefits. Are there other non-profits or businesses you see taking a similar-minded approach?

CC: Yeah, we definitely looked to 99Designs for inspiration and a few other sites/platforms that we are big fans of. We tried to blend the Kickstarter experience of crowdfunding with the crowdsourcing ability of 99Designs for a specific niche of social good. Other sites that are applying this model, that we are big fans of, are Sevenly.org, TeeSpring.com, and Threadless.com.

CEM: Do you hope for CrowdCases to operate on a for-profit model in the future? If so, how will this work? 

CC: Totally cool question! We are actually a for-profit (S-Corp). We wanted to establish that from the very beginning. Though we donate a portion of each case sold, and pay the designers, and cover our manufacturing cost, we still have been able to have a margin for profit. Being a for-profit company gives us a lot more freedom and flexibility in tackling our goal of changing the world.

CEM: Do you see crowdsourcing as a strategy that’s here to stay?

CC: Yes. The world has changed over the past few years as everybody has noticed; it’s much smaller. We are able to engage with our designers and make them feel a part of something bigger than all of us. Crowdsourcing is the perfect way to get everybody in on the idea at hand, making them just as passionate about the project as you are. The threshold of being just an observer to becoming an ambassador is reduced significantly. That’s what we aim for at CrowdCases. Though only one designer is selected every week, all of our designers are participating in bringing change in the world.

CEM: What has been your promotion/marketing strategy so far? How are you looking to expand this strategy?

CC: Right now, we have been getting a lot of press support, but we know that’s not scalable. We are marketing to our generation Y-ers that want to make a change in the world without feeling the extra cost. We keep our cases competitively priced. Also, the fact that they are limited edition plays a role as well. Helping non-profits build awareness, fundraise, and tap into a younger demographic is no easy feat.

CEM: How do you pick the cause of the week?

CC: The cool thing about CrowdCases is that we have the freedom to move in real time. There are so many causes that need awareness. We take into consideration any national awareness days and try to tap into that attention flow. We are working to get it to the point were our crowd determines the cause of the week via polling. For now, we just pay attention to what’s going on around us and try to move quickly.

CEM: I assume you have to get approval from the organization you’re featuring. What’s the response been like so far?

CC: The response has been great but sometime the ability of the non-profit to move quickly enough can be a little challenging. What we realize to be our biggest strength is not relying on the non-profits for marketing support. Instead, what we do is focus on the cause. That’s the star of our campaigns, as it should be instead of any particular organization. We are building our own crowd of consumers, [which] allows us not to depend on any one non-profit for sales, which allows us to be more creative.

CEM: Anything else you want our readers to know?

CC: Yeah, it’s all about having fun and truly being of value to people. We are looking for graphic designers that want to use their talents for change. As our Chief Designer Aryo always say, “Stay Creative.”

CEM: Thanks for your time, Dwight!

CC: No problem, Ben!

Are you a graphic designer? Want to make a difference? Get involved with CrowdCases!

$1 Billion for Blogs

Ten years ago Google paid an undisclosed amount of money for Pyra Labs’ Blogger. Today, Yahoo is spending $1.1 billion in cash for another popular blogging service: Tumblr. The rumor mill had been mentioning a possible purchase of Tumblr by Yahoo for a week or so. Turns out they called this one right. According to Alexei Oreskovic and Ben Berkowitz at Reuters, this $1.1 billion deal “will use about one-fifth of Yahoo’s $5.4 billion in cash and marketable securities.” That’s a large chunk of Yahoo’s cash and it’s obvious that Marissa Mayer and other decision makers see this purchase as going a long way for the company. There haven’t been entirely official statements released by Yahoo or Tumblr, but the deal will most certainly go through.

Why Tumblr?

Marissa Mayer has been making a variety of moves to bring Yahoo into a more intimate relationship with internet users. They changed their homepage and have more integration with Twitter and other social media sites. They’ve also changed how their ads work and are not shy at all about being in the news.

As Michael J. de la Merced, Nick Bilton, and Nicole Perlroth report for the New York Times, this is the seventh deal “since Ms. Mayer defected from Google last summer” and it’s also “her biggest yet.” Ultimately, as these reporters write, the purchase of Tumblr “is meant to give [Yahoo] more appeal to young people, and to make up for years of missing out on the revolutions in social networking and mobile devices.”

When put in those terms, it becomes even more obvious to me that Yahoo really did miss out on connecting with younger users and the explosion of social media and mobile in recent years. I can’t really recall hearing about Yahoo before Mayer took the reins of the company.

Will it Work?

There is a lot of opportunity for Yahoo to grow its advertising capability with Tumblr. Businesses and agencies will definitely want to keep an eye on how Yahoo manages this purchase. According to Douglas MacMillan at Bloomberg, since 2007, “Tumblr grew to log more than 13 billion global page views in the past month.” Advertisers are just recently being offered targeted placement ads on the service, and I have no doubt in my mind that Yahoo will focus on this.

Despite all of this possibility, Yahoo still has to be careful. Business and agencies would love the ability to tap into the marketing possibilities with a Yahoo Tumblr but going too fast could make the investment backfire. Many users on social media and Tumblr itself are rather angry. Neha Prakash has a great write up and collection of angry posts over on Mashable. Lots of users are claiming that this is “the end” of Tumblr and everything it once was.

At the same time however, Peter Kafka at All Things D writes that Yahoo is promising “not to screw it up” with the Tumblr acquisition. It appears that Yahoo will be letting Tumblr operate as independently as it can. I think that’s the right move for an acquisition this large. Yahoo needs to take their time and show to businesses and agencies that the platform has Yahoo’s full support and that it will work in regards to reaching targeted audiences with its ads.

Is Yahoo’s Tumblr acquisition going to work for Yahoo or will the service suffer under Yahoo’s stewardship? What do you think?

Similar to repurposing content, brands that copy ideas from competitors are able to take advantage of tactics that have made their market counterparts so competitive. Here are a few of the ways in which major brands have flat-out found inspiration from their competitors:

J.C. Penney Channels Its Inner Target

J.C. Penney has struggled recently with nationwide sales and lackluster investor confidence. In fact, the CEO, CFO, and other executive management official have taken radical moves such as dumping 10 million shares to get the company back on the prosperous track. While J.C. Penney cleans house with one hand, they take with another, copying Target’s “shops” strategy. In 2012, Target released a campaign that featured shoppers walking through a “faux main street” in their stores to find clothing. Well, the “faux main street” that J.C. Penney introduced is too similar to Target’s campaign for coincidence.

Microsoft Copies Apple

There’s no denying that Apple has one of the most iconic storefronts in existence. The clear glass walls and brightly lighted interior is a design that has become synonymous with the technology-giant. Instead of simply delivering products, Apple’s store space is designed to deliver a tech-feely “experience” to its millions of customers.

When Microsoft revealed its own retail stores to promote their own line of electronics, the result looks strangely familiar… From the wooden tables to the bright lights to the silver panels, you’d think it was an Apple store – minus the logo. Hey, if it works, it works, right?

Bidding on Branded Keywords

Instead of stealing your content, some competitors directly try to steal your traffic. They do this by bidding on your keywords and stealing users who are searching specifically for your brand. One of the latest examples of this is eBay, who not only bid on branded keywords, but bid on everything. Literally.

How to Copy-Proof Your Ideas

While it’s impossible to completely 100 percent copy-proof your ideas, you can develop an internal long-term strategy that keeps your brand ahead of your copying competitors. To do this, simply continue building on your previous successes. By analyzing what works, you can introduce new tools, services, and elements that keep growing the ideas that work for your brand.

Furthermore, continue expanding your sales funnel to create more path options for your consumers to follow. Content is all about storytelling, right? Then take them through a storytelling journey through your sales funnel. This will set you apart from competitors who try to copy your ideas. And even if they do, you’re always the one who’s ahead of the curve.

Have your competitors ever ‘borrowed’ from you?

While syndication is common in the web, when a party posts your content without your permission, they’ve stolen from you and are tarnishing the value of your original content and its SEO value for your site. Remember, unique content is what keeps your site appreciated by consumers, so be sure to protect your content by:

• Detect stolen content. To stop content scrapers, you must first discover that your content has been stolen in the first place. Sites such as Copyscape allow you to check if content from your URL has been posted anywhere throughout the web. If you use WordPress, take advantage of the trackbacks feature to see if your inbound links are coming from your anchor text that has been posted elsewhere. You can also set up Google alerts to your RSS feed to notify you whenever duplicate content has been posted online.
• Get credit. Once you’ve discovered stolen content, you’ll want to ensure that you get credit for these copied posts. For WordPress users, the RSS footer plugin allows you to place a piece of content (presumably your authorship info) at the bottom of any piece, even if it’s been posted elsewhere. If you don’t use WordPress, be sure you have anchor text that at least links back to your site, so that if the copiers were lazy and didn’t check the outbound links, traffic could still be redirected to you.
• Report the plagiarized content. Before taking drastic action, try contacting the site administrator kindly and ask for them to remove the copied content and take internal action. However, if they don’t comply, you can file a DMCA report through Adsense any time that you find your content copied. Just know that offender is likely going to get banned from Adsense for the offense, protecting the content of you and many other content creators out there. In short, try contacting site administrators first and if that doesn’t work, file a report with Adsense as a last resort.

How to Prevent Plagiarism Online

Sometimes the best medicine is prevention, so be sure to take the necessary steps to protect your online content! One of the easiest ways to do this is through Google’s authorship feature. The great benefit is that the content will be linked to your name and site and even if someone copies it, Google will know that the content is already associated with you. For specific instructions about setting up your Google authorship feature, be sure to read more here.

Have you had problems with thieving content snatchers? What steps did you take to protect your content?