Luxury Marketing

Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization's makeup and success — along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like... I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.

To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.

The flaw of target marketing is that it assumes people are indifferent to variety. Suburban white boys won't listen to Rap because supposedly they can't relate to urban black youths hopping around to all beat and no melody. What we get is music segregation on the airwaves and the record racks.