Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Naomi KleinRead
In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand.
Interpretation
In a competitive market, a strong brand identity is essential to stand out.
The quote emphasizes that in an environment where products are easily replicable, businesses must rely on a unique identity or brand message to differentiate themselves from competitors. It suggests that mere product quality is not sufficient; the story and values behind a brand are crucial in establishing a lasting connection with consumers.
In practice
This quote can be used in a marketing presentation to underline the importance of brand identity.
Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Because it is such a huge crisis, because it puts us on a firm science-based deadline, it's a once-in-a-century opportunity to build a better society and address raging inequality, create huge numbers of jobs, rebuild our public infrastructure. But, we can't do it unless we break every single rule in the free-market playbook. Which is why the worst people in the world all deny climate change.
Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.
Everybody that's trying to get anything progressive done in this country knows that the biggest barrier is getting money out of politics.
I think I would say that there is absolutely no way to reconcile an austerity agenda with climate action. Our political class needs to understand that the fight against austerity and the fight for climate action are the same fight.
I think the fossil fuel industry is genuinely freaked out by the combination of the price collapse, the divestment movement, and that fact that renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast.
The idea that you can create a template that will work forever doesn't happen in any business. There's some really, really bright people in this business. You can't do the same thing the same way and be successful for a long period of time.
Conscious means "having an awareness of one's inner and outer worlds; mentally perceptive, awake, mindful." So "conscious business" might mean, engaging in an occupation, work, or trade in a mindful, awake fashion. This implies, of course, that many people do not do so. In my experience, that is often the case. So I would definitely be in favor of conscious business; or conscious anything, for that matter.
We used to think that the enterprise was the hardest customer to satisfy, but we were wrong. It turns out, consumers are harder than the enterprise because the consumer will not give you a second chance.
Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.
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