» HADOUKEN « plastics...there's a great future in plastics
There are so many reasons to love Mike Nichols' 1967 comedy-drama, The Graduate. Perennially ranked in the AFI's all-time 20 greatest films, it is perhaps most celebrated as the legendary Dustin Hoffman's breakthrough role. Playing Benjamin Braddock, a smart yet aimless 21-year-old east coast college graduate, Hoffman listlessly returns to his picture-perfect midcentury family in Los Angeles. Completely oblivious to his dejection, the Braddocks give him a hero's welcome. Moping about his parents' home day after day, Benjamin's malaise is perhaps most poignantly summarized by his deep, devoid of any emotion, staring at the family goldfish as if to say "hang in there, buddy, I too know how it feels to live inside a fishbowl." The plot picks up--as does his life--at the conclusion of his homecoming party where Benjamin is seduced by the wife of one of the partners at his father's law firm.
The reason I love The Graduate most, however, can be summed up in one word: plastics.
While dizzyingly navigating his own party, Benjamin is hit with a barrage of well wishing family members and friends who are quick to offer him career advice when a neighbor politely, yet profoundly, wisps him aside. "I want to say one word to you, just one word. Are you listening? Plastics."
The joke is certainly a bit lost in translation today. However, to know it is to know the subtle brilliance of the film and to know that the term "millennial" was simply made up by a lazy, conniving marketer explaining to a client why his bag of old tricks were not working on contemporary youth--these kids sure are different than their parents, and boy is it tough to get through to them!
In 1967, the thought of making absolutely everything out of the lightweight synthetic celluloid was still a novel concept. Hell, some futurists thought we'd be manufacturing airplanes entirely out of plastic. So it's fitting that a middle-aged businessman standing on his pulpit preaching to a leader of tomorrow would find that opportunity ripe and wise. However, it's not so much the message or even the messenger as it is the reception by Braddock that makes this scene, and the movie, so special. The young, perceptive and "woke" Braddock, in line with most of his baby booming peers, would have rather worked in literally any other field than plastics. To work in plastics would signify surrendering to the vapid and superficial hopes and dreams of generations-past. It would signify settling for the norm established by a square, conforming, consumer-obsessed and materialistic society. No self-respecting rebellious millenia...baby boomer...with aspirations to find himself could ever work in plastics.
Is "technology" today's version of "plastics"? Upon finishing Nick Srnicek's Platform Capitalism, an examination of the transformation of global capitalist systems since the 1970s, the answer to that question would appear to be a "yes," of course with some caveats. "Platform capitalism," according to Srnicek, is the natural progression of our capitalist system, a transformation that signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy. It all began in the 1970s when the dawn of globalism brought a downturn in manufacturing in the west (PLASTICS!) which ushered in the financial services boom of the 1990s. When the global financial markets collapsed in 2008 financial institutions, seeking a higher rate of return for their capital, began deploying said capital in technology. This infusion of trillions of dollars into the technology sector brought about swift and revolutionary changes in the digital economy. Most importantly, it brought about platform capitalism: the development of monopolistic (and even parasitic) digital economic ecosystems housed on platforms (e.g., Google, Amazon, AirBnB, Uber, WeChat, Alibaba etc.) that serves as the foundation for value creation among peer users who in turn generate content and data that is used by the platforms to sell more services.
With Emperor Trump's inauguration just a few weeks away, we are starting to see some fissures in the technology sector. And with whispers of federal regulations--from antitrust to disclosure to insurance--aimed at platforms seemingly coming down the pike, the fissures may develop into actual cracks. In the world of "growth over profits" by which many of these platforms abide, is a day of reckoning coming? Will good old fashioned capitalism give platform capitalism a nice crack in the mouth? Will investors finally stop pumping money into digital platforms, many of which have yet to, and may never (looking at you, Uber), actually turn a profit?
While those questions are better left to be answered by economists, I will make one assertion: even if platform capitalism is more fragile than any of us had previously thought, there are plenty of lessons to be learned here by the fashion industry. One needn't look any further than Amazon, a platform that is poised to become America's largest apparel retailer by year's end, to unearth some gems. Vertical and horizontal integration is the name of the game, a game whereby Amazon has invested so heavily in sourcing, production, logistics, fulfillment and sales that they are now light years ahead of their competition. Couple that with data mining and their extremely lucrative B2B cloud computing service (which is used by everyone from McDonalds to Netflix) and we really start to paint a picture of operational efficiencies.
So how can a puny-by-comparison retailer or brand compete? Chip away at it. Develop platform-esque services that play into your core competencies. Have a strong private label offering? Invest in a factory. Have a robust community of likeminded, niche clientele? Look into developing a chat service that connects them to each other and your inventory. Located in a city where you stand to gain assisted conversions through mobile? Focus on developing an app or "gameifying" the experience with proprietary rewards that users can "unlock." No cash for inventory? Turn the store into a showroom that drop ships from your vendors' centralized inventory. High rate of returns? Look into developing a subscription model to address cash flow issues that come from subsequent temporary no-stocks. Don't have proprietary content? Farm it out to users for discounts and special offerings. Make compelling content? Sell it to other retailers as if you were the fashion version of the Associated Press.
Whatever you do, don't just drum up a direct to consumer brand that sells generic goods with no story or soul at a discount--a brand that creates a race to the bottom for everyone else. While I'm generally a huge proponent of direct to consumer retail, you gotta come with something special. Don't be the cheaper (not "less expensive," cheaper) version of someone else. That's the 21st century equivalent of plastics, and plastics are dead.