Marketing guru Seth Godin recently published this value triangle on his blog:
No matter what business you’re in, it’s worth giving some thought to this. What do you offer?
At the bottom of the triangle is function. A hotel room functions as a place to sleep. A smartphone functions as a device to make calls, send text messages, and download some apps. A condominium functions as a place to live, eat, sleep, have sex, and so on. But all functions being equal, most of us will buy whatever product is the cheapest.
That is until there’s an emotional connection. I love the way Seth frames it: “Where do people like me do things like this?” It is about defining who you are. Am I the kind of person who buys A or am I the kind of person who buys B? If I care deeply about the environment and B promises to respect that, I am likely to buy B.
But then, moving even further up the triangle, if two items offer the same function and the same emotional connection, many of us will go for the one that appears sexier, shinier (the new iPhone 7 is very shiny), and more stylish. It just deepens the connection.
Finally, at the very top of the triangle is now. This is about scarcity. What’s hot right now? Think of that new restaurant that just opened downtown that you haven’t been able to get a table at. It’s now and you want to Instagram the food so badly so that you can show everyone you were there. You want to be now.
The point of all of this is that we consume things for reasons that go well beyond simple function. That’s just the start of it all. One could argue that all of this is simply smoke and mirrors, but that’s a topic for another blog post. This is our reality.
To relate this topic back to architecture and real estate, I am curious how many of you have made a housing decision that you believe went beyond function. How much of it was based on connection and style?
Not surprisingly, for me, architecture and design matter a great deal.
Earlier this summer I was driving around the city with my father and he was pointing out to me all of the new build single family homes that were sprouting up. He then asked me what I thought of them. I responded: “They’re shit.”
What I was really saying with that glib remark was that those homes – no matter how expensive – didn’t reflect my own belief system about the world. Sure they served their function, but they didn’t offer the connection and style that “people like me” like to praise. To borrow once again from Seth: we are all part of a certain tribe.
What tribe do you belong to? And does your housing choice reflect that?
Merry Christmas and/or happy whatever you happen to celebrate around this time of year.
Hopefully things have slowed down for you all and you’re relaxing with family and friends either at home or somewhere on vacation. I’ll be doing that here in Toronto and making pancakes for breakfast, because that’s what I like to do on Christmas morning.
If you’re in the market for some long form reading material while you relax, I recommend you check out an article in The Walrus called, After the Troubles. It’s by Toronto-based planner Joe Berridge – who is a partner at Urban Strategies – and it’s the story behind his team’s Belfast City Centre Regeneration Strategy and Investment Plan.
It’s a fascinating and entertaining read, and there are lots of comparisons between Toronto and Belfast. Here’s a little taste:
“IT WOULD BE HARD to conceive of two cities more different than Belfast and Toronto. One old world, one new; one grand, one utilitarian; one barely ticking over, one growing like topsy. And of course, one tribal, the other the epitome of post-tribe. Belfast is 96 percent white—forget about Catholic-Protestant, that’s the critical urban statistic. And yet it’s important to remember that Toronto itself was once the largest Orange town in the world. (Wikipedia asserts that every mayor of Toronto since its founding was an Orangeman until Nathan Philips, a wonderful Jewish mayor, was elected in 1954.) Even the current mayor, John Tory, draws his name from a bunch of brigands and royalist cattle thieves in the Irish backcountry.”
I spent a bit of time in Belfast when I was working in Dublin (2007) and so it was particularly interesting for me to read about his assessment of the city. Like Berridge, I found the city eerily empty during off-peak times. But it’s an architecturally rich city and a fascinating city for urbanists because of all that has happened.
Though now we are talking about “after the troubles.” Things are progressing. And that strikes me as a positive thought while I make my pancakes on Christmas morning.