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This has really paid off. Since 2000, they have received over one hundred citations at the world's top design awards in the US, Asia and Europe. In 2004, they won five awards at IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Awards). In 2005, completing more than a decade of reform, Samsung clocked up just over $10 billion in profits, making them the world's most profitable tech company. In his book
Change Begins with Me
, chairman Kun-Hee Lee said of their change from a me-too commodities producer into a leading design-based firm that in a world where products were fast becoming commodities, Samsung would never thrive on scale and pricing power alone. They needed a creative, competitive edge.

A flipstar worth talking about!

FGC + EASY

My favourite service in the world is Pronto Valet Parking at Sydney's domestic airport. I board a lot of flights. I also have young children, so I like to come home as much as possible in between commitments. It is not uncommon for me to go to the airport and park three times in a week. I have gotten to know the boys that park my car, and I can't tell you how much easier they have made my life.

You pull in less than a hundred metres from the terminal, leave your car running, give them your ticket, tell them roughly when you will be back and off you go. I would have missed a dozen flights last year without them, so needless to say they are fast. This service costs an extra $15 for the first twenty-four hours and $5 for every twenty-four hours after that, which considering how much time and stress it saves you would be a bargain at twice the price. So it's cheap too. I have never had a problem with my car, so I would have to say it is good too. Most of all though, it is easy. They go out of their way to make it so. The roster is perfectly designed to meet the high-demand spots. They open your boot for you when they return your car. They take all forms of payment. And they are always well mannered. My mate Avril Henry, who leads a similar lifestyle, felt so indebted to the Pronto guys that she bought them a case of beer for Christmas last year.

Airline frequent flyer programs, airline lounges and hotel loyalty cards are all examples of ways in which a service provider can make a service easy. There is little doubt that we are feeling a lot of pressure around time. Not only that though, I would suggest we are feeling even more pressure on our mental space. We feel like we just can't take anything more in, not because we don't have the time, but because we don't have the mental energy. Increasingly affluent customers who feel increasingly stressed about their mental energy being in short supply will pay a premium for easy.

On the topic of being a road warrior, consider the innovative new approach to servicing and selling cars from Mercedes-Benz called Airport Express.Mercedes set up both a service centre and a dealership at major city airports. One compelling reason for doing this is that these are high traffic areas where exposure is good. And the people who travel regularly are usually professionals and are likely to fit the Mercedes target market. But the real winner is that it makes it much easier for Mercedes owners who travel to have their cars serviced.

But it is not like they just service the car. They wash it, do the dry cleaning you left on the back seat and run any other errands they can. Oh and they drop you at the terminal and pick you up. Clients also get a goodies bag to take on their flight, with chocolate, bottled water, muesli bars and loose-leaf English breakfast tea. They have introduced flower delivery and gift-buying services, which Belinda Yabsley, my good friend and former manager of the Sydney Airport Express, describes as 'things we have time to do but customers don't'.

Clearly it's working. Within twelve weeks of opening, the Melbourne operation welcomed its 500th service customer, and sales were running at
twice
the projected levels. But Mercedes-Benz Australia spokesman Toni Andreevski says it's not solely about revenue at each Airport Express location. It's about marketing. Says Andreevski, 'It's a way for us to add value to the brand by giving customers a tangible benefit. It's a different form of advertising. We could have spent half a million dollars on a billboard, but instead we're giving people the Mercedes experience, rather than a photo of it.' I would suggest that in time it will also prove to be very profitable. It is too good not to be.

Of course it is not just Mercedes that do this sort of thing. As discussed in chapter 2, 'Fast, Good, Cheap – Pick 3', Lexus was the first luxury car brand to offer a heightened level of service. Before that, luxury car makers told the following story to their customers: 'You're lucky we sell you our expensive cars, and we and our dealers will bleed you dry at frequent regular service intervals and even more frequent irregular repair visits.' Lexus was the first brand to make everything easy for the luxury car buyer, changing the game for every other manufacturer, as flipstar Toyota has done in every segment of the car business. Toyota has not yet set up a Lexus version of Airport Express, but if they decide to do so, they would be a good bet to change the game there too.

As things stand, Lexus will pick up your car for service at your home or work. They leave a replacement for you to use, and when they picked up my wife's car recently they happened to leave the new model, prompting her to express interest in upgrading. They too return the car clean, with Lindt chocolates on the front seat. However, Lexus go a step further. As part of their brand story (something we will talk a lot more about in a few pages) they align themselves with 'high societ?' establishments, but do so in an unusual way. In Sydney, for example, you get free parking at the Opera House. It is not like Lexus owners can't afford parking, it's just
easy.

FGC + MEANINGFUL

A trend growing in momentum is the desire for a deeper meaning in life. Gordon Gekko's 'Greed is good' has given way to a desire for a sense of purpose. It is not that we don't like money and conspicuous consumption, it is just that a satisfied need no longer motivates. Once we are doing well financially and our survival needs are met, we start to look for more. Psychologists call this the hierarchy of needs, and the pinnacle is self-actualisation.Westerners are self-actualising all over the place. Yoga, new age, self-help. You name it, if it promises enlightenment people will buy it.

Let's have a look at some examples.

Yoga

In 2006, Americans spent almost $3 billion a year on yoga classes, equipment, clothing and videos. Roughly 16.5 million people were practising yoga at home or in classes – up a massive 43 per cent from 2002.

The readership of
Yoga Journal
in Australia has doubled in the past four years to over 350,000. That's a phenomenal readership level for a journal – it rivals some newspapers! In Australia in 2003, more people participated in yoga classes than played Aussie Rules at any level (311,000 versus 308,000).

Self-help/life coaching

Self-help literature fills bookshelves these days. Some of it can be enormously helpful, some of it is nothing more than (poorly) repackaged pop psychology designed to turn a tidy dollar for the author. It's now big enough that
The New York Times
gives 'advice publications' its own category in its bestseller list.

Anecdotally, from just the big sellers, it's clear that this is a hugely popular industry. In 2006, Australian Rhonda Byrne's self-help book
The Secret,
helped into prominence by Oprah Winfrey devoting two shows to it, had a run on sales in the US of about 3.75 million copies (displacing Harry Potter as the bestseller of that year). It also sold over 400,000 audio books. Stephen R. Covey's
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People
has sold more than 15 million copies in thirty-eight languages.

But if those isolated anecdotes are impressive, think of the industry as a whole. The dollar value of this market sat at around US$8.5 billion in 2003 and is projected to rise to over $11 billion by the end of 2008 and a whopping $13.9 billion by the end of 2010; $693 million was spent on self-help books in the US alone in 2006. An estimated 40,000 people in the US work as 'life coaches' and this $2.4 billion market is growing at a rate of 18 per cent per year.

In 1986, the American Self-Help Group Clearinghouse had 332 associations on its roster. Today it has over 1100. According to Dr John Norcross from the University of Scranton, at least 75 to 80 per cent of Americans will use the internet at some point to access self-help information about their health or career. Almost 20 per cent will visit, in person, a self-help group. A 2004 survey found that one in every three Americans had purchased a self-help book. In Australia, over a million copies of self-help books were sold in 2004, at a value of more than A$24 million.

FGC + FUN

When you are selling a product or service that has substitutes, and your cost structure prevents you from doing much else, you could always just make it more fun. This is what Virgin Blue has done in the extremely competitive Australian airline industry.

Virgin Blue is not only about fun, of course. The airline is definitely fast, good and cheap, and it is also green. The Virgin Blue website proudly announces that Virgin is 'the first airline in Australia to have a comprehensive program for carbon offset'.

But in keeping with the cheeky, iconoclastic brand identity of Richard Branson and all Virgin businesses, Virgin Blue pushes the envelope on the fun side of flying. It is not uncommon for the customer service manager on a Virgin Blue flight to announce a fake destination. You see customers start freaking out, only to hear the customer service manager say, 'Just joking,' and move on with the rest of the announcements. On one Virgin Blue flight, I was sitting with a chap who was carrying two boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts (which he totally didn't need, mind you). When we touched down and people started collecting their carry-on luggage, the flight attendant told him that in the state of Victoria you couldn't bring any food or drinks into the terminal from the plane. He was very apologetic and asked where he should leave the doughnuts. She said she would take care of them. A full thirty seconds later, as the doors were opening, she told him she was joking and that he could have his doughnuts back. He was so embarrassed he almost refused them.

While Virgin Blue has not been a run-away, show-stopping success, most suggested it would never last. Since its first flights in August 2000 the airline has proven that not to be the case. Even with the arrival of Jetstar, offering even lower fares, fun seems to be keeping Virgin competitive. In addition, one of the problems Virgin had was that its primary story – 'We are the fun, low-cost airline' – didn't attract business-class passengers. Originally they thought it was just that the message wasn't getting through, so they poured money into advertising. But eventually they found that 'fun' just doesn't cut it for businessclass travellers, who really want to be treated with an extra level of care and to stay connected while in the air. Virgin introduced the Velocity club for frequent fliers and fully flexible fares. These options, and the ability to pay an extra $30 to get a front row or extra roomy exit aisle seat, now make Virgin a viable option for businesspeople flying at times and to destinations that Qantas business-class service doesn't reach.

Now it is not that business-class travellers don't like fun. They do. They just need the travel experience to, above all, be easy. On its trans-Atlantic flights Virgin Atlantic has turned on the cosseting style in their business-class offerings. Including an in-flight bar, flat-sleeper seats (like the Qantas SkyBed) and masseuse, as well as a limousine transfer and first-class waiting lounge,Virgin Atlantic offer the complete service experience – both at sea level and at 40,000 feet. Anything to help business travellers feel better prepared for that first day of meetings in London or New York.

In-flight extras include dining when you want and eating what you want (rather than the traditional 'here it is, eat it now' style).And the amenities kit actually has beauty products as well as basic toiletries, complimentary noise-reducing headphones and extra-large in-chair video screens.

FGC + HEALTHY

Healthy may be the strategy with the most competitive advantage over the next couple of decades. The only thing more important to baby boomers than staying healthy in their retirement years is having the money to enjoy their youthful energy and appearance (bet on the plastic surgery industry continuing to soar as part of that trend, too). And Generations X and Y are even more fitness-obsessed than their parents.

Let's have a look at some examples.

It has taken just twelve years for Fitness First to grow from a single club in the UK to a sixteen-country, 500-plus gym and 1.2 million–member organisation. Sydney was home to the 500th Fitness First gym in 2006. In 2005, Fitness First was acquired by a private equity firm (BC Partners) for over US$2 billion. It is the fastest growing health club company in the world; in 2007 Fitness First registered an 18 per cent growth in earnings and was on track to match its 2006 record of forty-nine new clubs worldwide. In the UK, the company has enjoyed sixteen consecutive months of impressive like-for-like sales growth (even excluding the impact of new clubs).

Organic food only accounts for 1 to 2 per cent of food sales worldwide, but the organic food market is growing rapidly. The organic food market in the United States has enjoyed 17 to 20 per cent growth over the past few years. Meanwhile conventional food sales grew only at 2 to 3 per cent a year, or in other words about the same rate as the growth in population. Multinationals are beginning to see the value of these products and to invest in organic produce, leading to increased competition, increasing economies of scale, and a subsequent decrease in price and increase in accessibility to fuel the market and force heavily polluting and industrialised agribusiness to clean up its act. Earlier in the chapter I talked about Wal-Mart's green push into practices and products that further environmental sustainability. That has included a substantial increase in organic food offerings in the grocery sections of Wal-Mart stores.