Why We Buy (30 page)

After the Gladwell article appeared in the fall of 1996, the queries from potential licensees from all around the world multiplied. Every week a new call would come in from someone who wanted to partner up with us. It was very flattering stuff. One of the most wonderful things about our business life around that time was the number of clients who showed up on our doorstep ready to hire us. They were
presold, first on the
New Yorker
piece, and second on this book. For a guy who'd once saved money on hotel rooms by napping in his car and washing up the next morning at the nearest gas station, after all those years of not knowing whether this business would fly or go crashing to the ground, it was gratifying beyond belief.

In the wake of the
New Yorker
article, one note that showed up in the mail grabbed my attention. The letter writer—I consider him now my white knight—was a Japan-based licensing agent named Kaz Toyota who represented a number of top-tier clients in the U.S. and was responsible for licensing their offices across Japan. He'd read the
New Yorker
article and found out more about our business online. And he not only offered to scout out for us the right Japanese licensee but volunteered his future daughter-in-law, Momo, as a guide.

During the first four years of my Japanese business life, Momo Toyota became my mentor for all the ins and outs of Japanese culture. She'd spent part of her childhood in the U.S. and Australia and understood the cultural gaps I was coming up against. We'd visit different shopping districts and go to malls and even a shrine or two. She'd answer every question I asked, no matter how dumb or personal it was, with a little giggle—followed by an honest, thorough, thoughtful answer. When Momo got married, I sent her and her new husband tickets to come visit me in New York. They took me up on the offer and stayed in my apartment. She has two children now, the oldest named Emma, and I keep up with her through her private-access website, Let's Go Emma.

If it was keys to the Japanese culture I was looking for, then Momo handed me a big, valuable set, and for that I'm forever grateful. She taught me everything from the Japanese family structure to the nation's preoccupation with keeping clean to the unspoken protocol of gift giving, and about the nuances of bowing, and knowing when to show your back to someone and when not to, how long and how low to the ground your bow should be when one person is leaving, when to turn and who turns first, when you can feel free to cut your bow short—in essence, how best to do honor to your hosts. I actually grew up in Asia. My father was a diplomat and my sport of choice through my teenage years was judo. I had a head start in Japanese culture compared to most
foreigners, but Momo gave me an accelerated course in technique and finesse. Every day, I'd stow away more and more information, which no doubt made me come across as more of a sophisticate than I usually felt on the inside.

There was only one speed bump: my name.

When I went to Japan for the first time to work, it became clear that the Japanese faced an uphill climb with the word “Underhill.” Something about it just wasn't easy for them to say. One day, I just came out with it: “Please—call me Paco-san.”

Now, you have to understand that for the average Japanese businessman, this was a radical suggestion. For Americans, it would be like addressing your beloved grandmother with “Yo, Gloria.” No one in Japan ever addresses anybody by his or her first name. But once we'd gotten over that little name hump, we could all relax.

Looking back, I'm sure a lot of my ease within the Japanese culture, and their ease with me, had to do with my being physically big and friendly, but also with the fact that I'd picked up a few cultural nuances thanks to Momo. Little things such as adding “chan” to a woman's name—an affectionate suffix that sets up a chummy but respectful relationship with a younger female. For a boy, the equivalent is “kun.” With a few of my Japanese clients, I've said, “If you want to call me Pacokun, it's okay with me.” Usually they're shocked that I even know these terms, never mind that I just suggested they call me that. At the same time, I think they enjoy the novelty of it. I'm both being playful about their culture and revealing my genuine interest in Japan at the same time. This is a country where people are always amazed that someone not only speaks even a few words of their language but actually
processes
how the culture functions on a daily basis. Those little things count for a lot.

This new informality I have in Japan even includes my wardrobe. On my first few trips there, I wore a coat and tie everywhere I went, or a suit. Then one day it was very gently pointed out to me that I was Paco-san and could wear a bathing suit and a bunch of kiwifruit on my head for all anybody minded.

For comfort, I have to say that nothing beats a buttoned-up white
shirt and a nice pair of khakis when you're strolling along the streets of Tokyo.

In a totally male-dominated society such as Japan, our managing director, Uchida-san, stands out like a lotus flower. Some people collect Beanie Babies, or Coke cans, or driftwood. But along with her ability to function on no more than two or three hours of sleep a night, Uchida-san has what must be one of the most elaborate frog collections in the world, and it even carries over to her person. I'm talking about frog earrings, frog pendants, froggy necklaces. Even at traditional company meetings, Uchida-san will arrange to have someone wearing a frog costume greet you at the door and usher you to your seat. Thank you, frog.

Tom Waits, the American rock and roller, has a song I can identify with. The chorus is “I'm big in Japan / I'm big in Japan.” When this book first came out, it sold very well here in the States but especially well in Japan, Canada and the Netherlands. I chalk this up to the fact that these are all countries where manners matter a great deal. Which is one of the major concerns of this book—how to decipher manners and behavior.

One question we get asked all the time is what makes shopping different in other countries. My first response is to point out what's the same all over—which I like to think is the basic subject addressed by this book. Our eyes age the same way whether we live in Tokyo or Chicago or São Paulo. Our basic human measures fall under the same parameters: the length of our arms, how our hands work, the fact that almost all of us are right-handed. We love our children and like our spouses most of the time. We tend to move in similar groups made up of friends, couples and nuclear and extended families.

That said, there are some fundamental things that make shopping and the physical environments we live in different based on where in the world we live. The first is the relative density of the population. Tokyo, and to an even greater extent Mumbai, is a crowded place; Dallas and Los Angeles are extremely spread out. The sheer luxury of space alters the mix. After all, one of the key measures for the success of a store is sales per square foot. If I'm looking at a Japanese store in Ginza, the
sales per square foot may be at least ten times as high as the same store located in a strip mall outside Chicago. The denser the physical environment, the less hard management has to work to get people inside a store. In Tokyo, some department stores are ten floors high, with one escalator after another. In the same city, you'll even find high-rise restaurant buildings, with a different restaurant on every floor. No one in the U.S. would even think to open up an Applebee's on the fourth floor of a high-rise.

The second factor is the level of economic prosperity where you live. North America and Western Europe have a very high standard of living, and while poor people live everywhere, you won't find the same level of poverty here in the West that you do in parts of Asia and Africa. The contrast between rich and poor often sets up security issues that have a profound effect on the physical environment. For example, a Brazilian shopping mall offers a degree of safety and security that the street can't.

A third factor is the weather. The difference between Dubai and Helsinki is that in one place you have to manage the heat, and in the other, the cold. And then, of course, we face issues of national culture and customs.

Place your tray table in its upright position—we're touching down in Bangalore, home to Envirosell India.

An intriguing place, India. A country that's currently on the roll of a lifetime. The sense of national pride and patriotism—the belief that now is their time—is pervasive. Nothing to argue about there. Just take a look at Mumbai's or Bangalore's state-of-the-art factories, plastics industries and petroleum processors. At the same time, the country's core infrastructure is coming apart at the seams, and India still has the most primitive retail of any country in the emerging world. From clothing to groceries to cars, the overwhelming majority of retail is still being sold in ma-and-pa stores. Thus you're subject to the vicissitudes, prices and variable standards of whoever's operating those stores (there's no quality control and, as of 2008, no big-box chains). The country is still under the hard-to-shake shadow of three hundred years of British colonialism and domination. In fact, one of the things I find utterly charming when
I'm over there is hearing the same expressions I remember from when I spent the fifth and sixth grades in the British Army School in Kuala Lumpur. Like “What a cheeky guy.” It's as though all those 1950s locutions are locked in time.

India may be showcasing its new industrial stardom, but a measure of civic pride is still waiting to show its face. In most Indian cities, brownouts and blackouts are an everyday occurrence. Generators hum at all the major hotels, while the rest of the city flickers like an old unreliable lightbulb. Just as in Brazil, there's a high level of prosperity, but on the other hand, the images on the street can be a shock if you're not steeled against them—lepers; eunuchs; scrawny cows; ulcerous dogs; people wandering across the highway, barely noticing the oncoming traffic.

For all its problems—its lack of civic cleanliness, its obsession with status and caste and pecking order (have a look sometime at the amazingly detailed and snobbish personal ads in the local newspapers)—India is a fascinating place. Sometimes off-putting, but always fascinating. Even if we hadn't been approached by India's largest retail consulting firm to license a Bangalore office, which has serviced a mix of consumer product manufacturers and technology clients, I ask myself every so often, would I go back there?

Yes—in a heartbeat.

 

We've taken a U-turn, heading back home. But first a brief sojourn in Moscow. Snowy, sure, gray, sure—but as exciting a destination for retail as exists nowadays. Alexey Pryanishnikov heads our spanking-new Envirosell Moscow office. An avid diver and cyclist, Alexey also has one of the most complete commands of colloquial English I've ever heard—which he claims he's picked up from watching American movies. Our Russian partners are brand new, and as Alexey might say, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Next stop: smoggy, wonderful-as-all-get-out Mexico City. Seventy percent of all market research taking place in Mexico happens here—so if you want to open up an office in this country, you're in the right
place. Needless to say, drink all the beer you want, but the water's off-limits except for snorkeling and coral gawking.

In 2002, Manolo Barberena, the well-connected, U.S.-educated son of the former governor of the state of Aguascalientes, approached us on behalf of Pearson, a Mexican full-service market research firm he'd founded. The firm's roots were in political polling, and Manolo also served on the boards of ESOMAR, the European market research trade association, and CASRO, its American counterpart. He had an impressive command of the research business, and among the things I liked best about him was his encyclopedic knowledge of rock 'n' roll. Pearson was already working with Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, and Envirosell rolled in seamlessly as part of the suite of services that Pearson offered its clients.

Today, our Mexico City branch is one of our most autonomous, classically focused market research offices. Like our colleagues in Brazil, they're extremely proud and extremely capable. One of the things we'd like to see more of in the future is a greater collaboration between our Brazilian and Mexican licensees. There's a language barrier there, both real and imaginary. Or it might just come down to getting two very able overseas heads—one an alpha male, one an alpha female—to work more closely side by side.

Bangalore. Toyko. São Paulo. Moscow. Milan. Mexico City. Despite the leg cramps and the stiff back and the rotten movie we had to endure about the teenage ice-skater, that wasn't so terrible, was it?

I think about it this way: Being able to stand up in front of a U.S. audience and talk about retail overseas is, I believe, one of the things that makes Envirosell distinctive. To be able to address a Midwestern mall owner and say “I was in the new Tokyo Midtown Shopping Mall two weeks ago, and this is what they did,” or, “I've been to Dubai five times now, and they look at that problem this way.” It's not to be confused with bragging, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't come across that way. It's just a fact of life for a road warrior who's always been fascinated by how the rest of the world ticks.

We've also made a concerted effort to hire employees who speak more than one language. Today in our New York offices, we have people
who are fluent in Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and a bunch of Asian languages and dialects. I consider having a language skill a critical part of a career in business. If the only language you speak is English, you're frankly at a disadvantage.

I can't help but wish more people felt that way. It bothers me sometimes how downright
uninterested
so many Americans are in leaving our shores and expanding their foreign knowledge base. Or that so many people are scared to travel. Part of it has to do with the shaky times we're living in, but another part comes down to just plain lack of interest. A shame. Especially since one of the true highlights of my life is accompanying either a friend or an Envirosell colleague overseas for the first time. Watching someone I care about discover the third dimension gives me a true kick.