Human-Driven Experience

1What Have Brands Lost Over the Past 30 Years? Recognize, Remember, Recommend, Relevance

No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

—David Attenborough

When I was a kid—and in the context of space and time, it wasn't all that long ago—department stores were a really big deal. And the most notable one in Chicago, where I grew up, was Marshall Field and Company, more commonly known as Marshall Field's. The business was founded in the 1850s, and its flagship store on the corner of State and Washington Streets burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The owners rebuilt the store, it burned again in 1877, and the owners again rebuilt—triggering years of growth and profits as the company eventually broke out of its Chicago roots and expanded across the country through numerous acquisitions.

Marshall Field's was always a magical place for a little kid like me because, in the 1970s, the downtown Chicago store's toy department spanned an entire floor. Like every other kid anywhere in the area, I loved to go there. My dad was known by the salespeople in the department because he regularly brought me there to check out the latest offerings (and being an avid model railway enthusiast, he also regularly bought items for himself). As soon as the manager of the department manager spotted my dad, he would make the effort to connect. “Hey Walt,” he would say to my dad, “it's good to see you. How have you been? ...