Memorable service experiences happen when someone satisfies an emotionally-intense personal interest with in a unique way. 20x200, with the simple mission of providing art for everyone via a simple internet distribution, qualifies - at least for me.
I love great art, but my limitations are those of many: I appreciate it when I see it, but I don’t often have the time to look for it. When I do happen upon it, what I find is often out of my spending range for something so completely discretionary.
20x200 offers a simple formula for selling limited edition art prints online: only a couple features per week so as not to overwhelm, provided in three sizes with three corresponding price points. The smallest is a 200-edition run of a $20 print, and works up to a 2-edition run of a $2,000 print.
What ties my interest to an emotional trigger is a personal feeling that art, like design, has become elitist, counter to the idea great design makes the underlying good – product or service – more accessible rather than less. (Universal accessibility is as much what makes the iPod an iconic as the usefulness & simplicity of the interface.) Building from the beautifully simple motto “(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone”, 20x200 embraces accessibility of art wholeheartedly.
Many online retail sites that could satisfy my personal interest in affordable art. 20x200 is a memorable experience by doing so while helping me easily find something I’m interested in, make it accessible, and link their mission to an personally held belief.
The paradox of insular language
1 year ago
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2 comments:
If you're a fan of Blue Ocean strategy framework, as I am, seems to me 20X200 has found itself one. As I read your post, I thought back to another company that created a Blue Ocean in a similar fashion - by taking the snob factor out of something and tapping into a whole new customer base.
That company is Yellow Tail Wines. Prior to Yellow Tail, wine came in two varieties (not varietals) 1. cheap wine in a box that tastes like crap or 2. expensive wine in a fancy bottle that, for a huge portion of the consumer base, tastes like crap. Yellow Tail discovered a market for and a process for producing a $10 wine that actually had appeal to a broad range of palates.
Sound like 20X200 has found a similar niche in the art world - a broad untapped demand between the Spencer Gift black lite poster of Jimmy Hendrix and the art gallery, unaffordable original 'works of art'
Thanks for the find!
Thanks for the comment Barry!
I am familiar with the Blue Ocean framework, and think that 20x200 has found a successful niche by making great art accessible far beyond its traditional reach.
Related, there was a lot of chatter on twitter last night about what the oft-used & misused term "disruptive innovation" is and is not. The recurring themes came back to "technologically advanced", “dramatically lower priced” and “simple”.
At least for this narrowly-defined niche, a lower-priced, simply executed business model that uses technology in a way not traditionally used by the industry has the opportunity to be disruptive. (or at the least win a small legion of raving fans)
The example also hits a personal belief for me that one of the hallmarks of great design is that it is accessible to all (or at least most). Art, like wine, is one of those products / markets where price exclusivity is seen as a positive, when producers in both cases could be looking to make their wonderful creations more available rather than more exclusive.
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