This strategy dispatch includes contributing insights from Tony Wang of the consulting firm Office of Applied Strategy. Tony is, without exaggeration, every strategist’s favorite strategist. He was the first person I met in the industry when I moved to New York four years ago, and I’ve been lucky to consider him a good friend-slash-mentor since.
Marketing a brand without a clear product philosophy is an uphill battle.
Every strategist has been there. Maybe it’s an industry rite of passage: being asked to position a brand with products that lack distinction. You end up crafting smoke and mirrors, trying to create a reason to believe where none exists. Decks fill with interchangeable buzzwords—craftsmanship, innovation, emotion, storytelling—that blur together across every category.
That’s why, when I work with founders, I don’t stop at mission statements or brand values. I push further—into the product itself. I dig for the underlying belief system embedded in what they’re making. Because a brand and product that reaches cult status isn’t just functional or aesthetic; it communicates an ownable point of view on how its user should live in the world.
When that point of view is clear, the rest gets easier. Strategy sharpens. Messaging, content, the right influencers—they start to (almost) reveal themselves.
Omotenashi and Lexus
In Japanese culture, omotenashi translates to whole-hearted hospitality—the act of anticipating someone’s needs before they’re expressed. You see it in tea ceremonies, where every gesture is choreographed with intentionality. In ikebana, where arrangements are created for the viewer, not the arranger. It’s hospitality as experience design—subtle, precise, and entirely selfless.
Lexus has built its entire product philosophy around omotenashi. Their engineers study sado and ikebana not as hobbies, but to build a lens for decision-making. Every detail of the experience is designed with quiet generosity.
Malcolm Gladwell observed this firsthand in a 2020 episode of Go and See, after visiting Lexus’s headquarters in Japan. As a self-proclaimed car nut, he expected technical innovation. What surprised him was how thoroughly omotenashi shaped the brand’s R&D.
One moment stood out: the window in the Lexus LS. As it closes, it slows ever so slightly before sealing shut—not for safety, but to soften the sound. The result is a gentle, padded thunk.
It’s easy to miss until you realize it mirrors the exact motion of sliding closed a wooden door in a tea house. The deceleration, the hush, the respect embedded in that final gesture. The parallel is entirely omotenashi in action.
A small detail, but a significant one. The product of countless hours of development, all to create a feeling that most drivers will never consciously register, but will absolutely sense.
That’s product philosophy: a deeply-rooted belief system engineered into experience.
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