What can brands today learn from Virgil Abloh’s 3% Approach?
Recognised by its iconic use of quotes, distinctive lines, arrows and artistic graphics — Off-White has become a household name amongst the streetwear community. The fashion label, founded by Virgil Abloh in 2012, has seen a mammoth growth in sales and reach since its launch — which has been fuelled by Abloh’s celebrity connections, including the likes of: Rhianna, A$AP Rocky and Kanye West. This influence was soon adopted by many fashion brands globally — the likes of Louis Vuitton, Nike and Levi’s have all collaborated with Abloh on a number of occasions. In 2018 Abloh was named the Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, stepping into the role vacated by his friend and mentor Kim Jones.
That’s enough about the history of Off-white, you can read more about that here. Let’s focus on the 3% rule — coined by Virgil himself.
What is the 3% Approach?
During a Lecture given at Harvard University in 2017, Vigil outlined the 7 key elements of the brand that contributed to its success. He referred to this list as his “Personal Design Language”. One of the components he indexed was the “3% Approach”. This rule was based on Virgil’s concept that he only wanted to change each design and product by 3% from its original state. Once you see Off-White’s recent collaborations and product launches you’ll know exactly what he means:
How can I apply this to my Business?
As consumers we typically sit in the middle of neophilia (a tendency to love new things), and neophobia (not liking new things). Neophilia is fuelled by one of the most important human traits — curiosity. Hadn’t we been curious by nature, I would be writing this piece with a dip pen and delivering it to you via carrier pigeon; mankind’s progress is based on curiosity. On the other hand, new things come with some degree of uncertainty — will this work? Is it worth it? What if I don’t like it?; and uncertainty can act as a barrier of change — preventing people from trying your brand spanking new product.
Therefore, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or make a “big-shift” within the industry, brands should focus on releasing products that are more advanced yet familiar. The 3% rules follows the notion that to sell something familiar you need to make it surprising, but to tell something surprising you need to make it familiar. At an initial glance, Virgil’s version of the converse looks very surprising and “on-trend”, but apart from the added text, diagonal lines and orange tag, the sneaker has hardly changed — its still familiar.
This same method has been adopted by other large corporations like Apple, who are very tentative and cautious about the amount of changes they make to each iteration of their devices. Not because they are averse to drastic changes, but because they know that consumers like to gradually be led through innovation. They like to be surprised with variability, but at the same time safeguarded by security and familiarity. Design for the future, but balance it with your users’ present!
