Video summary
Rory Sutherland begins his analysis of airport experiences by critiquing the industry's tendency toward homogenization, noting that shopping centers have become obligatory fixtures in airports rather than novel amenities. He introduces a strategic framework called "reverse benchmarking," inspired by Roger L. Martin and illustrated through the story of Eleven Madison Park. Instead of copying competitors' strengths to avoid falling behind, Sutherland argues innovators should identify areas where leaders are mediocre or overlooked and excel there instead. For example, when visiting the world's top restaurant, he observed that while their wine service was exceptional, their coffee was average and beer drinkers were treated as second-class citizens compared to wine enthusiasts. By doubling down on these neglected aspects—appointing a dedicated "coffee sommelier" and creating an extensive craft beer menu with pairings—the team created a unique value proposition that competitors could not easily replicate. Applying this logic to airports, Sutherland points out the natural benchmark against international hubs like Dubai or Singapore Changi, which were once seen as shopping destinations but have since become standard expectations. In contrast, London City Airport offers a superior experience by minimizing time spent in terminal buildings and getting passengers directly to gates within six minutes. He suggests that premiumizing airport experiences is often easier on the ground than in the air, citing an innovative solution at Washington Dulles International Airport where lounge vehicles drive directly to parked aircraft. This approach utilizes the Soviet-era TRIZ principle of making stationary things move; by moving the lounge and parking planes near runways, airlines save fuel, reduce taxiing time, and can expand capacity simply by purchasing more mobile lounges rather than constructing expensive new terminal buildings. Beyond physical infrastructure, Sutherland highlights opportunities for innovation in digital convenience and customer service logistics that are currently ignored by major players. He notes the absurdity of hotels failing to offer dual-screen setups where guests can easily plug laptops into high-definition TVs without removing them from walls. Similarly, he proposes a simple yet transformative change for car hire companies: meeting passengers at arrivals gates with keys and walking them directly to their vehicles. Currently, renting a car is fraught with friction involving shuttle buses, pre-registration hurdles, and complex ID verification processes that create anxiety rather than convenience. By treating the airport environment more like a parking lot where services are seamless upon arrival, businesses could eliminate these pain points and significantly improve traveler satisfaction without requiring massive capital investment in new buildings or technology. The overarching conclusion of Sutherland's discussion is that true innovation often lies not in competing on established metrics but in finding what competitors have completely overlooked to do exceptionally well. Whether it is elevating the treatment of beer drinkers at a Michelin-starred restaurant, utilizing mobile lounges to bypass gate constraints, or simplifying car rental handovers, these strategies rely on shifting focus from technological capability alone to aesthetic usability and human-centric details. As seen with Steve Jobs making technology beautiful despite average underlying tech, Sutherland emphasizes that success comes from identifying the "ground floor" of an industry where everyone else is complacent and applying rigorous attention there. This method allows companies to differentiate themselves effectively, turning minor oversights by competitors into major competitive advantages for their own brands.
Read the full video transcript
How would you improve airport
experiences? I've spent a lot of time in
airports recently.
>> So, I mean, one of the interesting ones
is they're too big. I mean, the, you
know, the the shopping center component,
which was novel when it first started,
has now become obligatory and you
basically have to walk through the
Houston Galleria before you can catch
your plane. Um, and um, London City
Airport, you've probably used that, have
you?
>> No, I've never been. you know, okay,
it's
what what this is this is what's so
funny. Okay, so there's an idea I'm
playing with in marketing generally and
in innovation which I call reverse
benchmarking. Okay, so the idea is what
most companies do is they benchmark
themselves against their competition.
Now the great writer on this is a guy
called Roger L. Martin who's my own
personal he's Canadian, my own personal
business guru, extensive writer. He was
dean of the Rottman School in Toronto
and he wrote a piece called Benchmarking
is for Losers. Okay, that all you do is
you you diminish your margins by making
yourself in direct competition with your
other competitors.
So you don't benefit uh your uh your
profits or your shareholders and also
you don't benefit your customers. Okay?
And the reason you don't benefit your
customers is because they're then
deprived of choice and and
differentiation. And you don't benefit
the overall category because the
category loses value because it's more
homogeneous. Okay. And my argument is
and I got this inspiration from that
great book. You've probably had him on
Wilcadara. Have you ever had him on?
>> No.
>> Okay. Unreasonable hospitality.
Fantastic book about a guy who ran 11
Madison Park. He's a major sort of food
innovator in all kinds of ways.
I think he's married to the woman who
invented cereal milk, which I think is
one of the most brilliant inventions,
which is, you know, the milk you get at
the bottom of cocoa pops would be the
British, which is tastier than anything
else you've ever drunk. And she had the
inspired idea of just flavoring milk
with breakfast cereal and selling it as
a drink, which I' think is just genius.
Okay. Now, his brilliant thing was he's
number 50. I've told this story a lot,
so apologies to people who had this
before. He's number 50 uh restaurant in
the world in the San Pelgrren restaurant
awards. It's a three star Michel
restaurant in New York. That's 2011. He
wants to get to number one. Pretty, you
know, remote ambition. It's not going to
be easy. But one of the things he did
was what I call reverse benchmarking. He
took his team to the number one
restaurant in the world and they started
doing what we all do, which is how are
we doing compared to them? They do this
really well. Let's copy it, etc. And at
the end of the whole experience, Gdara
just goes to seem, I'm not interested in
any of that stuff. They're already doing
that well. If we merely copy them, no
one will notice. What I want to know,
given that you've just been to the best
restaurant in the world, according to
San Pelgrino, um, is what what was a bit
disappointing,
cuz we're going to double down on that.
All right.
And the the approach was they finally
came up with two things that were a bit
disappointing, which was one, the coffee
was nothing special. I mean, I found
American coffee quality unbelievably
high variance. And they just said it was
fine. The coffee wasn't disgusting. It
was just there was nothing particularly
interesting about it. And of course,
because he' taken a few people to the
kitchen along, a few of them wanted to
drink beer. And the beer drinkers were
treated a bit like secondass citizens
compared to the wine drinkers who are
given all manner of [ __ ] with a you
know sleier and a load of conversation
about the terois you know and so he goes
back to his own restaurant and he
appoints one of his guys who's a coffee
obsessive the coffee sleier and another
guy I think from the kitchens who is
obsessed with American craft beers or
all craft beers he makes him the beer
smell now imagine you're in this
restaurant now most of the people in the
restaurant aren't going to ask for beer
here, but 10 or 20% of them will. Okay.
And and they're expecting, yeah, we got
Sam Adams on draft or we've got this in
bottles. And instead, they get a beer
menu from the beer simlier with
suggested beer pairings. You know, the
citrus IPA goes really, really well with
the cod or whatever it might be. Now,
those people, you've blown their minds.
Okay? It's not a question of, "Hey, that
was a bit better than I expected." So
this reverse benchmarking is find out
something that your competitors have
completely overlooked,
do it really, really well and I would
argue as a marketer and then actually
turn it into a feature, you know,
spotlight it. And you could you could
almost take this and make it into a I'm
not going to say it's everything, but
it's a generalized theory of innovation,
which is, you know, what Steve Jobs did
was take a field where everybody was
focused on the tech and the capability
of the machine
to the complete exclusion of any
aesthetic or usability consideration.
>> You made it beautiful.
>> And what he does is go, okay, now what
what I'm not saying is you can be [ __ ]
at the technology so long as you make it
lovely. No, you merely have to be kind
of, you know, what you might call top
desile in what you do somewhere else.
But then you go off and you find the
area which everybody else has ignored.
And I I look at things like I'm a big
fan of the Moxy hotel chain. I often
talk about that. And what that is is
double down on the ground floor. You
know, make the ground
>> we work on the ground floor. Don't feel
weird when you've checked out.
>> And that that's one of the marvelous
benefits you discover through
experience. uh you know that actually
after I've checked out of a moxy I every
other hotel makes me feel homeless but
the moxy you you know you okay take your
shopping trolley and your plastic bags
and go and push them through the streets
until your flight leaves whereas in the
moxy you just hang out for another 5
hours and get on with some [ __ ] and
order their coffee and you don't feel
remotely unwelcome.
>> So what would you do to airports?
>> Right, that's a really interesting
question. Um
uh what interests me about London City
Airport is the fact that there's a
natural benchmarking tendency which is
that when I was a kid the rich kids had
been to you know they might have been to
actually would have been Dubai back then
Shar but they've been to Skipol or
they've been to Changi in Singapore they
go it's amazing those shops you know
it's like cuz back then we hadn't seen a
shopping center before and it was really
novel you know I bought Walkman you know
it was fantastic right And then suddenly
all airports became like that. Okay. And
suddenly people went, if you've been to
London City, it's incredible. You go in
and 6 minutes later you're at the gate.
There hardly any shops. It's brilliant.
Okay.
>> So there is a really really interesting
idea. I mean there is scope, lots of
scope for really interesting innovation.
>> Um I think it's a lot easier also. It's
worth noting it's a lot easier if you
want to premiumize an experience. It's a
lot easier to in innovate on the ground
than it is in the air. Now there is a
fantastic thing which a friend of mine
called Jeremy Stone tells me about which
is at Washington Dallas where they still
have these vehicles which I think were
designed by Oros Sarinan the Finnish
kind of inventor where your lounge
drives to the plane.
Okay. So you get in something that looks
like a room where you're all sit sitted
down and you know you've got a few
little tables and you're comfortable and
then the actual lounge is on wheels and
drives to the plane.
>> Wow. Now, it's a really really
interesting innovation because there's a
Soviet era innovation thing called Tris
uh which is it's the Russian fora
technique for creative innovation or
something and they have a whole list of
kind of principles one of which is make
the thing that stays still move and make
the thing that moves stay still.
>> It's just something in kind of
mechanical and engineering innovation
which is a different way of looking at
things. And so what's interesting about
that of course is you the planes don't
need then to go to a gate. So the
constraint first of all you probably
save a lot of fuel because the plane
doesn't have to spend so much time
taxiing. The plane can be parked pretty
much next to the runway.
>> You can have a much smaller number of
gates or whatever it is.
>> And you and it means that every time you
expand your airport you just buy a few
more vehicles. You don't have to go into
a1 billion dollar
>> well. You treat you treat your airport
more like a car park than a building.
>> Right. How can we slot these different
maneuvering Lego pieces together so that
they can [ __ ] off in a straight line
toward where the plane is?
>> Here's a weird one. So, one thing would
be nothing to do with airports
themselves, but it occurred to me the
other day. I was thinking I was trying
to do a bit of reverse benchmarking. No
hotels offer you a monitor,
>> okay? You might have a 4K You might have
a 4K, you know, 85 in TV, but in order
to plug your laptop into it, you'd have
to rip the thing off the wall. Okay.
It's weird to me that no hotels offer a
dual screen experience. And it's weird
to me that car hire companies, if you
wanted to, if you wanted to employ all
of America's young people in the summer,
see, see if you agree with me. If you
could pay a car hire company, very
simple thing. You pay a hundred bucks,
okay? And it's big money, okay? We will
meet you at the arrivals gate and with
your keys and we will walk you to your
car. Oh yeah, that's good. Like a
concurge
>> because Yeah, because that's the wor a
car hire is terrifying. If you if you're
familiar with the airport, it's fine.
Okay, if you're going
>> Where's the Avis? Oh, no. That's the
We've moved off site. So, there's a
shuttle bus that I need to get through.
Yeah, I haven't pre-registered my
driver's ID. All of this stuff hasn't
been submitted. Here's a QR code. Here's
a single piece of ID that says I'm the
person with the QR code. Here's a
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