Ged Carroll

Category: luxury | 奢華 | 사치 | 贅沢

Over the space of 20 years, luxury changed enormously. The Japanese had been a set of new consumers for luxury, but in terms of numbers they hadn’t eclipsed the US as the biggest market for luxury.

China’s ascent into the WTO (World Trade Organisation) made a lot of business people and politicians a lot richer. China challenged the US in terms of luxury market size. On their rise, Chinese consumers changed a lot in their sophistication as they educated themselves on luxury consumption.

These new consumers picked up new traits such as wine drinking. This also meant that luxury goods became new asset classes as Chinese money looked to acquire only the best. Chinese culture in turn impacted luxury design. Chinese new year became more important than Christmas.

Then there was the second generation money. Young rather than old consumers. Consumers who were looking for something less formal, either because they didn’t wear anything but streetwear or they worked in the creative classes rather than the traditional professions and high finance.

The industry had traditionally avoided rap artists and R&B singers, now Jay Z and Beyonce are the face of Tiffanys and Fendi had collaborated with Rihanna.

They no longer wanted to have to wear a jacket and tie to have afternoon tea at the Mandarin. They took an eclectic look more attuned to the Buffalo Collective than Vogue Italia.

You had hybridisation with the street to create a new category of luxe streetwear in a way that also owes a debt to football casual terrace wear and the pain.

Now you have Zegna badge engineering approach shoes from alpine brand La Sportiva and Prada has done a similar thing with adidas’ iconic Stan Smith tennis shoes. Balenciaga with their Speed Sock looks like a mix between Nike’s flyknit football boots and the Nike Footscape sole.

As I have written elsewhere on this blog:

Luxury has traditionally reflected status. Goods of a superior nature that the ‘wrong sort’ of people would never be able to afford. Luxury then became a symbol that you’d made it. In Asian markets, particularly China, luxury became a tool. People gifted luxury products to make relationships work better. It also signified that you are the kind of successful business person that partners could trust. You started to see factory managers with Gucci man bags and premium golfwear to signal their success. Then when the scions of these business people and figures in authority were adults, luxury has become about premium self expression.

  • Swatch and Brexit + more

    Swatch and Brexit

    Swatch have been doing some interesting things around personalisation of watch design, but Swatch and Brexit feels like a leap too far. They’ve got a really nice user experience in the web interface, which makes this a disappointing post to make. I do wonder about who they think Swatch and Brexit is actually aimed at? What other fashion or luxury brand has looked to exploit Brexit like a tawdry souvenir seller?

    swatch brexit

    More Beyond campaign

    Cathay Pacific – Move Beyond campaign might have passed by without a mention for me for a number of reasons.

    • It doesn’t say anything new, but reaffirms the Cathay Pacific that I’ve known and loved to fly with
    • It’s very much a campaign designed to top up brand awareness and consideration for the airline which has taken some brand knocks at home and declining awareness abroad
    • It’s about brand purpose, which seems to be a hygiene factor at the moment. More on that from Mark Ritson. I am not sure that Cathay Pacific’s brand purpose passes Ritson’s test of being prepared to stick with the brand purpose, even when it costs money – like when they moved away from having the Mandarin Oriental handling lounge catering…

    Creatively its nice. A generic, safe looking brand film with catalogue corporate video backing track. I know Jack Scott shot it and some of the cinematography is nice (that word again), the colouring of the film is on point for money well spent. As an audience member it is pleasant enough to watch drift by, but not necessarily enough to spike a change

    In fact, if it wasn’t for the MTR (Hong Kong’s equivalent of London Underground and Overground) and Hong Kong International Airport outdoor advertising it would be utterly forgettable. One of the print posters has a couple of clothed men holding hands running on a beach. An ideal compromise between a socially conservative society and western virtue signalling.

    Cathay Pacific LGBT

    The poster wasn’t initially allowed to run on the MTR or in Hong Kong International. I heard some murmurings of China’s dark shadow casting a censoring hand on the posters – by westerners on social media. To be honest, they’d be more concerned about dealing with free speech, Falun Gong supporters, the Hong Kong independence movement rather than homosexuals being encouraged to walk on a beach in business smart suits.

    Instead the reality is more mundane. A minority of Hong Kongers: Taoists, Buddhists, the non-religious and Christians alike are a bit ‘mid western American’ about the gay community. There is an obvious tension between deeply-held beliefs, the longevity of the family through children and grandchildren. Thankfully, the LGBT community and straight supporters managed to have the ban reconsidered.

    William Chan Chinglish

    I am guessing that Chanel has insights to show that women buy its J12 watches, whether as a gift for someone else or themselves. William Chan is an interesting brand ambassador choice in this video. There is criticism in the YouTube comments on his pronunciation and ‘Chinglish’. It also feels a bit too ‘sweet’ to me. At least he’s a good boy who loves his Mum.

    Royyal Dog

    Asian Boss put together this great documentary on Royyal Dog – Korea’s top graffiti artist.

    Sony

    Lastly I found this amazing corporate film by Sony of their corporate history that I guess was shot in the early-to-mid-1970s. The manufacturing process, in particular test and measurement being so labour intensive is fascinating. The 5 inch micro-TV set is a beautiful piece of product design, as is the early Trinitron TV set. The hi-fi equipment is achingly beautiful. Well worth watching it from start-to-finish. More Sony content here.

  • Innovation in hardware + more

    Innovation in hardware

    How Streetwear Is Driving Innovation in Hardware | HYPEBEAST – the innovation in hardware that Hypebeast is concerned about is fasteners clips and connectors in clothing and accessories. Some streetwear brands are using zips in a similar way to Vivienne Westwood during punk. They are borrowing from technical clothing, military gear and alpine sports for inspiration. More design related content here.

    Branding

    Cause Marketing Isn’t Working for Young People – Adweek – according to DoSomething’s survey, “Nike still only secured a 60% aided awareness of an association with any cause at all and only 27% with racial justice.” – doesn’t work unless it goes beyond a single campaign. This also has implication for this work and ZBB

    FMCG

    P&G’s Pritchard wants to ‘reinvent’ advertising with films as streaming disrupts landscape – literally going back to soap operas

    Legal

    Brussels poised to probe Apple over Spotify’s fees complaint | Financial Times – Spotify trying to weaponise anti trust law against Apple in a similar way to Amazon did in the US over Apple Books a number of years earlier. Spotify | Time to Play Fair – of course, fails to discuss issue of when is Spotify going to play fair with artists?

    Luxury

    Ralph Lauren’s CMO on retelling its brand story to ‘reach the kid looking for Supreme’ | The Drum – “We’ve marketed those in a very bespoke, very direct way to newer audiences. We can market on one hand to someone who’s been into the brand for 20, 30 years, who wore Polo Sport back in the 90s, but we can also market that product mix and that story to a younger kid who’s looking for Supreme. – hype isn’t only about media targeting yet according to this puff piece its all about digital media technology which is BS. It indicates a wider lack of focus there on craft, planning style insights, design, curation, the move to online ‘drops’ on certain collections

    Media

    Where North and South Korea Meet: On TV – The New York Times – I do feel a bit concerned that these people aren’t treated with more respect (paywall)

    Vince McMahon’s XFL Sets TV Deals With Disney, Fox | Hollywood Reporter – second time around. The league originally ran in 2001 and then folded with a 50+ million dollar loss

    Technology

    Anki shutting down despite $200 million in funding – Axios – bigger question consumers must start to have about having cloud in the product, is it really that smart as a model. I personally don’t think so. Also should cloud and product be sold by different companies a la Alexia and Harmon Kardon etc

    Why doesn’t Britain have a Huawei of its own? The answer speaks volumes | The Guardian – goes back further than Thatcher with the wider UK banking culture, Walker, Goldsmith, Rowland. The lack of a long term management culture and lack of equivalent to the landesbank’s of Germany. But a good deal of the blame has to be laid at the feet of BT

    How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster | Bloomberg – Angela Ahrendts was a paper tiger in Apple’s retail stores. But I’ve not had as bad as an experience as the ones outlined in the article

    DeepGlint: the Chinese AI firm that helped police catch a criminal who had been on the run for 20 years | South China Morning Post – is it China’s technology or its implementation that is more of a paradigm shift. I am inclined to think implementation

  • Peepy and Mother Lee + more things

    Peepy and Mother Lee take influence to the next level. These Thai influencers are on point with style that crosses gender boundaries and is atemporal in nature. I am surprised the Peepy and Mother Lee don’t get more publicity outside Thailand. I am also surprised that they haven’t become the muse of a prominent fashion house or two.

    They look like precisely the kind of people someone like Vivienne Westwood would embrace as a muse. More on luxury here.

    Yet another way of landing the same Burger King message: Burger King’s flame-grilled glasses are too hot to handle | Creativepool. Having worked on FMCG brand, I know how hard it is to continually land the same messages in different ways that won’t generate groans from the client base. These are brands that people have known for decades, it’s hard to say the same thing in different ways that don’t jade audiences.

    This Adobe marketing gimmick was going around a lot of the people that I know – Creative Types – the characters are nicely drawn, but I don’t know how accurate they are. I suspect something even less accurate than the MBTI. This was clever because people want to find out more about themselves, its an itch that they can’t help but scratch. In return Adobe builds their marketing email list.

    Great economic analysis on China from the DLD Conference earlier this year

    Tristan Harris is getting a lot of traction for his message in wonkish circles and I don’t see big technology firms having their ducks in a row to deal with the outcome. I suspect that some of the problem might be what I describe as a wilful autism. 20 years ago, Silicon Valley was a place with utopian outlook, the unforeseen outcomes happened when the internet reached a societal critical mass.

  • Chinese typing + more things

    The complexity of Chinese typing. Chinese typing relies extensively on predictive text technology. It is even more problematic that Chinese people are forgetting what some characters look like. The idea of memory trade-off is interesting. It is also worthwhile considering when one thinks about Chinese internet behaviour and the popularity of gaming (because chat can be a pain)

    Meet Liam. He has 5000 Instagram followers, but no pulse. | Campaign Asia – Nikuro is Japan’s first male virtual influencer. A 3D computer-sculpted head mapped onto to a live-action body, he seeks work “in the fields of music, fashion, and entertainment, where he will be involved in the production of a wide range of content as a multimedia producer”, according to the company, which also mentions using AI to create innovative content – digital influencers won’t misbehave, have a me too moment or be arrested for a criminal offence.

    An amazing looking Mac-based desktop phone. This was an Apple prototype from 1993. Eventually things went the other way and phones were integrated into computers. This was from back when people were starting to think about VoIP services and Novell Networks integrated telephony solutions. And that’s before we even get to smartphones.

    The quaint industrial case design is classic early 1990s Silicon Valley chic. You can also see aspects of the thinking of General Magic’s connected devices in this computer. More design related posts here.

    Kantar Media has done some qualitative research on consumer attitudes to marketing, media and advertising. You’ve got three reports that are free to download: Dimension 2019 | Kantar 

    Finally: TODAYonline | LVMH shares hit record high as China demand boosts luxury group – luxury is still on a bit of a screamer in China. And this is despite economic growth halving year on year since Premier Xi took power, a clampdown on corruption and gift-giving.

  • Netflix DVD service + more things

    Why 2.7 million Americans still get Netflix DVD service in the mail – CNN – Netflix also has plenty of DVD customers in urban areas who prefer the service for its convenience and selection of movies, spokeswoman Annie Jung says. “People assume that our customers must either be super seniors or folks that live in the boonies with no internet access,” she says. “Actually, our biggest hot spots are the coasts, like the Bay Area and New York.” – Netflix DVD service in the US covers the long tail like arthouse cinema and cult classics that the streaming service doesn’t address. They are two differentiated offerings rather than substitutes now. It is interesting that Blu-Ray hasn’t displace Netflix DVD service. More on Netflix here.

    Audi’s New Electric Car Factory Goes Green | Wired – Electric vehicles consume more energy than gasoline-powered rides during manufacturing and manufacture is 70% of a gasoline powered car’s carbon footprint. Something to think about when you drive a Tesla rather than a classic vintage Land Rover or diesel Mercedes

    Luxury Daily | Jean-Paul Gaultier is the latest brand to collaborate on streetwear – with Supreme. I think the outsider reputation of JPG fits streetwear really well, in its heyday it really got culture (paywall)

    How Rolex Is Revamping Its Digital Channels: 3 Marketing Innovations Not To Miss | Luxury Society – interesting how they are melding brand purpose and product messages

    How US went from telecoms leader to 5G also-ran without challenger to China’s Huawei | South China Morning Post – Interesting how Qualcomm is implicitly being blamed in this op-ed. There is no consideration of the implosion of new telcos following the dot.com bust for instance which took out fixed line equipment etc – Verizon and Sprint chose the CDMA mobile standard, developed by US firm Qualcomm, which operated on different frequencies than GSM, adopted by Europe. After the initial boom in the mobile industry following deregulation, the US telecommunications industry began to decline from 2001

    The Quietus | News | RBMA And Red Bull Radio To Shut Down – “Red Bull will be moving away from a strongly centralized approach, will gradually phase out the existing structure and will implement a new setup which empowers existing Red Bull country teams and utilizes local expertise. Red Bull will continue to explore new ways to support promising and cutting-edge artists wherever they may be.” – major move

    New Huawei phone has a 5x optical zoom, thanks to a periscope lens | Ars Technica – reminds me a lot of Konica Minolta’s pocket digital cameras (the first standalone digital camera that I owned), everything old is new again

    Irish government concludes there is no viable plan B | total telecom – “We still don’t have universal 4G coverage so it’s a bit of a pipe dream to suggest we are going to have universal 5G coverage to deliver the national broadband plan,” the country’s communications minister, Richard Bruton, said. – To be fair, London doesn’t have universal mobile coverage, let alone 4G coverage.

    Google’s work in China benefiting China’s military: U.S. general | Reuters – “The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,” Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” he said. “Frankly, ‘indirect’ may be not a full characterization of the way it really is, it is more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.”

    Increasing The Effectiveness of PR Agency Partnerships in China | Holmes Report – Insight from R3’s China PR Scope Report reveals that though PR agencies are highly regarded in content (23.7%) and media management (17.8%), they are not particularly strong in KOL and celebrity engagement (3.9% and 1.3%) – if I were an international agency I’d be really concerned about this. It shows a failure to adapt that is probably more spectacular than in the west

    U.K. Pub Chain Bans Mobile Phone Use in Bid to Encourage Talking – Bloomberg – our pubs are for social conversation person to person – actually no they’re for drinking

    BrandZ says Huawei is strongest Chinese brand outside China, but why? | Marketing | Campaign Asia – despite lots of documented geopolitical issues, the year was still very good for Huawei in terms of branding, driven by focus on 5G and R&D leading to chip-level AI capabilities, foldable phones and other innovations, said Doreen Wang, global head of BrandZ at Kantar. – for an index that’s looking at marketing and advertising being converted to brand equity this isn’t good news

    KFC Bought a Time Slot on Ultra Music Festival’s Main Stage | Music News | Consequence of Sound – you can see how this would all happen in a William Gibson book plot about the bankruptcy of culture in the near future. A client hungry of innovation and a desire to resonate with millennials and gen-Z. A jaded creative director who liked DeadMau5 and the agency’s news sponsorship and cultural partnerships team. I’m just surprised that there wasn’t a SnapChat tie in somewhere

    Facebook’s most shared story of 2019 is a 119-word local crime brief from Central Texas. | Slate – interesting insight into how Facebook’s algorithms drove this

    What Finally Killed AirPower | iFixit – Apple boxed themselves into an electromagnetic corner. What they wanted to do was physically possible—and they surely had it working in the lab—but they couldn’t consistently meet the rigorous transmission requirements that are designed to keep us safe from our gadgets.

    Report: Huawei Riddled With ‘Long Term Security Risks’ – ExtremeTech – In short, Huawei isn’t trying to riddle its software or hardware with secret back doors, but it’s also really, really bad at security. That’s not a conclusion that’s hard to fathom, particularly given how many companies have been hit by security breaches or had their own poor practices exposed – Huawei aren’t Machiavellian, they’re just incompetent and unwilling or unable to fulfil their infosec commitments?

    T-Mobile Introduces Private Phone Booths for Making Calls, Surfing the Web, Taking Selfies | Frequent Business Traveler – so in the same business as WeWork then

    The Apple Card is great (playing devil’s advocate) | Boarding Area – the money quote in this article ‘Here’s the part where I pretend to love the card and argue why it really is cool and revolutionary.’

    Chupa Chups logo, designed by Salvador Dali | Logo Design Love – Salvador Dali designed the logo, just wow

    Appl Still Hasn’t Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm | WSJ – this is quite shocking (paywall)