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.
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.
Luxury QRcodes give advertisers the opportunities to be creative in the ‘noise’. This happens in two ways.
Luxury QRcodes increase the brand footprint, allowing for more brand salience
Luxury QRcodes allow for less copy on page, increasing the size of a visual advert and tagline. This allows the brand to better use the space for generating brand salience. The body copy can be on a website linked by the QRcode together with a call to action. For instance, purchase online through the website or find and book an appointment with a boutique. Both of which fit in with the wider luxury brand move to go vertical into retail. This allows them to own the consumer relationship rather than a multi-brand boutique like Harrods or Lane Crawford.
Luxury QRcodes can personify the brands
The second aspect to this is less noticeable to the casual observer. But carefully done QRcodes can personify the brand itself. The first thing that needs to be done is minimising the data enclosed (for instance using a URL shortener) in the QRcode. Then there is careful positioning of the data within the QRcode square. There were some online tools that used to help with this. The code for tools designed to do this is freely available. QRCode Monkey provides a simple version of this kind of capability.
A classic example of this approach to luxury QRcodes is Swiss luxury watch brand Jaeger LeCoultre. JLC uses some carefully placed watch components in their QRcode and the complexity of QRcodes to human eyes (rather like the visual complexity of a watch movement). It was a subtle understated modification of a QRcode that fitted right in with the brand.
‘The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We’re Dancing on its Grave’ – Derek Thompson – Business – The Atlantic – the golden age of Silicon Valley is considered over because it is now chasing the easy money. In reality this decline from the golden age is an evolution rather than a radical change. The golden age started its end when anufacturing left the valley decades ago. A sign of the golden age being over is that no one owns a silicon fab anymore. The reality is that the knowledge of design is wrapped up in the knowledge of making. A bigger end of the golden age sign is that even coding is outsourced to India. The migration from the golden age, to funding cheap low-hanging innovation over hard innovation is long-term. But the decline of the golden age isn’t anything you can blame Zuckerberg for, he’s merely a beneficiary
Business
Panasonic loss balloons 10-fold ‹ Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion – betting on convergence (doing it badly) and forgetting about quality. They made the mistake of thinking that people buy their brand for being the company logo rather than a complex sum of ‘Made in Japan’ quality, product design that delighted and high performance. They also tried to go for blockbusters rather than niches
Goodbye, hardwired switches and circuits: we’ll miss you (maybe) – “But there’s a downside to the indisputable efficiency of the soft key and touch screen approaches: it’s a much longer path, functionally, from initiation to final action. Perhaps we feel more removed from the consequences of our actions and how they are implemented; that’s a psychological aspect which is hard to assess.” – interesting that EET is talking the man machine interface so seriously on this
Is the 1,9,90 Rule Outdated? – Only Dead Fish – models aren’t accurate predictors but ways that we get our heads around concepts, we take them too seriously. Despite this premise some interesting data here consumer behaviour
The Dishonored Sex: German Writer Pleads For Male Emancipation – Worldcrunch – Men’s greatest mistake was not claiming a place of their own. Three words sum up the male life story: career, competition, collapse.” This may sound subjective, perhaps a tad sniveling, but statistics back up what the author writes. On average, men in Germany die six years earlier than women. Interestingly, the author points out that where the lifestyle of both sexes is equivalent — among monks and nuns, for example, or those living in Israeli kibbutzim – there is no such difference in life expectancy. Interesting perspective.
How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet – its not dead but its not growing and its attached to a rotting corpse, a bit like Yahoo! Finance and Sports. Everything else outside Asia should be lit up and burnt
Worries mount as Nokia burns through cash | Reuters – bit of a non-story. If Nokia doesn’t turn things around in the next 24 months, it’s game over anyway whether they still have cash in the bank or not. Microsoft can’t wait that long
Ferdinand A. Porsche, 76, Dies – Designed Celebrated 911 – NYTimes.com – Butzi Porsche dead. Butzi Porsche came from a family of engineers. His grandfather led the original team behind the Volkswagen Beetle. His father had been part of that engineering team and went on to found what we now know as Porsche. However, Butzi Porsche wasn’t engineer but a designer with technical chops. After an infamous meeting of the Porsche family, no members were allowed to work at Porsche. Butzi Porsche didn’t get to do more after he designed the 911. Instead Butzi Porsche started Porsche Design. Butzi Porsche did product design for other companies. Porsche Design also came out with its own products with Butzi Porsche designing watches, glasses and more. Butzi Porsche resigned from Porsche Design in 2005 due to ill health.
Why Are So Many Americans Single? : The New Yorker – single living was not a social aberration but an inevitable outgrowth of mainstream liberal values. Supported by modern communications platforms and urban living infrastructure: coffee shops, laundrettes
Kraft break-up yields marketing shift: Warc.com – the break-up is ironic when you look at the trouble they went to, in order to buy Cadburys and then break their business down broadly into Cadburys + Jacobs Suchard vs Kraft US.
HK’s rich hesitate to have babies | SCMP.com – interesting takeaways: didn’t want the emotional commitment, time poverty, financial stability / too small a living space and concerned about the local environment not being suitable for children. It was interesting that the education system was given such a hard time, given that it’s better than the UK system (paywall)
agnès b. | VICE – great interview with French fashion designer agnés b
Marketing
Fueling the hunger for The Hunger Games – The New York Times – really interesting comment: …during the 1980s you bought the poster and once a year went to a convention and met your people for something like Star Trek (and Star Wars). It misses out the fact that you are likely to have had real-world friends that you would have talked about it with as well – marketers now seem blindsided to the real-world
Gore-Tex Under Siege from Waterproof Fabric Newcomers | OutsideOnline.com – interesting how Goretex waterproof fabric stranglehold mirrors Microsoft’s position in the technology sector. Goretex was historically under threat from a number of systems that had varying degrees of impact. Hipora is a silicon coating structure invented by Korean firm Kolon, Schoeller’s C change which has temperature dependent venting, SympaTex commonly used when you see ‘no brand’ 3-layer laminate, usually lower price products that would lose margin paying for Goretex licensing. Lowe Alpine’s ceramic coated triple point fabric, but managed Goretex to survive and Lowe Alpine didn’t. There are other competitor products including I suspect that the other fabrics will become niche pieces unless they sort their marketing out. Goretex is primarily a branding exercise, that sets minimum standards such as taped seals. Much of Goretex intellectual property has been voided or circumvented.
Marketing is where the Goretex difference lies now, but it is known for a confrontational relationship with partners.
Kwok brothers arrested by HK watchdog – FT.com – Sun Hung Kai is Hong Kong’s largest property company. Surprising that they are involved as the big firms there generally keep their noses clean (paywall)
The Little White Box That Can Hack Your Network | Wired.com – the Pwnplug is a low-powered Linux computer loaded with hacking tool kits. The Pwnplug can crack wi-fi or power over ethernet connections in theory. It also illustrates the James Bond world that we live in, where the Pwnplug could look like anything, the only challenge being power. Bring your own technology poses additional challenges and would help conceal a Pwnplug. Also IT can’t dismantle or x-ray every every plug socket, phone charger, desk fan or extension lead in the building looking or a Pwnplug. Over time the components for a Pwnplug will get smaller and smaller
Sugar Cane 洗护包-牛仔裤洗护包心水推荐“洗濯屋 仕上屋” ‹ CatWhy 潮流追踪 – interesting move by Sugar Cane jeans – detergent to keep your denim in tip-top shape, coming in both premium care and vintage wash look options
Nissan May Revive Datsun – WSJ.com – brings back memories of the headmistress at my primary school who used to drive a Datsun Cherry 100a two-door in bright yellow (ironically this had sportier styling than the Coupé which looked more like a van from some angles)
