And1 + other stuff

6 minutes estimated reading time

And1 tapped culture

I worked peripherally on And1 early on in my career, but it didn’t catch fire in Europe than it did in the US. I hadn’t known the full extent of the buzz marketing campaign that backed up the brand in the US. Here’s the early versions of their ‘mix tapes’, which did for street football what skate videos did for skateboarding in the 1980s. They blew up street basketball in the US, in a similar way to the X Games blowing up extreme sports. ESPN got on board with a sports related reality TV show with players competing for an And1 team contract.

But all the buzz marketing didn’t get the cut through that Wieden + Kennedy’s Freestyle TV advert did, effectively depositioning And1 from its street ball territory. Then there was a tie-up show on MTV2 that was similar to the And1 | ESPN show of the previous year. The lesson I took away from And1 was that product and reach both matter. Nike could buy reach and And1 didn’t have any product of note after the Tai Chi.

China

Road to Nowhere: Debts Mount with China’s Prestigious Silk Road Project – DER SPIEGEL

Opinion | Why China will become ever more dangerous as its baby bust worsens – The Washington Post – closing windows of opportunities will change risk appetite

Consumer behaviour

Am I burnt out, or is this just life now? Stylist magazine – interesting op-ed

Economics

UK inflation to hit 18.6% next year according to Citi | Financial Times

Energy

Are We Ready for a Swappable EV Battery? – Power Electronics News

Hong Kong

MACAU DAILY TIMES 澳門每日時報 » The Star’s ties with Chow Tai Fook under questions amid alleged triads links – Australia’s Star casino had the Chow Tai Fook business family as investors. There were allegations of connections to triads. It makes sense for criminals to be interested in the jewellery business because of the opportunity for money laundering and smuggling. But Chow Tai Fook is such a big name that is a stalwart of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and a huge brand in Asia. More here: Queensland government endorsed Star casino stake for Hong Kong company with Chinese Triad links – ABC News

Innovation

Photonics Computing Converts Decades-Long Skeptics – EE Times Europe

Opinion: Intel’s ‘smart capital’ is a warning from the past | eeNews Europe – the author considers the rise of private equity to fund new silicon fabs as a warning of peak semiconductors. Similar things happened in the 1980s and 1990s when large businesses like Coca-Cola helped fund manufacturing facilities. The key difference this time is how globalisation has been thrown into reverse by ‘Made in China 2025’ and hostile moves against Taiwan

A Simple Fuzzy Logic based Neural Model – EEWeb

Luxury

Loss of Chinese tourists forces Europe’s luxury retailers to rethink | Financial Times – A recent surge in Middle Eastern tourists, as well as US visitors buoyed by the strong dollar, has helped fill stores. Eduardo Santander, CEO of the European Travel Commission, said the lack of Chinese tourists left the many luxury retailers that relied heavily on them with “a huge feeling of loss”, but had spurred “a huge effort to diversify”. Retailers have personalised their services. During Europe’s Covid lockdowns, shop assistants contacted customers via WhatsApp with tailor-made recommendations. Berg sees a “possible return to the old idea of service and store management from the 1990s, the little black book with all the customers’ addresses and preferences in it”. “You have to do much more to attract local customers,” Berg said. “They can come back, they have more time to spend, versus an international customer that was determined and straightforward.” – A few thoughts on this: The article asserts that Chinese tourists are straightforward and not picky. I think Chinese tourists are very picky by comparison, although the diagou’s supplying lower tier cities or buying to order might appear to be ‘luxury hoovers’. Secondly, luxury brands have treated non-Chinese customers abysmally (in particular the watch makers like Rolex and their retail partners like the Watches of Switzerland group) and they deserve all the problems that they get. Only focusing on the Chinese market has allowed the Chinese customers to blow up the secondary market. A straw poll of people that I know who have a Rolex from the past 10 years or so:

All of them had to buy their watch on the secondary market
About 80 percent of them had original warranty cards with Chinese family names, which is far higher than the 30 to 40 percent share that Chinese consumers make of the global luxury market

Finally, I don’t see the market coming back in the same way given Xi Jingping’s focus on common prosperity which will make luxury consumption increasingly problematic.

Marketing

Byron Sharp skewers Binet & Field’s 60:40 rule, smashes attention metrics, BVOD ad stacking, multi-channel amplification effect – Mi3 – interesting read, I think his assessment of Binet and Fields based on data quality doesn’t sit right.

This New Study Reveals How Brand Loyalty is On the Decline / Digital Information World – I see this as more indicative of economic recession rather than any major change. Gallup showed that traits such as preference for green products decline in a recessionary environment, it would make sense if brand loyalty took a similar battering in favour of private label brands and substitute products