Consumer behaviour is central to my role as an account planner and about how I look at the world.
Being from an Irish household growing up in the North West of England, everything was alien. I felt that I was interloping observer who was eternally curious.
The same traits stand today, I just get paid for them. Consumer behaviour and its interactions with the environment and societal structures are fascinating to me.
The hive mind of Wikipedia defines it as
‘the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services.’
It is considered to consist of how the consumer’s emotions, attitudes and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, marketing and economics (especially behavioural economics or nudge theory as its often known).
I tend to store a mix of third party insights and links to research papers here. If you were to read one thing on this blog about consumer behaviour, I would recommend this post I wrote on generations. This points out different ways that consumer behaviour can be misattributed, missed or misinterpreted.
Often the devil is in the context, which goes back to the wide ranging nature of this blog hinted at by the ‘renaissance’ in renaissance chambara. Back then I knew that I needed to have wide interests but hadn’t worked on defining the ‘why’ of having spread such a wide net in terms of subject matter.
A Skype retrospective was called for once I read that the service was being closed by April 2025.
Skype retrospective origins.
Skype was a thing right from the get-go when it launched in August 2003. There had been voice-over-IP (VoIP) services before Skype. Full disclosure, I worked on Deltathree; an Israeli predecessor of Skype.
About this time, if you needed to make cheap overseas call, you would dial in to a special service and then dial the overseas number. This would relay your call via VoIP. These calls were also facilitated direct from a PC as well using VoIP.
Previously, telephone calls were charged per voice minute. The further away the call was, the more expensive it was. VoIP disrupted the telecoms cost model.
Enabling technologies.
As broadband networks became more prevalent and Wi-Fi meant that you were no longer tethered to the ethernet connection of your router. At the time homes had an area delegated for internet access. Laptops were much less commonplace.
The original iMac was a success because it was a plug-in and play solution for internet access. It’s iconic ‘candy design’ helped differentiate it from the competitors beige PC.
By the time Skype was released I had an Apple iBook, a consumer laptop that pioneered the adoption of Wi-Fi, back in 1999, but my first broadband router at home didn’t support Wi-Fi. Broadband, Wi-Fi and 3G networks facilitated the start of Skype. Those networks provided the always-on connectivity to get the most out of the app.
Low-key start.
If there was any ‘thought leader’ on VoIP at the time, it would have been Jeff Pulver. Pulver didn’t bother discussing Skype at the time. Instead he was focused on expected government regulation, Vonage, PC VoIP software X-Lite and Windows Messenger.
Skype first appeared on Pulver’s radar in December 2003, after Red Herring announced that they had secured a first round of venture funding. Pulver praised their ‘viral marketing’.
It wasn’t obvious that Skype would be a winner.
Messaging at the time.
The primary messaging platform at the time in Europe was SMS. Instant messaging was starting to be used informally in workplaces. It was as much about the community norm as anything else. I started off using ICQ with Israeli clients, then Yahoo! Messenger, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and MSN Messenger. It was all a bit messy, so I pulled all my accounts together using Adium.
Take-off.
Skype quickly took its place on my laptop when it released its first Mac client in March 2004. By the summer, one of my clients at the time got rid of their desk phones when they moved office and had employees do internal and office-to-office calls via Skype-to-Skype instead. Giving someone your Skype ID became as common as giving out your email.
At the time Skype offered encrypted voice calls held over a peer-to-peer network. The encryption was contentious as it something of Skype’s own design and wasn’t audited.
In 2005, Skype was sold to eBay. The synergy between them wasn’t clear.
Joost
A year later, the Skype founders left and founded The Venice Project aka Joost – a peer to peer video platform. It was a photo-streaming platform. I liked Joost for its sub-Amazon Prime Video film library including obscure 1970s English language overdubbed martial arts films. But there was also Viacom content available.
Meanwhile under eBay’s ownership, Skype incorporated video calls into its offering. I ended up in a long distance relationship with a Hong Kong-based fellow Mac user and we ended up talking every day via Skype. It even worked when she visited across the border in Shenzhen.
Mobile impact
You can’t write a Skype retrospective without talking about its role on mobile.
Hutchison 3G (known as Three), was a cellular carrier brand put together by CK Hutchison to build a global 3G network in Asia and Europe. In 2007, Three launched Skypephone with Skype. The key part of this as an unremarkable looking candy bar handset.
The Skype phone allowed you to see the status of your Skype contacts on the phone, allowing for presence on the go, in real time (network permitting) which was revolutionary. But we take it for granted on WhatsApp now. There was a couple of forums that gave out widely copied workarounds for the clunky implementation of Skype.
For some reason Hong Kong always got the best features. You could have two numbers on your phone there. The first number was your proper mobile phone number that worked like you would expect it to. The second was your ‘SkypeIn’ number – a soft telephone service.
I had worked on pioneer mobile app Yahoo!Go previously, which only allowed email and no VoIP calls. The Skype phone was a major leap forward because it allowed synchronous communications when connected to a network.
There would have been no WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat or LINE without Skype leading the way.
A nerdier fact was that the Skype phone ran on the BREW application development platform by Qualcomm. It allowed Java apps to be downloaded directly from early app stores before the iPhone. At the time I was side loading apps from my Mac on to my Palm and Symbian phones.
Beginning of the end.
The peak of my Skype use was keeping in touch with my parents when I was working in Hong Kong. Video calling made the world feel closer and they got to see some of Hong Kong with me because of its higher quality 3G network.
Soon after I got back, we switched to FaceTime. This was for a couple of reasons. Skype had an increasing number of spam accounts and phishing attacks. Secondly, FaceTime had an easier to use interface.
This is the point in the Skype retrospective when I think that the rot started to set in.
From a software point of view a big decline occurred in 2016, Microsoft had settled into their purchase of Skype and decided to re-architect the system. Out went the peer-to-peer connections and the system moved onto Microsoft servers to mediate Skype-to-Skype calls.
The irony of it all is that the distributed web is now the technology du jour.
Microsoft messed with the user experience and I distinctly remember moving from one version to another and hated the new layout. From then on, it didn’t improve. Skype’s ability to dial out to international numbers was still something that I put to good use, pretty much up to the time of writing. But like an old cheque book, I came to use it less-and less often; knowing that I could still use the service, allowed Skype to be a back-up to a back-up of a back-up.
At the time I was also using Skype for Business in the office where I worked. It was shambolic with each call timing out around the 30-minute mark.
Skype, was once a beloved product, one that I loved using every day. It was a product I wrote about long before it was trendy. I sent the team feedback. Like all tiny apps that are good at what they do, it became popular and grew really fast. It was sold to eBay, and then re-sold to Microsoft. And that’s when the magic disappeared. Through series of mergers and managers, Skype became an exact opposite of what I loved about it — independent outsider which was great at — chat, messaging and phone calls. It had just enough features, and its desktop client was minimal in its perfection. Now, as I tweeted in the past, it is “a turd of the highest quality.”
The final bow
A Skype retrospective would be remiss, if we didn’t cover the impact that the service has had. While Skype has struggled with scammers and Microsoft’s sub-optimal operation, its legacy lives on.
The culture of desktop video calls started with Skype. Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Slack are its spiritual successors. A combination of software capability, hot-desking, hybrid working and COVID resulted in long term business behaviour change.
As I write this, IAG – owners of British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia admitted that “business travel had settled into a ‘new normal’ that involved fewer one-day trips with flights, in part because of video meetings.”
Skype had some current cultural relevance, particularly on TV where presenters would interview someone from outside the studio, for instance an expert calling in from home, Skype would still be the client used.
At the time of writing, I am looking at Rakuten Viber to substitute my need for a ‘SkypeOut’ analogue.
I decided to pull together some of the better resources I could find on DeepSeek. It distracted and disrupted my writing calendar as I was researching a post what will be called Intelligence per Watt, once i have it published.
John Yun’s take on DeepSeek is well researched and thoughtful rather than a hot take trying to explain why the sky fell in on Nvidia’s share price.
ChinaTalk have put together a large amount of expert opinions on DeepSeek.
Study: 67% Of Gen Zs Want To Take Charge Of Their Health But Face Gaps In Communication| Provoke Media – Despite being known as the digitally native generation, Gen Z is skeptical of online health information and even telehealth appointments. In fact, eight in 10 Gen Zs say they’ve encountered false or misleading health information online and more than 60% say prioritizing in-person visits over virtual ones is important to feeling respected by healthcare providers.
Louis Vuitton APAC strategy: Inside the luxury brand’s Asian success | Jing Daily – “Given the economic downturn and competitive luxury market in China, Louis Vuitton has been seen adjusting its strategy to appeal to more diverse audiences, i.e. launching more affordable bag styles, participating in pricing games (points collecting, coupons refund), and launching cross-over marketing activities,” says Yu.
This year alone, the house has hosted its exclusive four-hands dinner at its Michelin-starred restaurant, The Hall, alongside Chengdu’s Latin American Michelin one-star restaurant, Mono; launched ultra-limited-edition diamond bracelets and a serpent-inspired timepiece for the Year of the Snake; rolled out its highly anticipated Murakami collaboration; and unveiled a new men’s store at Shanghai’s IFC Mall.
“[Louis Vuitton’s] strategy is rooted in consistency,” says Xuan Wang, activation director and partner at Tong Global and luxury PR veteran. “It has embraced a more localized approach — granting its Chinese team greater creative autonomy — while not losing the essence of the brand.”
The rise of luxury wellness comes down to a convergence of different factors that have reshaped both the luxury and wellness industries.
Products ain’t what they used to be
Existing high-end health and luxury wellness
Luxury wellness and consumer behaviours
Wellness has become blended with health, providing opportunities for luxury brands.
GLP-1 changed everything
Products ain’t what they used to be
Before we dive into luxury wellness, it’s helpful to understand where the luxury industry stands at the moment. The strategies that have worked since the early 1980s now seem to have come unstuck. To make sense of this shift, it’s worth reviewing the past and current landscape.
The new luxury
There’s a perception (which I believe is largely false) that the traditional attributes of luxury have fallen by the wayside. Scarcity, quality, craftsmanship, design, and heritage are thought to no longer matter.
A classic example of this viewpoint is Jaguar’s attempt to discard its heritage and reinvent itself as something new. I would argue that while Jaguar may have been prestigious in automotive terms, it was never truly a luxury brand. Jaguars suffered from quality issues that should not have occurred, and they struggled in the premium segment of the market, remaining loss-making for years. Whether or not Jaguar will succeed in transforming into an electric competitor to Rolls-Royce remains to be seen.
Another aspect to consider is how global supply chains can now deliver products of comparable quality to those made by artisans. I have a bit more sympathy for this viewpoint. However, these global supply chains were originally trained to act as subcontractors for luxury brands that pursued massification, cutting quality standards along the way.
Consumers seem to undergo a ‘luxury maturity journey’. This journey is accelerating in certain markets. What Japan experienced over 30 years, China went through in just 10. Countries like Thailand are even moving through this journey faster. Over time, consumers in these markets have begun to move away from obvious logos and status symbols to place greater value on quality and experiences. This shift partly explains why quiet luxury is gained traction around the world.
In countries like China and India, local artisans and ateliers are highly appreciated. This shift means that historic luxury brands are likely to face disruption, just as other sectors have been transformed by Chinese firms. And this is happening at a time when many luxury brands are becoming less ‘luxurious’ by opting for a global mass-market approach.
The pioneer in this approach was fashion designer Pierre Cardin.
Pioneer Pierre Cardin
Luxury went downmarket through licensing, a strategy pioneered by fashion designer Pierre Cardin. In the early 1970s, he saw the potential of licensing, recognising that the demand for goods bearing a fashionable name presented a lucrative opportunity. Cardin’s insight was that luxury goods, in the post-war economic boom, were no longer only for the ultra-wealthy but also for the middle class. His brand signed over 850 agreements in 140+ countries, covering everything from clothing and accessories to furniture, household products, cars, and fragrances.
The ubiquity of Pierre Cardin products diluted scarcity, quality, and blurred the brand story. He later repeated this process with French restaurant Maxim’s, demonstrating that luxury was as much about experience as it was about the product.
When you could buy a Pierre Cardin wallet or suitcase from Argos, what did it say about you? It certainly wasn’t a great status symbol. Other brands, like Ralph Lauren, did a better job of choosing their licensees.
LVMH leads the way
Bernard Arnault supercharged a formula for Louis Vuitton that Henry Racamier had pioneered when he built out an international network of Louis Vuitton-owned boutiques, including Tokyo and Osaka, Japan by 1978.
Racamier’s formula consisted of two parts:
Louis Vuitton sold to the middle class as well as the very wealthy.
Louis Vuitton controlled its products route to market offering control over the experience, premium pricing and perceived aspects of scarcity.
For the next four decades, LVMH went on a remarkable growth trajectory, acquiring luxury and beauty brands, duty-free retail, and even hotels. LVMH rode the rise of Japan, up to the end of the bubble economy, then moved on to Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. China’s luxury market skyrocketed when the country joined the WTO, solidifying its place in the global economy.
The United States continued to be a steady consumer of luxury products.
During the 1990s, French retailer Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR), now known as Kering, began replicating LVMH’s success, starting its own luxury conglomerate with the acquisition of Gucci in 1999. Meanwhile, Richemont acquired a number of legacy luxury brands as an adjunct to its predecessor’s tobacco business in the early 1990s and then continued to build.
The internet expanded access to luxury products through multi-brand retailers like Net-A-Porter and Farfetch, driving significant growth. These online retailers competed with top-tier department stores like Bon Marché, Lane Crawford, and Harrods, who slowly built up their e-commerce capabilities.
Eventually, brands embraced direct-to-consumer online stores to complement their global networks of boutiques. This shift is why newer mass-market multi-brand online boutiques have struggled:
Matchesfashion went into administration and took Browns with it.
Farfetch was sold in a firesale to Korean e-tailer Coupang.
YOOX was merged with Net-A-Porter and eventually bought out by MyTheresa from Richemont.
Even luxury brands themselves have encountered a few hurdles along the way:
The end of Japan’s asset bubble in 1992
2008 financial crisis
Xi Jinping’s move towards common prosperity which peaked in campaigns during 2013 & 2021
COVID-19 and post-COVID economy
Luxury sector fallout
By mid-2023, the luxury industry started to show signs of stagnation, with low or no growth. Multi-brand luxury e-commerce sites either went bankrupt or were bought out. A few notable beneficiaries included:
Mytheresa – a German e-tailer that focused on the wealthiest clients in this sector rather than broader middle class appeal.
Hermès – who are focused on the high end of the luxury market.
Brunello Cucinelli – a focused ‘quiet luxury’ brand known for their high-end cashmere garments
The key issue with many luxury brands (Burberry being a prime example) is that they lost the essence of what made them truly luxurious. As they shifted from style to fashion, and from artisan craftsmanship to mass production in China, they lost their uniqueness or incomparability as Jean-Noël Kapferer put it.
While champagne can only come from the region around Reims, most Burberry products are made in China, with only two remaining factories in the UK, including a textile mill.
The key issue with many luxury brands (Burberry being a prime example) is that they lost the essence of what made them truly luxurious. As they moved from style to fashion, and, artisan to Made In China – they lost uniqueness or incomparability as Jean-Noël Kapferer would describe it.
While champagne can only come from the region around the city of Reims, most Burberry products are made in China as well as a couple of remaining factories in the UK – one of which is a textile mill.
A second aspect of the change was blurring the line between streetwear and luxury brands. Luxury looked cheap and streetwear looked exceptionally premium. The nadir was Balenciaga’s collaboration with sports apparel brand Under Armour.
Ways forward
Given that the mass growth of luxury products has hit a ceiling, what options do luxury companies have?
The focus has been a slow pivot to services and experiences. For instance, Panerai has the Panerai Xperience Programme where purchasing a limited edition watch gives you access to unique experiences, such as training with US or Italian special forces operators.
LVMH owns three luxury hotel chains: Cheval Blanc, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, and Belmond. Dior has spas in Cheval Blanc Paris and other non-LVMH hotels like The Dorchester in London. The increasing focus on wellness makes sense for luxury conglomerates.
Given the challenging circumstances in the luxury sector, Infosys’ outlook for luxury wellness presents a tempting opportunity. The global premium and luxury wellness segments have been performing well. The global market for luxury items was valued at approximately $366.2 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.8% from 2024. By comparison the Swiss watch industry is projected to grow by less than three percent.
Existing high-end health and luxury wellness
Luxury wellness has already been well established, there high end spas and resorts are in numerous countries, in particular Switzerland and Germany. Some of these are within large hotel groups like Mandarin Oriental.
There is also a range of multi-generation family owned businesses with low-key brands and expertise that would be hard to replicate. Some of these businesses may go back as far as the middle ages. For instance, Grand Resort Bad Ragaz can trace its history as a source of ‘health and vitality’ since 1242.
German doctor Alexander Spengler was responsible for attracting rich medical tourists to Switzerland in 1853, convinced of the benefits of clean mountain air.
Switzerland, in particular, started to benefit from an agglomeration of medical expertise; for instance Davos was known for specialising in pulmonary health with dedicated spas.
Switzerland’s continued lead in private healthcare has had a positive knock-on effect in wellness related products and services. This is particularly apropos given Swiss offerings focusing on longevity.
In marketing terms ‘Swiss formula’ is used to sell St Ive’s beauty products and a range of multi-vitamin products by various brands. St Ives has an American origin, being part of Alberto Culver, which was then bought by Unilever.
While Spengler was enamoured with Switzerland, Germany has a long history of health resorts especially thermal spas. It also has a network of world-leading private medical clinics similar to Switzerland.
German high-end health resort company Lanserhof is a relative newcomer. Over four decades they have progressively built their offering with a strong focus on longevity.
Luxury conglomerates have an opportunity, and are used to accumulating small family brands. But it it is a long term project for them to go into the market place. Blurring the line between its beauty products and wellness is an easier ask, hence, Dior’s spa offering.
Gulf countries are looking to provide services in this area and have made big strides in building capability to attract medical tourism, which is the backbone from which a country brand in luxury wellness can be built.
The current luxury wellness space is diverse fragmented and caters for a wide range of health needs from medical to relaxation.
Luxury wellness and consumer behaviours
More people are prioritising their health, taking a holistic view to wellness encompassing both physical, emotional and mental health, what Statista described as ‘omni-wellness’. They are driving demand for products and experiences that support this lifestyle. This includes everything from exercise, self-care, and sobriety to getting private tests run to double-check, or instead of seeing their doctor.
Coming out of COVID-19, there was an increased consumer focus on a number of different aspects of health and wellness:
Sleep quality
Mental health
‘Immune’ health
This intersects with the luxury market as consumers are willing to invest in premium products and services that enhance their well-being.
On the high-end what does luxury wellness look like?
Personalised wellness experiences. Consumers look for customised solutions based on their individual wants and needs. Technology and data enabled brands like L’Oreal and Unilever to offer individual recommendations and drive consumer engagement. Technology integration has been a key enabler.
Health and beauty interconnection. Consumers spend more in products and experiences that enhance their well-being, these are opportunities for the premium and luxury industries. Consumers see well-being products and experiences as an investment in themselves, with the concepts health and beauty as inseparable in their minds, particularly for younger cohorts.
Scientifically-backed products rather than more ‘new age’ or alternative therapies. Consumers have increased interest in beauty innovations that leverage technology and scientific evidence to address their needs. There is a latent demand for evidence around the world, Mintel cited 85% of Indian consumers agreed that beauty brands should provide more scientific evidence to validate their claims. This is notable given the rise over the past decade of guru Baba Ramdev and his brand Patanjali Ayurved that sells traditional products in the personal care category.
Longevity. Silicon Valley has been obsessed with longevity, the go-to example being Bryan Johnson. Kantar claims that a desire for longevity has moved beyond Silicon Valley. Consumers are prioritising longevity; looking for preventative solutions that support wellness at every life stage. This presents opportunities to offer products and services that for specific age-related concerns.
But medicince itself has thrown up a wildcard for the luxury sector including luxury wellness.
GLP-1 changed everything for luxury
I worked on the global launch of a weight management drug that went on to become used more by the rich and famous than the people it was intended for. If I had one a-ha moment, it occurred during an episode of South Park.
“Rich people get Ozempic, poor people get body positivity”
The rate of growth in these drugs is slowing down but not before GLP-1s had affected consumption habits. Size inclusivity that had been making progress in fashion was thrown into reverse.
There is anecdotal evidence that GLP-1 drugs don’t only change the patient’s relationship with food, but also affects enjoyment in general. This has hit premium alcohol sales and high-end restaurants. The idea of ‘lack of desire’ has implications for the concept of luxury in general.
Every trend has a counter-indicator
Trends are never a clean absolute truth. There is almost a Newtonian push in the opposite direction. Political and socially progressive movements begat a corresponding reactionary movement based around online personalities and political populism.
It would be remiss of me if I only showed you one side of the coin on luxury wellness. Haines McGregor have a perspective that claims that self-care has been replaced by indulgence, which feels at odds with the direction of travel for luxury wellness. Examples of indulgent brands include:
Where to start with multisensory marketing | WARC – 61% of consumers looking for brands that can “ignite intense emotions”. Immersive experiences that are holistic tap into people’s emotions and linger in the memory. It’s also an opportunity for using powerful storytelling to communicate a brand story.
How Ozempic is reshaping the resale market | Vogue Business – Poshmark’s data reveals a significant surge in plus-size women’s apparel listings on the platform over the past two years, including a 103 per cent increase in size 3XL listings, 80 per cent in size 4XL, and a 73 per cent rise in size 5XL. The company also reported a 78 per cent increase in new listings mentioning “weight loss” in the title or description as sellers look to get rid of items that no longer fit.
The consequences of the psychoboom are both logical and contradictory. As the Chinese economy has expanded and citizens have grown wealthier, the demands of everyday life have grown in number and kind, expanding from physiological and safety concerns to a desire for love, esteem, and self-actualization. At the same time, such desires run counter to traditional Chinese values like the age-old concept of Confucian filial piety and the relatively new ideology imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both of which place the well-being of the collective above the happiness of the individual.
Increased Japanese inflation is crushing restaurants due to the 1000 Yen Ramen wall. Ramen traditionally has been a working class food in Japan. It’s hearty, nourishing and flavoursome. Some ramen restaurants have even been listed in Michelin restaurant guides.
The 1000 Yen note is the smallest denomination of note in Japanese country, rather like the 5 pound note in the UK or the 5 euro note in the EU. It’s about worth about £5.20 at the time of writing.
Japan went through decades of deflation that flattened prices and made workers poorer. So being able to get a cheap nutritious meal during lunch time at work or after work was invaluable. It also meant that a bowl of ramen had cost 1000 Yen for a long time.
Post-COVID supply chain driven inflation pushed the price above 1000 Yen. That’s when things get strange from a marketing perspective. Consumers who were used to paying 1000 Yen for their ramen couldn’t or wouldn’t pay more. Which is when ramen restaurants hit what the owners describe as the 1000 Yen ramen wall.
In marketing terms this wall is known as a marketing pricing dead zone. Dead zones revolve around three key factors:
Customer segmentation: Understanding customer segments and their price sensitivity is key to avoid pricing dead zones. In this case the price sensitivity seems to be unusually rigid.
Perception of value: A key consideration in a dead zone is how customers perceive the value of a product at a specific price point. If a product is priced too cheap, customers can assume it’s inferior quality. If a price too high the customers feel they aren’t getting enough value for money. What’s interesting about ramen is that customers aren’t willing to budge on quality or perceived value.
Market competition: The presence of competitors with well-positioned prices within a category can create dead zones. Ramen restaurants tend to be small businesses rather than chains, so they don’t have a lot of market power. They do have competition in terms of substitution for that 1000 Yen note – onigiri, instant noodles and sandwiches from the local combini (convenience store).
What’s fascinating about this situation is that ramen restaurants or an outsider haven’t managed to innovate around the wall. Instead the poor substitute of a sandwich or onigiri from a refrigerator is their option.
It’s more than business being lost, ramen restaurants are neighbourhood staples and an intangible part of Japan’s culinary culture. To give a UK specific example, without the humble ramen shop we wouldn’t have had the Wagamama chain of restaurants.
Welcome to my January 2025 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 18th issue. As a child 18 represented experiences denied. 18 and R18 in the UK and Ireland is broadly equivalent to Hong Kong’s ‘category III’ or the US R and NC-17 ratings. This was prior to the Marvel universe infantilising adult cinema.
18 is considered lucky in both Chinese culture and numerology. Talking of lucky, January 29th sees the lunar new year, which will be the year of the snake. According to Chinese horoscope, so 2025 should be a good year for my Chinese horoscope sign in terms of professional and financial areas. Here’s hoping.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
Things I’ve written.
Japan Re-Emerges + more things – if nothing else visit this post for Ulrike Schaede’s talk on Japan’s reinvention over the past four decades.
Foreign workers + more stuff – a mix of stuff from around the web including a documentary on how Filipino, Indonesian and Burmese domestic workers in Singapore have banded together to found a mutual support community around a shared love of roller-skating.
CNY 2025 – a round-up of ads and observations in the run up to the year of the snake. I haven’t written this as an article on LinkedIn this year, as LinkedIn’s video embed function no longer seems to work properly in articles.
Books that I have read.
I managed to finish The Peacock and the Sparrow – IS Berry drew on real-world events such as the Arab Spring political movements and the Fat Leonard scandal to provide a story that moves between Bahrain to Cambodia and back. There was also a universality to the book, for instance it captured that worst excesses of the expat experience that resonated with my own experience and was something I sought to studiously avoid when living in Hong Kong. I was surprised that the book implies that the post-petroleum phase of Bahrain’s development, seemed to happen so abruptly. This was at odds with the gradual decline in petroleum production that we’ve seen in North Sea oil production and mid-west oil fields prior to fracking. Bahrain is a former petro-state that has now pivoted to Gulf area tourism and related services industries.
Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway. I am skeptical of works that look to fill in the universe created by a deceased writer. Christopher Tolkien’s efforts were as much an academic study of JRR Tolkien’s archive curated for the completist reader. Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise was overrated when he was still alive. It didn’t merit the ten authors that have worked on expanding the book canon to date. John Gardner’s own enjoyable character Boysie Oaks, (similar to Len Deighton’s protagonist in The IPCRESS File) was overshadowed by Gardner’s stint writing Bond books. Nick Harkaway’s book pleasantly surprised me. Harkaway’s real name is Nicholas Cornwell and he was the son of David Cornwell aka John Le Carré. He literally and figuratively grew up as his father wrote the great George Smiley trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People) and the BBC adaptations. Karla’s Choice feels and reads ‘right’ and slots neatly into the Le Carré lore. I can highly recommend it as a read. Despite it being a period piece, Russia’s resurgence gives it a strong sense of zeitgeist.
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris. Harris’ book is curate’s egg. On one hand it’s is a politically left polemic by the author on how the world is based on slavery, genocide and other forms of exploitation – which manifested in the authors trauma of a privileged upbringing in Palo Alto. Amongst all this Harris manages to write a Bay Area history that surfaced nuggets that I didnt know from the range of previous books on the area that I had read. Included in them is quotes from Silicon Valley pioneer Wilf Corrigan on offshoring chip manufacturing and packaging. It’s an oddity. If you like left leaning political theory, or a history of technology buff who is prepared to wade through the editorialising it might be worth your while.
Things I have been inspired by.
The Sun Also Rises, But Not on Magazines
There are times when you reach a personal tipping point in your view on something. It can feel shocking, nauseous in a visceral way. I have only been there a few times.
With the dot com boom it was talking with financier at an incubator fund sometime in April 2000. Pegasus Research’s iconic quantitative research on ‘burn rates’ had been published a month earlier and had started to become more known if one read around enough. So I asked him how they thought that they would be making money and his response was:
Ged, I am really surprised that you asked me that. Don’t you realise, we’re trying to move at ‘internet’ time. We’ll think about monetising it later on.
With some notable exceptions like Monocle magazine, print media has been struggling.
Over the Christmas period I was reading the January / February 2025 edition of Wired magazine (published by Condé Nast). Right from unwrapping the magazine from its postage packaging something felt wrong. The magazine felt light; very light. Thankfully the print stock and graphic design was up to its usual standards. So I did a quick page count and noted the number of advertisements in the magazine.
88 pages
5 adverts from paying advertisers
3 adverts from Condé Nast
1 advert for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The advertising space might have been donated by Condé Nast
I was alarmed at the decline. Seeing declining magazine media spend on slide ware is different to feeling it happen on a publication that you loyally subscribe to. Thankfully my other usual print magazines Monocle and Japanese style magazine HailMary don’t seem to have had a similar exodus of advertisers yet. But it put me on alert about the precarious health of magazine print adverts as a medium. Creative magazine print done right can provide experiences that TikTok can’t.
Think about the size of visual real estate
The tactile experience of the page which helps with memory formation
Being able to smell a product fragrance on the page
Sampling opportunities
The ambient reach of re-reading or being left in a shared environment
For the right brands it offers targeted upper funnel experiences that can then be reinforced digitally.
Which brought me to Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises as I groped around in my head trying to find the words to explain what was happening to magazines as a advertising medium:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
The value chains driving the creator economy.
I spent some time during Christmas reading Influencer marketing unlocked: Understanding the value chains the paper was written by 15 academics following the 12th Triennial Invitational Choice Symposium held at INSEAD’s Fontainebleau site. Having worked on influencer campaigns on and off for the past two decades I was curious to see what progress had been made in the thinking underpinning influencer marketing.
Measuring ROI is still complex, as are the challenges that influencers face balancing ‘editorial’ integrity with promotional content.
Brands continue to struggle with measuring ROI beyond short term metrics and puts a focus on engagement. Metrics on long term impact (if any), sales and profitability are insufficient. The authors recognised that there were gaps in proving causation between engagement and sales or long term brand equity.
There is still work to be done understanding the marketing impact of influencer marketing on both influencer and brands including:
Customer acquisition, retention and lifetime value
How can authenticity be maintained in paid promotions
There is still the tension between brands need to qcquire and develop customers vs. influencers own need to cultivate ‘follower equity’. Influencers also depend on their relationship with the platforms they exist on, which can snuff them out if they no longer fit the ad revenue created vs. the revenue the influencer gets through promotions. Platforms boost influencers until a certain point and then limit their reach to maintain control.
China’s ‘closed loop’ ecosystem was considered to be more effective. This is platforms such as Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese market twin) and Pinduoduo aka ‘together, more savings’ seem to do better due to tight integration between content and commerce. Then there is the live-streaming business which is basically QVC on social media. TikTok and Instagram Commerce are still playing catch-up. Chinese influencers are thought to have a lifecycle of up to five years, which is why MCNs use an ‘idol’ development model.
Creative consistency
Creative consistency was one of 2024’s marketing efficiency tenets thanks to research conducted by System1. System1 studied how consistency affects creative quality, stronger brands and greater profits.
When comparing the most to the least consistent brands, analysis found that a higher proportion of consistent brands reported larger sales value gain, market share gain and profit gain.
Chart of the month: decline in digital health investment
The FT published an article just prior to JP Morgan’s annual Healthcare conference. The article put some sober perspective on the current state of investment in digital health innovation.
Things I have watched.
E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial – I hadn’t seen ET since I watched it as a child in the cinema. Watching it again as an adult was like watching a different film. From the atmospheric introduction prior to the stars cape onwards, it felt emotionally heightened, with more of a direct line back to Spielberg’s earlier Close Encounters of The Third Kind in terms of look-and-feel. There were references that I didn’t get at the time (for instance takeaway pizza and Reese’s Pieces weren’t really a thing in the UK). I got to appreciate Spielberg’s use of distraction, light and colour grading as an adjunct to storytelling. Finally, the shameless product placement surprised me. 1980s America was a very consumerist society with ultra-processed food that would cause convulsions in The Guardian newsroom – but the product placement was far less subtle than modern Korean dramas. I could see why Hershey’s Reese’s Pieces got an apparent sales uplift from the film.
Bangkok Dangerous – A Thai take on Hong Kong’s ‘heroic bloodshed’ genre emblematic of John Woo films. The directors Danny and Oxide Pang are better known for horror film The Eye. Bangkok Dangerous feels more alive than its Hong Kong peers thanks to Danny Pangs editing and Oxide Pang’s over-saturated colour grading. The brothers careful use of cinematography, inventive storytelling and sparse dialogue make this debut film film feel so polished. Finally, the brothers manage to make city the star, in a similar way to Wong Ka-wai’s films in Hong Kong.
Persepolis – A film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel published in two volumes Persepolis and Persepolis 2. Persepolis tells the story of Marjane’s life from childhood in Paris and pre-revolutionary Iran, how she experienced the revolution. She was sent away by her upper middle class family to Vienna for secondary school. Afterwards she went to university in Iran, was treated for depression and attempted suicide. The story ends as it began with Marjane returning to Paris. The film is true to the graphic novel in terms of style – think a modern-day Tin Tin. Like the book, the story is an emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s subject matter feels equally relevant now, as is did when Satrapi originally wrote her story.
Useful tools.
Advertising awards list
Probably not that useful for me at the moment, but The Thought Partnership have put together a list of awards listed by entry deadline covering the whole of 2025, which should be handy for advertising, marketing and public relations agency marketers.
Adobe Acrobat Pro alternative
Adobe Acrobat Pro is a useful piece of software, but it’s not worth almost £20 / month. PDF Reader Pro gives you a lifetime licence for the same functions for a one off payment of $25.
Long term tracking
Use Apple AirTags but have battery charge anxiety because you forget when you put the battery in? I know I did for the one in my travelling IT kit bag. And I found a solution. Elevaton Lab’s TimeCapsule 10-year battery case. its a two-piece black plastic slap held together by screws. Inside a couple of Duracell AA batteries will give a decade of operation for your AirTag. Sparingly use a little bit of gasket maker on the two halves seams and LocTite Threadlocker on the screws gives you a nigh indestructible tracking module.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my January 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into the year, and for those of you celebrating the lunar new year on January 29th 恭喜發財 (Gong Kei Faat Choy).
Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.
Get in touch if there is anything that you’d like to recommend for the newsletter.
