Looking back to when I started this blog, it would have been reasonable to expect an inevitable march of retailing from offline to online. Amazon was on a tear and search advertising volumes were increasing year on year. By the time I was at Yahoo! search advertising (focused on online retailing) counted for about half of all revenue for the company.
At that time Yahoo! had a Spotify-like subscription streaming music service that was viewed as a threat to Apple’s iTunes download only offering. When I worked there Yahoo Music was the number one online music site in terms of audience reach and total time spent by consumers on the site. Also display advertising was much bigger for brands than it is today and Yahoo! was guaranteed a good share of the online marketing spend from any movie launch at the time.
The reality of online retailing, was slower than our expectations. While COVID drove an increase in online retailing there has also been corresponding innovations in retailing as well.
Amongst the pioneers in this change have been luxury brands like Burberry and Nike, who brought digital into their stores to provide a superior customer experience.
Adidas brought manufacturing into its stores with its speedfactory experiment, allowing for fast time to market and customisation.
Supreme changed the cadence of retailing with the Thursday morning ‘drop’ which saw queues outside stores. Every Thursday became a launch day as far as their customers where concerned. The queue has moved from Apple’s annual cadence, to every week.
TV shopping channels are huge in Korea. Asian Boss did this great interview with Choi Hyun woo, one of the most successful shopping TV pitchmen (pitchwoman) in Korea.
Looking at data from home shopping company CJ ENM Commerce division, sales are starting to focus more on premium and luxury products from international brands like Karl Lagerfeld and Vera Wang. Overall TV viewship has been declining; but TV home shopping has been steadily growing.
Good document on how consumer behaviour and technology will affect the future of retailing and e-commerce by Sparks & Honey. Its a book rather than a presentation.
We’re in a golden age of TV drama and it looks like thins are only going to get more interesting with this trailer from HBO’s adaptation of The Watchmen universe. This seems to go in a very different direction to the original Watchman series. It is picks up from the end of the original book when a ‘trans-dimensional’ invasion fails. It doesn’t have the cold war orientation of the original series and is instead a show for our times. The HBO series focuses on issues of race and class. It looks as if it could be more entertaining than the original film adaptation that felt a bit flat.
https://youtu.be/-33JCGEGzwU
McDonalds have pushed these ads about trust and they play on human truths like the discomfort of formal restaurants or the tyranny of choice in grocery stores. A classic example of this tension is that many people I know refuse to eat on their own in a restaurant. I don’t have that hang up at all. McDonalds deserves credit for really listening to consumer insights and playing them back tot the audience for added brand resonance.
Inside Amazon’s pitch for new audio ads in music on Alexa devices | AdAge – Amazon sells 15 and 30 second radio type adverts. It looks like a modern version of Rediffusion style radio that piped content directly into consumer homes in the post war period. Cable radio used to be a thing in the United Kingdom Barbados, Malaysia, Malta, Singapore and Hong Kong….
Forever 21 Sent Some Customers Atkins Diet Bars And People Are Very Angry | Buzzfeed News – I wonder what persuaded Atkins to come to Forever 21 with this tie-up. Is there something in their customer base demographic profile that isn’t obvious to me? I could see why at first glance Forever 21 could have seen the product drop as a ‘delight’ for customers. But in retrospect the sensitivity is understandable. It is also interesting how Forever 21 took the brunt of consumer displeasure on what was a co-promotion with Atkins.
My week had been truncated somewhat by a fierce head cold and am cranking this post out with less deliberation than normal due to a backlog of household chores that aren’t going to take care of themselves. Add to that a Lemsip induced haze to try and combat the fierce head cold and you see how the rest of this post will go
Paul Armstrong shared this AR/VR example with me: Swedish creative agency Warpin posted a video of a H&M-commissioned experience for Magic Leap glasses. The concept looks like everything my cyberpunk fan brain would want; like being inside Max Headroom’s mind. I’d also imagine that it would be hellish for any length of time. More related content here.
Warpin Media for H&M
BBH came up with this campaign for Carabao energy drink. The ad is aimed at the Chinese market and asks the question ‘What fuels your fighting spirit?’. In western English – this would be closer to ‘what makes you resilient, or what gets you through?’. It’s pretty much the same question that any ad planner or creative in an agency has asked as they chug their energy drink of choice whilst working on a client pitch, or particularly tough creative brief.
BBH Shanghai for Carabao
‘Dear young people don’t vote’ by Shokasonjuku is a great video highlighting the need for younger Japanese to get involved in the electoral process, if they want issues that they care about to be heard. Shokasonjuku is a production company set up by Nana Takamatsu – a Japanese comedian. Young people in Japan aren’t educated or engaged by the political process, something that Takamatsu wants to change.
Shokasonjuku
Martin Lindstrom on how data separates businesses from consumers and how ethnography can bridge the gap. It’s also interesting how he talks about small data; or what you and I would call qualitative data that leads to insight based on a human truth.
Smart cart guides the visually-impaired around grocery stores | Trendwatching – so a beer brand comes up with a smart shopping cart, but is the marketing benefit to the beer brand anything other than ambient marketing? There’s nothing wrong in that of course, but the linkage that will be made with social purpose looks spurious at best. If you want to help people and you sell alcohol. Stop. Don’t enable drunk drivers, wife beaters and alcoholics.
Qualcomm smart speaker platform for AI-enabled devices – Business Insider – will Qualcomm attract the same developer community as Amazon’s Alexa has? The Qualcomm smart speaker platform will find it hard to get audiences wanting high quality audio as Apple found out with the first generation HomePod. It won’t only be Qualcomm chips that boost the cost but the complete component chain
The New Zealand shooter finds support in Islamophobic corners of China’s internet — Quartz – many comments reflected the view that the shooting was a by-product of the West’s excessive political correctness, a perspective that has found increasing support on China’s internet in recent years as part of what’s known as the baizuo, or “white left” movement, a derogatory term used to describe Western progressives that is roughly analogous to the term “social justice warrior.”
Google Stadia is a Net Neutrality Nightmare – Variety – the numerous unknowns and uncertainties of Stadia, from pricing to game library to concerns over internet latency and speed requirements, what’s truly disconcerting is the unspoken assumption that forgoing hardware is a net positive for consumers and creators alike. Ultimately, the adult in all of us is sick of having to repurchase video game boxes just to keep up (at least, I am). But if a PC is like a puppy in how it brings you some kind of joy or entertainment, you have to ask yourself one question. Would you rent a puppy?
Why “Drop” Retail Is the Future of Luxury Sales in China – “Drops have been popular in China because consumers want to feel that brands are making an effort to design or offer product specifically for them and drop retailing gives brands the opportunity to show that they are focused on doing something special specifically for China”
Faster Robots Demoralise Coworkers | Careers | Communications of the ACM – If you get the pace wrong would the effect of robots demoralise coworkers limit productivity? Is the future not robots augmenting coworkers, but replacing coworkers a more productive alternative. A Cornell-led team has found that when robots are beating humans in contests for cash prizes, people consider themselves less competent and expend slightly less effort—and they tend to dislike the robots – to be fair I’d expect to see something similar if the same person kept winning employee of the week. I know that workers on the line at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port used to sabotage the robots on the line on a regular basis. This might phenomenon of robots demoralise coworkers be part of their motivation (along with laziness and malice)
Marbridge Consulting – China’s February 2019 Domestic Handset Shipments Down 20% YoY – 14.51 mln mobile handsets were shipped in China in February 2019, down 19.9% YoY and 57.4% MoM, according to new figures released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a department of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). The significant month-on-month drop can be explained in part by the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday towards the beginning of February. Of total shipments in February, 13.98 mln were 4G handsets, down 20.2% YoY, 37,000 were 3G handsets, and 0.49 mln were 2G handsets
Aging Millennials Soothe Themselves With Childlike Fashions – WWD – to try and hang on to youth. The attenuation of youthfulness is a cross generational phenomenon. For instance middle aged dads the still buy streetwear rather than Superdry, skate and go to gigs.
SXSW 2019: Virtual Cinema – JWT Intelligence – culture is still trying to adapt AR and VR. Whilst it has the energy of an early SIGGRAPH demo reel, I still think the storytelling aspect of things is struggling to find its legs
Patrick Pruniaux: “There Truly is an E-commerce Potential for Horology” | Luxury Society – Kering haven’t been particularly good at using Ulysse Nardin as a brand in China, but they are rectifying it now. Kering are looking to tap into ‘new’ watch consumers who can’t spend Rolex money on a watch, this position now looks more tenable since Apple has stopped going for the luxury sector with the Apple Watch
How to Create an Authentic Luxury Experience for Millennials | Jing Daily – if a luxury brand wants to entice today’s consumers, whether it’s in China or beyond, it needs to underscore its authenticity and relevancy. Powerful words, to be sure, but what does it mean to be authentic and relevant? For the moment, let’s start with the opposite. During many of my brand strategy sessions, I often hear the expression “they feel staged” when people describe brands that they would never buy. Needless to say, when brand feels staged, it is neither authentic nor relevant. The synonyms unnatural, deceived, cheated, and faked come to mind. In other words, a staged brand is bullshitt*ng their consumers.
Louis Vuitton Has a Michael Jackson Problem | Intelligence | BoF – LVMH invested significantly in Virgil Abloh to elevate its menswear line. However, the potential failure of Abloh’s Michael Jackson-inspired collection—whether due to pulled items or lack of consumer interest—is unlikely to significantly impact Louis Vuitton’s overall revenue, as men’s ready-to-wear is a small part of their business. The real concern for Louis Vuitton is protecting its brand reputation, which remains strong unlike some competitors who have faced recent social media backlash. This is especially crucial now, as consumers are quick to criticize any perceived missteps.
You May Have Forgotten Foursquare, but It Didn’t Forget You | WIRED – interesting how Foursquare went from being useful (I use it as spatial bookmarking, so that I can return to new places that I like) to where 2.0 middleware with a bit of ad tech creepiness thrown in for good measure (paywall)