IKEA lets the consumer tell the story

IKEA is an innovative brand. If they are not looking to extend their product and brand proposition, as they did last year with a move into consumer electronics, they are using clever agencies like Mother London to produce great advertising campaigns.

Recently we have seen children and adults having fun together preparing for a dinner party; and hip young couples finding room to breathe in their apartment.

The Swedish brand has recently launched a new campaign that features individuals telling a story about how the IKEA product range has transformed their lives.

The latest ad is called Harry’s Records and features British hip-hop producer, DJ and dad Harry Love. We see Harry at home with his family. His vast collection of vinyl and keyboards is taking over the family home.

The problem is quickly solved using IKEA’s Expedit product range. Soon Harry has his collection under control so that he can enjoy both his passion for music and have space for family life.

It is a clever and engaging advert because it is based on a real family telling their own story. It demonstrates a different take on IKEA products; recognising different ranges can be complimentary and offer something unique – Expedit might be perfect for storing vinyl, Förhöja cutlery trays for discs and Stolmen shoe racks keyboards.

I rather like the soundtrack, in which Harry mixes the sounds of assembling the furniture. It neatly echoes the sampling of different IKEA products to bring something unique together.

 

via fluxx.uk.com

 

Blending the right ingredients for success in luxury

This is the second in mine and my colleague Sheel Patel's series of pieces for Fluxx on trends in the luxury market.

As we discussed in our previous blog, the luxury market is at an interesting stage. There are new emerging markets to explore, which bring fresh challenges to many companies. In addition there are challenges closer to home which are forcing brands to reconsider their current business models and how they engage with their customers.

In this, our second perspective we are introducing how we think brands can blend the right ingredients to ensure long-term success. We will be exploring our thinking in more detail at our Fluxx Luxx event on the 22nd November.

After years of wowing the public, now its fashion houses who are striving to get the looks – falling over themselves to stream their spot at London Fashion Week to as many people as possible.

A couple of years ago there would have been only 200 people watching the runway – today’s audience is global. The British Fashion Council reported that at this season’s London Fashion Week 2013, 70% of the shows were streamed live. There is always rivalry between the fashion houses, from who is sitting on your front row to the theatre of the show. With live streaming, the race to better each other in innovation will only intensify. What will innovations in Autumn/Winter season 2013 have in store?

There have been some unique and interesting moves forward in digital for Spring/Summer 2013, pushing the boundaries of customer experience and commercialisation. Burberry’s show fitted perfectly with their strategy to merge the physical and digital experience, as evidenced by the seamlessness of their flagship World Store and runway show. This builds upon last year’s ‘Retail Theatre’ approach that saw the brand introduce click and buy direct from the runway, enabling  customers to receive items in 6 to 8 weeks rather than waiting 3 months for stock to come into stores. This not only enhances the experience for customers it makes sound business sense enabling effective supply chain management and forecasting.

When watching a live-streamed show, many can ‘like’ a Burberry outfit, few can click the buy button. Topshop have successfully married the immersive show experience with making a purchase. As a result of this innovation the ability to share your favourite looks by ‘customising the catwalk’ has resulted in a printed panel dress being sold out within one hour of the show and Topshop lipsticks being purchased every minute.

Brands are now better placed to use digital effectively to tell their story, and are no longer afraid to leverage social shopping. These bold approaches for the luxury sector are crucial to ensure brands remain financially viable in these challenging times.

What does Fluxx think?

Despite some disappointing results and cautious outlooks, the value of British heritage brands remains solid. All have identified international growth as being core to their strategy. However, we believe to achieve these ambitious plans, require an understanding of three core related themes, which are significant in seeking to engage with consumers in the digital and physical space.

We have identified these themes as:

Storytelling

A consumer’s thirst for knowledge now goes beyond product and price. There is an expectation from that the brand will engage them with its heritage, provenance and experience. This holds true whether it be experiencing the theatre of a live runway show, seeing the craftsmanship of a product, or engaging new consumers to a brand they may never have heard of.

This activity is often thought to be in the PR or brand management domain. Whilst this is true, we believe it’s more about engaging people in a deeper relationship with the brand. Storytelling can achieve this simply and memorably.

Omni-channel experience

Omni-channel seems like en vogue buzzword for multichannel retail. But it is more than that. Omni-channel is the bringing together of all brand and customer touch points, to work as one simultaneous experience. Whether that means watching a live runway show on your iPad and clicking to purchase, down to the merging of physical and digital spaces as recently demonstrated by Burberry and Topshop.

Commercialisation

In today’s tough economic climate, luxury brands can no longer rely on a core customer set. Over the past ten years, many brands have sought to expand their customer base through product diversification with mixed results. It is a fine line to balance brand exclusiveness whilst ensuring commercial survival. Many forward thinking brands are embracing this dichotomy, by giving customers the same experience across different levels of range and price. This means recognising that sales are not just about a store and a website. It is about embracing a suite of digital tools and then applying them appropriately. More significantly it is about not being afraid of the ‘buy now’ button.

So come and join us. Book your front row seat for Fluxx Luxx on the 22nd November.

via fluxx.uk.com

 

How to live the creative life

Dark Side of the Lens is an inspiring, beautiful and breathtaking short film by Mickey Smith. He is a surf photographer and film maker. His film was released in 2010 and since then has been gaining a wider audience and accumulating awards. 

The film presents a different perspective to the clichéd view of surfing. What is most inspiring about the film is Smith's own narrative, told with his distinctive Cornish accent, it communicates his passionate approach to living a creative life (or just to live).  

The film is very poetic in both a narrative and visual way.

It makes you think. It's an example of good storytelling.

Here is the film:

For more about Mickey Smith and his work with his collaborators : the astray

There is a good interview with him on the blog : Ragged Band - Dispatches from the Creative Life

 

Heston, sweet shops and storytelling

Heston Blumenthal is a good chef, culinary experimenter, entertainer and businessman; he is also a good storyteller. His meals and television programmes are as much about telling a story and giving an experience as it is about fine food.

Over the past few years, Heston’s restaurant The Fat Duck has gathered numerous awards and booking a table has become more difficult. His approach to cooking combined with high demand and only 48 covers has meant that guests need to book at least 3 months in advance. That’s some wait. While guests might be happy to wait, it is a gap in the experience.

Heston wanted to improve the reservation system. He wanted the experience to start with the reservation, building pre-dinner anticipation and then compliment the dining itself.

Heston approached The Neighbourhood who approach expereince and communication design from the perspective of telling stories. The answer was a multi-sensory reservation experience:

“After a reservation has been successfully made, a weblink is emailed to the diners with an invitation to experience an exclusive piece of content to instigate the Fat Duck journey. An experience designed to whet their appetites.

Our animated journey takes the diners through a series of evocative landscapes and visual cues that they will discover during their visit, encountering a series of reward mechanisms through imagined worlds, to arrive at the door of a sweetshop.

Once inside, the visual stimulus is removed leaving a curious world of sound guided by John Hurt’s narration as the shopkeeper.  The narration and rich binaural audio soundscape allows guests to recall their own childhood sweetshop, imagining the sights, sounds and smells through a combination of stimuli and memory.”

The whole experience is brought to a close with the final course - a bag of sweets and the aroma of a sweet shop. As a nice parting gift, guests receive an augmented digital souvenir.

I love this. I think it is a great example of thinking carefully about the guest’s journey and experience. It demonstrates the power of storytelling using complimentary yet unexpected elements. The experience really reflects the magical and theatrical approach of Heston’s cooking. It has made the mundane process of making a reservation an integral part of a guests experience.

You can find out more here:

And here for the augmented digital souvenir. 

David Shrigley, Pringle and storytelling

The Scottish artist David Shrigley has been collaborating with the luxury knitwear manufacturer Pringle of Scotland for a few years now. It started in 2009 with a series of slogan designs for T-shirts and twin sets. It then continued with promotional billboards on the London Underground.

Back in 2010 David Shrigley produced a short promotional film about Pringle. I stumbled across it again the other day. It made me smile. It is interesting because it is a good example of simple and engaging storytelling. It delivers the message about Pringle without it felling like an advert. Without feeling as if you are being sold to. That is a very good thing.

Here it is: