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Klarna’s colourful cubes hint at high street futures

The Klarna Future Shopping Lab, Sweden

Sweden – Payment solutions service Klarna is improving the e-commerce experience with a community-facing locker concept.

Dubbed the Modular Mailbox, the colourful lockers focus on areas of the retail journey that cause friction, combining different modules as a solution. Designed to sit within neighbourhoods, one module allows users to collect online orders, another is for recycling parcel wrapping, while a more innovative element could enable 3D printing.

The concept could also support community sharing. ‘There could be an app for your neighbourhood where you could request a screwdriver, and a neighbour would drop one off in the box,' explains Rasmus Fahlander, product director of purchase experience. The Modular Mailbox is the result of Klarna’s latest research project – Klarna Future Shopping Lab – which is designed to elevate convenience, inspiration and value for shoppers.

As e-commerce continues to grow, logistics solutions focusing on circularity and design are set for increased demand. In Flagship Fulfilment, we explore the ways in which delivery solutions can bolster brand identity.

These sunglasses have mood-altering lenses

Naples Mood Capsule by GLCO, US

US – Garrett Leight California Optical (GLCO’s) latest line of sunglasses boast psychophysiological benefits.

The brand is working with lens-maker Zeiss on the limited-edition Naples Mood Capsule collection, which uses coloured lenses to influence the wearer's mood, mindset or emotional responses. Using its own research into neuroscience, Garret Leight California Optical offers three lens options. The yellow BioChrome Focus lenses promise better attention and response time, the green Relax lenses have a calming effect to promote creativity, while the red Boost lenses are said to enhance energy and physical performance.

With a view to the wider wellbeing benefits of the Mood Capsule collection, the brand's eponymous founder and CEO, Garret Leight, explains: 'Trying to prioritise self-care and emotional wellness in whatever capacity we are each capable of is important right now and these mood-enhancing lenses feel like a way to offer that within the scope of what we do.'

Discover more on how brands can tap into optimising neurological behaviour in our Experience 2020 macrotrend.

Twitch empowers creators with reward-based ads

Twitch Multiplayer Ads

Global – Live-stream platform Twitch is empowering its community of creators with a multiplayer approach to advertising.

While advertising within Twitch has traditionally taken a targeted approach, this new system prioritises and benefits creators. Now in beta mode, the ads are triggered by streamers and shown to all viewers. After each ad has played, creators can run a poll for their viewers that awards the streamer Bits – the platform’s virtual currency – depending on how many viewers participate. For those who partake in the poll, it also unlocks a special channel celebration.

‘In true Twitch spirit we want our creators and fans to have the opportunity to experience everything together, and support their favourite creators along the way,’ says a spokesperson for Twitch. Across most streaming platforms, advertising can be intrusive and irrelevant for creators, so in this way Twitch places its influential creators and streamers – and their leagues of followers – at the centre.

Showing how this influence can have a philanthropic lens, in summer 2020 a series of YouTube creators redirected advertising revenue as a way of supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

Stat: Young Australians are rethinking their career goals

T Levels by the Department for Education

According to research by Australian digital media firm Junkee Media, young Australians are reconsidering their beliefs as a result of Covid-19.

In a recent poll, 68% of participants aged 16–35 say that the pandemic has made them question what they want out of life. More specifically, Covid-19 has made this group rethink job fulfilment, with over half (53%) of respondents questioning their job path and 94% saying that having a job they’re passionate about is their most important market of success.

Analysing the effect the global pandemic has had on young Australians, the report shows that brands have an opportunity to mirror young Australians' inter-pandemic mindsets by supporting them with initiatives that guide their evolving career aspirations.

Explore more on how this generation are navigating an uncertain future and jobs market in Emerging Youth: Australia.