LSN : News : Need to know 12 : 09 : 17

1. Nike’s personalised shoe-making experience

Nike Makers’ Experience by W+K Lodge, New York

New York – Using augmented reality (AR), Nike Makers’ Experience enables visitors to create a pair of personalised Nike Presto X sneakers within 90 minutes. Located at the Nike By You Studio, guests to the invitation-only experience begin by selecting a design from the brand’s trademarked patterns or create their own.

On entering the Live Design Arena, the chosen visual is projected onto the customer’s blank shoe using dynamic object tracking. It can be further customised before being sent to be printed.

A collaboration between the creative technology group at Wieden+Kennedy, W+K Lodge and Nike’s Innovation Kitchen, the initiative offers a glimpse into the fast-paced future of customised apparel. To read more about the key advances in clothing manufacturing, see our Fast Fabrication microtrend.

2. A new range of beer cans tell an intriguing story

Insight Brewing branding by Riley Hayes, Minneapolis

Minneapolis – Insight Brewing has worked with advertising agency Riley Hayes to create a new range of beer branding with fantastical storylines on the back of beer cans. With titles such as Taming the Devil’s Companion and The Garden of the Hell Chicken, the stories follow the fictional brewmaster as he travels around the world, explaining the global origin of each drink.

The packaging has been designed to echo co-founder Ilan Klages-Mundt’s own travels before he established Insight Brewing. Seeking inspiration for fine ales, he visited Fuller’s Brewery in London, Kiuchi Brewery in Japan, and Denmark’s Fanø and Søgaards breweries.

The cans reveal only the beginning of each story, whetting consumers’ appetites for the tales, which are continued on the company’s website. For more on the evolution of brands that use fictional tales to create intrigue, see our Faction Marketing macrotrend.

3. Peercel’s low-cost peer-to-peer delivery service

Canada – Peercel has launched a low-cost alternative to regular courier services for consumers who want to send parcels internationally.

Tapping into the sharing economy, the service enables frequent flyers to be remunerated for a journey that they are already taking. Mutually beneficial for the sender and the person transporting the items, the Peercel service could mitigate carbon dioxide emissions by reducing the number of flights required to transport courier-delivered packages.

Users download a free iPhone app to select their parcel’s destination. Each traveller receives reviews to ensure a high-quality service, and users can track their parcel via in-app messaging. For more on how brands are using the sharing economy model to revolutionise the traditional delivery format, see our Insight report.

Peercel

4. Co-working space for bar staff opens in London

The Crucible, London

London – While collaborative working spaces are not a new concept, Stuart Bale, founder of Crucible, has now applied the concept to the drinks industry. Inspired by his work as a freelance bar consultant, Bale founded Crucible as a way of offering fellow industry members access to the most up-to-date, and often expensive, bar equipment, while also creating a collective through which brands can commission work.

Membership will be priced between £69 ($91, €76) and £135 ($178, €149) a month, with lower rates charged for bar staff and higher rates intended for brand ambassadors. The space comprises two floors, with a lower level offering a small tasting room, a bar, a photo studio and several hot desks. Upstairs, the flavour lab includes apparatus such as a centrifuge, vacuum pack machine and dehydrator.

See our Inform with Zoe Burgess, head of research and development at the Drink Factory, for more on why creative experimentation is key to the drinks industry.

5. One in three Millennials wish they were Generation X

A new study by the Resolution Foundation think tank has found that although Millennials have grown up during a time of significant technological and social advances, pervasive financial insecurity prompts many to wish they had been born a generation earlier. Graduates are the most pessimistic about their future, with more than half (57%) believing they will have a worse standard of living than their parents.

6. Thought-starter: Is ARKET’s transparency push enough?

Visit any product on ARKET’s new website and a map will reveal the product’s place of origin, supplier and factory name. While this degree of transparency is rarely seen in high-street fashion, journalist Josh Walker asks whether it is really empowering consumers.

It is no secret that fashion brands, particularly those on the high street, are far from ethical when it comes to the treatment of their factory workers. So while ARKET’s progressive move enables consumers to put a name to a factory and see its location on a map, does it shine any light on the working conditions inside?

With a growing awareness of fast-fashion suppliers sub-contracting to other factories without informing buyers, one might argue that naming factories makes little or no difference.

Although it might appear that there are few viable solutions, there is scope for innovation, such as using blockchain technology to improve transparency and traceability within the fashion industry.

For more on why transparency needs to be data-based, read the full opinion piece here.