LSN : Daily Signals : Foresight Friday: Joe Portman, Senior Strategist

Adidas’ new ad highlights how unsafe women feel on a run

The Ridiculous Run by Adidas, Germany

Global – A recent survey by Adidas has found that 51% of women are afraid of being physically attacked when they go for a run compared to 28% of men. To create awareness of this statistic, the sportswear brand made a film, The Ridiculous Run, showing the absurd lengths to which women have to go to feel safe while out for a jog.

The brand surveyed 9,000 runners across nine countries in order to understand men’s and women’s experiences and perceptions of safety while out on a run. The survey also revealed that 38% of women have experienced physical or verbal harassment and, of these, 56% have received unwanted attention or sexist comments.

The research indicates the need for a shift in attitude, but also action to create a safe environment – physically and mentally – for women to run. The study also revealed that while 62% of men recognise the issue, only 18% believe they have a responsibility to help women feel safe.

Adidas’ commercial illustrates the steps the brand is taking to address the issue and takes our report on Safety Fits one step further, showcasing how brands can offer support to vulnerable groups.

Strategic opportunity

Consumers will reward with loyalty those brands that boldly address social issues

Pangaia opens a lab-like flagship pop-up in Paris

Pangaia at Galeries Lafayette. Design by Random Studio, France

France – Sustainably-minded fashion brand Pangaia has revealed its first Parisian location – a flagship pop-up space boasting an agile design and low environmental impact.

Pangaia commissioned Random Studio to design the semi-permanent space, located in the iconic Galeries Lafayette department store. The pop-up was conceived as a blueprint for the brand’s upcoming physical retail expansion. What sets it apart is a high adaptability, with a set-up that can be seamlessly replicated, scaled up or down, and adjusted depending on the location or the season. Each design feature can evolve alongside new collections – meaning that all visual merchandising elements can be retrofitted and re-used.

To reflect Pangaia’s commitment to textile innovation, Random Studio chose a lab aesthetic for the store, using display fixtures, clean-cut glass and aluminium. The centrepiece of the pop-up is the Innovation Table, a steel and glass cabinet displaying the journey of raw materials from the ground up and educating visitors on textiles.

Pangaia’s lab-like shop is only low-impact in terms of carbon footprint – the Hyperphysical Store’s educative, interactive and sensorial features elevate the shopping experience.

Strategic opportunity

With small but meaningful tweaks, Pangaia has turned the typically not-so-sustainable pop-up store into an agile, low-impact system, while reaping the placemaking benefits of a retail presence in a department store like Galeries Lafayette

Foresight Friday: Joe Portman, Senior Strategist

Every Friday, the Future Laboratory team offers an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, senior strategist Joe Portman discusses AI, Lemon8, rave aesthetics and psychedelic medicine.

: After we reported on last week’s release of Google’s Bard, this week, an open letter calling for AI labs to pause the development and training of systems has gathered steam, attracting signatures from Elon Musk, Yuval Noah Harari and Steve Wozniak. The letter argues that the pause would allow trailing companies to catch up, and states its intention is to implement safety protocols. Is AI development moving too fast?

: TikTok CEO Shou Chew faced questions last week from US congress about the app’s influence in America and connections with the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, another app owned by TikTok’s parent company, Lemon8, has risen up the app charts. Is this sudden rise part of TikTok’s backup plan should it be banned in the US?

: Rave aesthetics are seeing a revival, with Pinterest reporting searches of Berlin Rave Fashion having grown by 250%, with searches for other topics, like Techno Style, also up. This pursuit of hedonistic style, mixed with a dose of rose-tinted nostalgia, is possibly a response to the stunted experiences many Gen Z missed out on due to the pandemic. We’ve also seen the rebirth of digital cameras. Are we set for a nostalgia-driven hedonism revival?

: Australians are concerned about the prohibitive cost of accessing new psychedelic medicines, with accusations that the newly legalised treatments, which come into force from 1 July, remain elusive, only accessible to the ultra-rich, with treatments starting from £13,540 (A$25,000 US$16,750, €15,370). How will new-wave treatments remain accessible?

Quote of the week

‘AI could rapidly eat the whole of human culture – everything we have produced over thousands of years – digest it and begin to gush out a flood of new cultural artifacts’

Yuval Noah Harari, historian

Stat: Creators of ChatGPT say AI will affect higher-income jobs first

Photography by SHVETS production

US – A new study released by researchers from OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania suggests those who hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree and work in fields that don’t require much skills training are more exposed to job vulnerability courtesy of ChatGPT. ‘[AI models] are able to potentially replace humans in tasks that are fairly intensive in communication, and a lot of communication tasks are done by people with some degree in education,’ Simon Johnson, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Quartz.

Although the report doesn’t explicitly say that generative artificial intelligence (AI) will replace office workers, it states that about 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by ChatGPT and its successors. In comparison, about 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their functions affected. The latter predominantly refers to white-collar workers.

In our Work States Futures webinar on demand, we examined how early adopter businesses and organisations now focus on work state solutions, including incorporating AI into work processes.

Strategic opportunity

As AI continues to develop new skills exponentially, employers should consider upskilling their workforce while preventing AI anxiety and fears of redundancy among their ranks