LSN : Daily Signals : Foresight Friday: Dan Hastings, deputy foresight editor

Guerlain reveals the sound of craft in new content series

Sound of Craft, Guerlain, France

France – Luxury beauty brand Guerlain is introducing a series of videos using ASMR, placing its long-standing sensory savoir faire in the spotlight.

With the Sound of Craft campaign, Guerlain is inviting viewers to discover the multisensory nature of the making of the brand’s high-end beauty products. The four videos aim to engage the audience's senses, layering picturesque sightings with ASMR sounds generated by an artisanal production process. Instead of focusing on the products, the videos draw attention to the know-how needed to create products such as the Abeille Royale Advanced Youth Watery Oil and Rouge G lipsticks. With viewers seeing honey harvested and oil being gently poured, the initiative is an invitation to slow down and appreciate the wonders of nature and the skills of makers.

Expect craftsmanship-centric campaigns and conservation efforts to play a big role in the future of luxury, inviting senses into storytelling to keep consumers engaged.

Strategic opportunity

Consumers are hungry for content revealing what happens behind the scenes. Consider whether you could convey craftsmanship and engineer deeper engagement in your communication strategy by channelling synaesthesia

Foresight Friday: Dan Hastings, deputy foresight editor

Photography by The Future Laboratory

Every Friday, The Future Laboratory team offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, deputy foresight editor Dan Hastings questions the Victoria's Secret rebranding, highlights AI biases and pays homage to O'Shae Sibley.

: The Victoria's Secret angels are back and they more or less look the same. The brand's latest campaign enlisted alumni Gisele Bündchen, Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel and even Naomi Campbell for a black and white shoot. Joining forces with Doja Cat and other musicians, the angels will return in a Prime Video documentary airing in September before strutting down the runway in a 2023 edition of the fashion show after a five-year hiatus. It looks like we're definitely entering our body hostility era with the same toxic and unattainable beauty standards Millennials grew up with

: If Ken's job is beach, AI's job is bias. In a now-deleted article, Buzzfeed asked Midjourney to create visuals representing Barbies from all over the world. The machine gave German Barbie a Nazi-inspired soldier uniform, a gun to South Sudan Barbie, a male headdress to Middle Eastern Barbies, and it only represented Latin American Barbies with light skin

: In other news, the Battle of Montgomery’s memes reminded me why being terminally online is worth it. Tory Lanez finally getting sentenced to 10 years in prison marks a victory against misogynoir and the end of a chapter for journalist Meghann Cuniff, the embodiment of the expert influencer. And this new study suggests we need to work five lifetimes to make our boss’s annual salary. When do we start eating the rich, please?

Quote of the week

‘It is truly painful to have to walk up here, to literally see the area where his blood was taken. The stain is still here! They do not care what happens to our bodies.’

Qween Jean, a costume designer and activist at the Vogue as an Act of Resistance memorial ball protest held for O’Shae Sibley, a 28-year-old dancer who was fatally stabbed in July 2023 in a homophobic attack after refusing to stop vogueing to Beyoncé’s Renaissance in a petrol station in Brooklyn, New York.

Stat: Greenpeace report reveals stark disparity between rail and airline travel costs

Beijing Winter Olympics Train by Tangerine, China

UK, Europe – A July 2023 report by the campaigning organisation Greenpeace highlights that train travel costs four times more than flying from the UK to Europe, indicating a lack of financial incentive for travellers to opt for more sustainable transport. The study compared train and plane ticket prices for 112 routes across 27 European countries, revealing that flights were generally cheaper on 79 out of 112 routes. On average, train journeys were twice as expensive as flights.

Some routes were much worse. The cost of travelling by train from Barcelona to London, for example, was 10 times more expensive on average, despite a potential emissions saving of 461,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases. This is partly because airlines can keep their prices artificially low as they do not pay kerosene tax or VAT and have recently even received reduction in air passenger duty in the UK. On the other hand, train operators must pay energy taxes, VAT and high rail tolls in most European countries.

Greenpeace is calling for bans on all short-haul flights where a reasonable rail alternative exists and for an end to subsidies currently available for airlines and airports. It also calls for European governments to introduce ‘climate tickets’ – long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region. Such solutions are necessary to upgrade existing urban mobility networks.

Strategic opportunity

Travel and hospitality brands should seize opportunities to collaborate with rail operators by offering discounted prices or special package deals, thereby attracting conscious travellers and showcasing commitment to building a sustainable travel economy