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Argos launches campaign to stop the neutral home trend

Make Yourself, At Home by Argos, UK

UK – Minimalist grey and beige aesthetics dominate home interiors, which Argos hopes to change with the help of AI. The retailer’s new campaign, Make Yourself, At Home, will feature a series of YouTube videos helping families to decorate their homes in styles that reflect their personality.

The videos will advise on banishing ‘greige’, using AI tracking technology that collects data on emotional responses to a variety of products shown to families. The data collected is used to give each of the families a makeover, based on positive responses to items shown.

The aim is also to help people make decisions when faced with the endless choice offered in Argos’s home range. ‘There are so many different ways to style a home, it’s no wonder people get a bit of choice paralysis,’ explains Rob Quartermain, Argos head of marketing and brand communications.

With consumers increasingly fashioning their own Avant Abodes, the campaign taps into the rise in working from home and the desire to invest more in the home.

Strategic opportunity

Take note from this humorous campaign to start conversations with customers and to build their product knowledge. Videos are a great tool to immerse customers into a brand and to provide more detailed product information

Prada introduces recycled gold fine jewellery collection

Eternal Gold by Prada, Italy

US – Prada has unveiled its first collection of fine jewellery, Eternal Gold, revisiting the brand’s iconic triangle through 50 genderless and modular pieces, made entirely of recycled gold.

The line is not only Prada's fine jewellery debut, it is also the first time a global luxury brand has used 100% recycled and responsibly sourced gold. To make this possible, the brand upcycled and melted gold from several sources, including e-waste. ‘Our lifestyles generate a lot of electronic waste,’ says Timothy Iwata, Prada's new jewellery director. ‘And those electronic products include 24-carat gold, the purest kind.’

In line with its commitment to ethically source gold, Prada uses scannable authentication cards hosted on the blockchain – the first of its kind in the industry according to the brand. Scanning it gives access to the full source-to-store journey of the piece.

Eternal Gold shows an example of a well-executed fine jewellery launch, combining a strong visual identity, commercial viability, strong sustainability credentials and innovative blockchain authentication at a time when interest in ethically sourced and traceable gold is high.

Strategic opportunity

Take inspiration from Prada’s simple yet effective strategy to launch a product in a saturated market, betting on sustainable and transparent sourcing and using emerging tech

A deepfake-powered podcast features interviews that never were

Dubai – There is a new addition to deepfake technology’s list of use cases – podcast.ai is creating podcast episodes based on conversations between AI-generated digital personas of public figures.

Although deepfakes pose ethical and moral concerns for some, the technology’s applications in the media landscape are multiplying, such as a TikTok account featuring an AI-generated version of actor Keanu Reeves that confused many users.

Podcast.ai introduces a new way to utilise deepfake technology, programming AI systems to emulate two celebrities and have them record a podcast on a set theme.

The first episode features a deepfake of Joe Rogan interviewing a deepfake of Steve Jobs, discussing an array of topics including tech, faith and drugs, for 20 minutes. Podcast.ai plans to release weekly episodes, and invites listeners to suggest topic and host ideas via an open-source forum.

Deepfakes entering the podcast space suggest that the Digital Fandom Market has many untapped possibilities to offer for brands willing to experiment.

This Is Not the Horizon by Anne-Iris Espinat Dief, The Netherlands

Strategic opportunity

If considering the use of deepfakes for your business, make sure you consider all of the ethical and moral implications associated with the technology

Stat: Glassdoor advanced filters reveal employee priorities

Google Aotearoa Office. Designed by Warren and Mahoney, New Zealand

US – Glassdoor, the leading job and company insights platform, has introduced advanced filters that include company ratings on work-life balance and diversity and inclusion. This allows users to easily search for companies’ overall ratings and customise according to demographic groups, to see how individuals who fall into specific groups rate companies.

Insights obtained in a Glassdoor survey in the US found that 36% of employees aged 18–44 say a company’s diversity and inclusion policies are a key factor when applying for a job. By introducing these new advanced features, Glassdoor has enabled job-seekers to fine-tune searches based on their own values and beliefs.

This transparent method of job-seeking could help to push companies to become more equitable places. 'Glassdoor is deeply committed to leveraging our products and resources to help achieve equity in and out of the workplace,’ says Christian Sutherland-Wong, CEO of Glassdoor. This comes at a time when companies are seeing large numbers of resignations and consumers are turning to technology to empower them in their search for jobs.

Strategic opportunity

Consider how you can use new tech tools to attract prospective talent and work to align your businesses’ values and purpose with the next generation of employees