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Louis Vuitton unveils new super-sized ship-shaped Shanghai store

The Louis, Shanghai

China – Louis Vuitton has opened The Louis, a striking flagship store in central Shanghai which includes a two-floor exhibition and rooftop café. The in-house design team describes the boat-shaped building as a nod to Shanghai’s rich port heritage and how it embodies the city’s historic role as the gateway to the East.

The initiative comes as parent company LVMH seeks to reinvigorate China’s slowing luxury goods market – valued at around £35.7bn ($48.8bn, €41.4bn) after declining more than 18% in 2024 with sales projected to remain flat in 2025 – by blending cultural relevance with visual spectacle (source: Bain & Co).

Visitors can enter the exhibition via the door at the head of the ship to step into a visually immersive archway. From there, they move through a sequence of themed rooms, each highlighting Louis Vuitton’s signature trunks as the foundation of the brand. These spaces include a library, a workshop, a space displaying trophy cases and a gallery dedicated to the brand’s fashion and fragrance lines. The experience concludes with a gift shop.

On the third floor, Le Café Louis Vuitton features elements referencing the company's luggage legacy and warm wooden textures reminiscent of vintage cruise ships.

This strategic move not only ‘flooded local social media feeds and become one of the city’s most talked-about attractions’ according to Jing Daily but also shifted the focus from traditional retail to experience–led marketing by inviting consumers to engage with the brand beyond just its products.

In Culture-coded Retail, we previously highlighted similar retail experiences energised by cultural relevance and designed for community.

Strategic opportunity

Consider how to go beyond cultural relevance by creating bold, immersive experiences. For instance, can you develop in-store disruptive designs and shareable moments embedded in impactful storytelling?

Queen Mary University of London powers campus with waste heat from data centre

Queen Mary University, UK

UK – Queen Mary University of London is cutting emissions and energy bills by using waste heat from its data centre to power campus heating. In partnership with energy specialist Schneider Electric, it has installed real-time monitoring and heat recovery technology across its legacy data centre.

The updated system channels waste heat into the university’s district heating network, which serves buildings and student accommodation, helping reduce Scope 1 emissions (emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly) and operational costs.

‘The new data centre is more reliable and efficient than ever and through the heat recovery, we have significantly reduced our spending on heating and hot water, while gaining enhanced reputational benefits from taking a lead on sustainability within our data centre operations,’ said professor Jonathan Hays.

This approach reflects broader momentum. Tech giants including Microsoft are trialling water-free cooling methods and repurposing data centre heat, amid growing concerns over AI’s environmental impact.

Meanwhile, the UK government has awarded over £7m ($8.9m, €8.2m) to improve 49 heat networks across England and Wales as part of a push to decarbonise heating, which currently makes up over a third of UK emissions (source: Edie).

For more green tech innovations, read our Rebranding Sustainability series.

Strategic opportunity

Waste heat is one node in a larger circular energy loop. Consider exploring how waste streams (heat, water, materials) can be converted into inputs across your operations or supply chain

Stat: Social media overtakes tv as leading news source for Americans

Photography by Porapak Apichodilok

US – For the first time, social media and video apps have surpassed television as Americans’ most-used source for news, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2025 Digital News Report.

The survey of nearly 100,000 people in 48 countries found that 54% of US adults now access news via social media and video networks, overtaking tv news at 50% and news websites or apps at 48%.

This milestone reflects a shift we’ve been tracking over recent years, including the rise of live streams on platforms including Twitch as a primary news source for young people and research from Morning Consult showing that social media is becoming a trusted source of news among Gen Z.

Social media creators are attracting audiences that traditional outlets struggle to reach, especially younger viewers, right-leaning groups and those who are sceptical of mainstream media. The report also shows a striking generational divide: people aged 18–24 show a strong preference for video and audio news over text, with weekly news video consumption in the US rising from 55% in 2021 to 72% in 2025, mainly via social platforms.

Longstanding news publishers also face challenges adapting their content for video-centric platforms such as TikTok, where independent creators dominate. As news consumption evolves, media organisations will need to rethink how they engage audiences in an increasingly visual and social media-driven landscape.

For more, read our The New News report.

Strategic opportunity

Media companies have a clear chance to evolve their digital offerings by adopting popular social media design features – such as infinite scroll, swiping gestures and immersive video formats – to better engage younger, video-first audiences