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Zalando proposes luxury on Gen Z terms

Luxury on Your Terms by Zalando in collaboration with Vincent Haycock, Ib Kamara and Coco Capitán

Berlin – With Generation Z audiences rapidly redefining luxury, the online fashion retailer is reaching this group with its interactive digital campaign, Luxury on Your Own Terms. Tapping into the video-first nature of Gen Z, the campaign includes a shoppable film series, The Life of Liberty, featuring characters wearing products from Zalando’s luxury collections.

Promotional TikTok content also forms part of the campaign, with diverse young creatives such as queer activist William Ernult acting as brand ambassadors. Here, Zalando is paving the way for a future in which tomorrow's luxury brands are built by young, social media-orientated consumers. ‘By 2025 it is expected that Gen Z and Millennials will conduct the majority of luxury purchases,’ says Anaheta Metghalchi von Berenberg, buying director at Zalando. ‘We are uniquely positioned to provide our customers… with an incredible cross-category offering in an online environment.’

Luxury on Your Own Terms shows how traditional pillars of luxury are being re-imagined by emerging generations, with heritage credentials no longer enough to win over consumers who choose brands based on their personal beliefs.

Strategic opportunity

To win over Generation Z, take cues from the entertainment sector to combine premium ideals with contemporary values. Prioritise engaging visuals and work with influential personalities who can express their values while promoting your brand

Children’s fairytales are being rewritten for resilience

GOSH Charity in collaboration with Adam&Eve/DDB

UK – London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) charity is retelling classic children's stories to support young people facing challenging life moments. Together with communications agency Adam&Eve/DDB, GOSH is releasing six stories that tackle themes such as loss, illness, isolation and sadness. The first is a poem, Dee without Dum, which re-invents the narrative of Alice in Wonderland to instead explore separation anxiety.

Alongside the reworked stories, GOSH is launching an online hub with resources and activities that incorporate play as a core part of coping with difficulties. By doing so, the charity recognises the importance of teaching tenacity among early age children. Laura Walsh, head of play at Great Ormond Street Hospital, says: ‘Play is a superpower at the fingertips of all children, and it’s especially important at times of change or worry, when building our children’s resilience can help them to cope with life’s challenges.’

Growing up in an increasingly uncertain world, Generation Alpha will benefit from age-appropriate yet uncondescending communications that address these more jarring topics.

Strategic opportunity

When targeting Generation Alpha, avoid sugar-coating real-life scenarios in your products and services. This values-based generation – and their parents – will appreciate efforts to address societal concerns in preparation for the future

Uber manoeuvres into on-demand beauty services

Los Angeles – On the back of its acquisition of delivery service Postmates, the ride-sharing app will begin offering beauty products on demand. Available as part of its loyalty programme, Postmates Unlimited, the service will initially offer a bundle of 18 beauty products for an all-in price of £275 ($375, €320). The bundle, which is significantly better value than in-store prices, features products from brands such as Furtuna Skin, Summer Fridays and Corpus Naturals.

This initiative follows the launch of Uber’s white label solution Uber Direct, allowing the company to partner with fashion and beauty brands to fulfil deliveries that originate from the companies’ own websites. Previously, we’ve covered Uber's expansion into e-commerce, including on-demand delivery of magazine Vogue Netherlands. ‘Uber Direct is a great tool for retailers who want an operationally efficient way to reach their customers,’ says Julie Kim, global head of membership at Uber.

In this way, Uber is catering for consumers' Eco-venience demands, linking its services with beauty brands to offer consumers cost-effective and eco-friendly delivery.

Dr Barbara Sturm on Postmates Unlimited

Strategic opportunity

Retailers have an opportunity to maximise existing logistics services like Uber to bolster convenience for consumers. Take cues from Uber’s beauty bundles and partner with similar brands to offer an appealing service

Stat: CBD boosts interest in hard seltzers

Something & Nothing

With hard seltzers proving to be a popular category in the US drinks market, a study by Veylinx finds that there are still growth opportunities in adding benefits such as CBD. For the study, Veylinx tested eight hard seltzer brands and eight added benefits to determine which potential product innovations consumers would value most.

Its results show that adding CBD boosted demand by 12% on average, while enhancing the drinks with kombucha lowered demand by an average of 6%. The study also confirmed that White Claw leads the category when it comes to customers’ overall willingness to pay – with 35% higher average demand than its competitors.

Anouar El Haji, CEO of Veylinx, says: ‘We wanted to study the hard seltzer category because it has disrupted the alcoholic beverage space so profoundly in such a short time.’ As the ready-to-drink category continues to evolve, these findings suggest new directions brands could take to keep their offering fresh and appealing.

Strategic opportunity

Drinks brands should take the opportunity to experiment with variations such as high or low alcohol content, vitamin infusions or immunity-boosting formulas. By doing so, brands are also likely to expand their audiences