Need to Know
23 : 08 : 17

Lithuania – A new, sinister identity has been developed by visual artist Imantas Selenis for the Smala electronic and techno night at Opium nightclub in Vilnius. The long-running music night has become well known for its use of red neon lighting, which Selenis has incorporated into the visual identity for Smala’s new photo-poster series.

Shot with cinema-grade lighting at various locations around Vilnius, the scenes are reminiscent of stills from a film. One photo poster features an obscured female figure provocatively trailing a red coat out of an old-fashioned lift, while another shows legs and heels protruding out of the top-floor window of a residential house. For more on the brands that have taken inspiration from traditional cinematographic tropes and given them a modern twist, see our Golden Age design direction.

Global – Vice Media is working with Airbnb to offer holidays that tap into the media company’s subculture approach. As part of Airbnb’s new Experiences feature, the collaboration will be launched with a competition that offers 100 winners complimentary customised tours of South Africa, Paris, New York or Tokyo.

Winning holidaymakers travelling to Cape Town will participate in a tour of the electronic music scene, led by DJs Spoek Mathambo and Yolanda Fyrus. In Tokyo, guests will receive a tour of the city’s LGBTQ nightlife culture. After the competition, there will be a charge for tours, with profits going to Airbnb, after paying Vice to market its Experiences service and other products.

A change is occurring in the way that media companies present themselves. Whereas they once strived for independence, now partnerships are welcomed as a way of ensuring brand reach. For more on the evolution of media, see our Internet Age Media 2017 microsite.

Chengdu – A dramatic new retail space for South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster has been themed around ‘a vision of what the world and life would look like after an apocalyptical tsunami’, while remaining aesthetically similar to the brand’s previous offerings.

On the ground floor, black and grey hues dominate, and sparsely placed spiny, metal sculptures evoke the desolation of a post-apocalyptic landscape. A black spiral staircase in the centre of the space, representing the tsunami, leads the visitor up to a brighter upper level, where mushroom-like sculptures sprout from an iridescent surface to symbolise the dawning of new life, evocative of the emerging generation of Chinese luxury consumers. For more on the mindset of young Chinese consumers, see our Emerging Youth: China market report.

Hispanic Millennial Americans are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to be parents as non-Hispanic Millennial Americans (53% versus 32%), according to new research from Univision. With US Hispanic GDP ranking seventh in the world, above countries such as India, Brazil and Canada, this is a market that forward-thinking brands such as Mazda are specifically targeting.