LSN : News : Thought-starter: Could physical objects enhance digital spaces?

Selfridges imagines the phygital future of fashion

The New Order by Selfridges

London – The department store has invited a group of digital-first creatives to envision the future of fashion for its AW19 campaign.

The campaign – titled The New Order – seeks to disrupt the retail experience by merging physical and digital elements across window displays, visual merchandising and the London store’s five-storey central atrium. Creatives including digital artist Jon Emmony and all-female 3D image-making community Digi Gals have produced work in response to Selfridges’ various core commercial fashion categories, including swimwear and accessories.

‘Fashion has always been about fantasy,’ says Emma Kidd, Selfridges' head of creation. ‘But the digital realm has shifted the limits of fashion – we’re no longer constrained by what is humanly or materially possible. Our new digital tools are causing a revolution in what fashion looks like, and what it can do for us.’

Similarly, our Immaterial Fashion macrotrend considers how digitisation offers a new route for consumers to engage with fashion.

Extreme E uses motorsports to address climate change

Race For The Planet by Extreme E

London – The Extreme E series will see electric vehicles race in some of the world’s most remote and extreme environments.

As well as unveiling an adventurous brand identity, the operating partner of Formula E has announced plans for a series of races that set out to showcase E-SUV innovation while raising awareness and inspiring action against the threat of climate change. When the season begins in 2021, competitors will battle across five locations that have been severely damaged due to climate change – the Himalayas, Arctic, Amazon, Sahara Desert and an Indian Ocean island.

The race will be broadcast live to a remote audience from each location to minimise local environmental impact. Nick Downes, managing partner at Interstate Creative Partners, says: ‘The Extreme E brand is the product of young people caring, actually getting angry, about the environment they live in and the long-term damage they see affecting the human race and everything around it.’

As well as connecting the worlds of motorsports, entertainment and sustainability, Extreme E is challenging the notion that electric vehicles, while practical, are lacking in a certain romance.

A supplement that doubles as a snack

Vitamine D snack by Red Orchard

London – Red Orchard has launched a gel-based snack containing 100% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin D.

Doubling as both a snack and a supplement, the gel format is designed to offer consumers a convenient alternative to pills, powders, drops and sprays. Red Orchard’s Organic Vitamin D Gel is packaged in a 40g pouch that is designed to be easily transportable, fitting anywhere from handbags to lunch boxes.

The strawberry-flavoured product, which contains less than 20 calories per serving and contains no added sugar, has been developed to help tackle widespread vitamin D deficiency, according to the brand. ‘At Red Orchard we feel the problems that arise from deficiencies are completely avoidable if we find new ways to improve the experience of healthy nutrition,’ says Abdul Hakeem Hashi, director of Red Orchard.

Demonstrating some of the ideas outlined in our Post-Pharmacy Brands microtrend, Red Orchard is an example of how new vitamin and supplement brands are innovating.

This campaign positions driving as a digital detox

Let Driving Distract you by NZ Transport Agency and Clemenger BBDO

New Zealand – The ad by NZ Transport Agency wants consumers to see their cars as a safe haven from digital devices.

With 43% of young Australian and New Zealand drivers trying not to use their phones while driving, but ending up doing so anyway, device usage is compromising the region’s road safety. To tackle this, NZ Trasnport Agency and Clemenger BBDO created a campaign film to reposition driving as an activity to distract consumers from their phones.

‘This campaign changes what it means to not check your phone in the car. Instead of your car inconveniencing your connectedness, it can offer a sweet escape. A subtle yet brilliant flip that changes the way you think about the hierarchy of your car and phone,’ says Brigid Alkema, ECD at Clemenger BBDO. ‘Let Driving Distract You turns the car into a helpful and useful tool for phone resistance – a place to start practicing restraint.’

As we explored in Health-conscious Cars, the car can become a space in which consumers can unwind and find a sense of contentment away from their nonstop digital lives.

Stat: New markets lead growing worldwide wealth

In 2018, a number of rapidly developing markets experienced wealth growth above the global average, according to Boston Consulting Group’s 19^thannual Global Wealth report. Personal financial wealth grew by 6.8% in Eastern Europe, while Latin America experienced a 6.3% jump in wealth growth, led by Mexico and Brazil. South Africa is driving Africa’s wealth development, lifting the continent’s total year-on-year growth to 8.9%.

The report also finds that the number of millionaires grew 2.1% to 22.1 million in 2018, with these individuals now holding a combined 50% of personal financial assets globally. By 2023, the regions predicted to experience the fastest millionaire population growth are Asia (10.1%), Africa (9.8%) and Latin America (9.1%).

As spending power in countries such as South Africa and Poland continues to grow, it is creating new opportunities for luxury brands.

Thought-starter: Could physical objects enhance digital spaces?

Micro Utopia by Paula Strunden

Designers are swapping fiddly haptic interfaces for basic material props to enhance the poetry and meaning of virtual experiences, writes Peter Maxwell.

A series of designers and brands are turning to familiar objects, materials and rituals to bridge the gap between phygital worlds in an attempt to advance the adoption of virtual reality (VR).

Micro-Utopia by Dutch architectural designer Paula Strunden explores the potential to create a shared version of the home that relies on the interplay between a fixed set of basic furniture pieces and the multitude of potential VR environments. The project was inspired by London’s housing crisis, with Strunden keen to develop a means of generating personal spatial experiences within a fixed architectural footprint.

Nintendo believes a similarly hands-on approach could be central to encouraging the next generation to embrace VR. The Japanese gaming giant launched its first Labo kits last year, offering children the chance to build intricate cardboard attachments to transform the brand’s handheld Switch consoles and controllers into a variety of innovative toys. The implication was that gaming didn’t have to just be about the visual.

Explore the potential for Post-digital Communications here.