Need to Know
12 : 07 : 19

Global – We The Bathers is an emotive campaign film that explores the different types of relationships humans have with water.

Directed by Phoebe Arnstein, the 17-minute documentary for beauty retailer Lush invites viewers to step into various individual's intimate bathing routines, as they share personal musings on washing and cleansing. The slice-of-life vignettes feature real people, including a grieving father in Sicily, a Buddhist in Japan, and a new mother in Margate working through post-natal depression.

The idea for the film came from the brand’s chief digital officer Jack Constantine, who had spent time researching Japanese bathing culture and questioned which other bathing rituals existed around the world. The film uses water ‘as a portal to explore the fragility of humanity’ as well as to cleanse, contemplate and connect.

With this campaign, Lush is prioritising quality over quantity, asking its fans to dedicate their focus to a highly intimate, 17-minute-film.

UK – The platform aims to promote ‘a new normal’ when it comes to seeking mental health services.

The Liverpool-based organisation exists as an online hub, offering a practical guide to help young people aged between 16 and 30 years access subsidised mental health support. The Mind Map also publishes articles on the stories of celebrities – such as boxer Tyson Fury, blogger Zoella and various musicians – who have been affected by mental health problems in their careers.

Visitors to the website can also book onto a Mental Health First Aid course and browse a selection of accessible, accredited therapists in their area. The platform was built in response to research conducted by the team, which found that 88.5% of Liverpool John Moores University students felt there were not enough online mental health provisions available.

For many members of Generation Z, traditional routes to therapy are outdated, inaccessible or simply too expensive. To see how brands beyond the The Mind Map are democratising the sector, read our Modern Therapy microtrend.

Sweden – Beverage maker Læsk is launching a new DIY kombucha brand made exclusively for Ikea and developed by Danish design firm Everland.

The new brand will join Ikea’s food and drink offerings, providing consumers with a simple way of making their own kombucha at home as part of a three-step process. Guided by a series of playful, simple illustrations, consumers can brew their chosen tea, mix in sugar and add a can of Læsk’s kombucha base to explore fermentation for themselves.

Everland has developed the new brand and packaging design for the home-brewing kit, including the ingredients and containers required to brew and store the beverage. ‘Kombucha brewing should be for everybody,’ says Læsk co-founder Line Hoff. ‘Many people get nervous when somebody talks about fermentation. But it is not difficult to get started. With this new brand, we can truly democratise kombucha.’

To learn more about how kombucha is diversifying, read our Fermented Drinks Market.

A new report from Barclays and CEBR delves into changing attitudes towards wealth. Among the 4,000 adults surveyed, respondents said, on average, that they would consider a person with at least £1 million ($1.25m, €1.1m) in assets to be wealthy – well above the average of £281,343 ($353,345, €313,444) reported by most respondents taking part in the survey. As a result, just 7% said that they consider themselves to be wealthy.

However, this figure rises to 11% among those aged 18–34 years, even though they report lower levels of personal wealth than older generations. Indeed, only 5% of those aged 55 and over stated that they see themselves as wealthy, suggesting different generations are more likely to gauge their personal wealth against others in their age group, rather than against the population as a whole.

For more insights into the financial attitudes of younger consumers, read our Millennials Money Market.