Need to Know
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UK – Infinite Play invites consumers to trade-in unwanted clothing and shoes in return for benefits.

Adidas has added the service to its app, encouraging its shoppers to easily trade-in worn, torn or tired products that have been purchased directly from the brand in the last five years. To use the service, existing customers can log into its Creators Club via the app, where they’ll see items eligible to trade from their purchase history.

The sportswear brand will then collect the worn gear from customers, where it will sort, clean and repair items as necessary. These will then be resold, giving them a second life and ensuring they do not end up in landfill or ocean waste. For each transaction, users will receive an e-gift card with the total value of items traded, as well as 200 Creators Club points. ‘Adidas gear was made to be played and replayed, time and time again,’ reads a statement by the brand.

By encouraging its shoppers to reconsider throwing away old garments, Adidas is contributing towards a retail future driven by the concept of Fast (Conscious) Fashion.

UK – The Department for Education (DfE) has unveiled a new marketing campaign for its new, post-GCSE technical qualification.

T Levels, which are the equivalent of three A Levels, will combine classroom learning and an extended industry placement to provide an alternative to traditional higher education pathways. Alongside apprenticeships and A Levels, the DfE hopes to establish T Levels as one of the main choices for 16-19-year-old students after GCSEs.

Ahead of T Levels’ introduction in September 2020, a UK-wide campaign created by Havas London aims to raise awareness and generate interest in these ‘Next Level qualifications’. The campaign comprises bold out-of-home, digital and social advertising, a Snapchat lens, a provider toolkit for schools and colleges, and a new commercial, which will run across video and social platforms.

‘This campaign doesn’t look, feel or act like any education advertising that has come before – because T Levels aren’t like any qualification that has come before,’ says Jennifer Black, managing director at Havas London. In our latest youth macrotrend, Paradox Personas, we explore how alternative school systems are slowly acknowledging Generation Z’s faltering trust in increasingly irrelevant education programmes.

According to new figures from Statista, luxury tourism is outpacing the wider tourism market. While tourism in general is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% over the next five years, luxury tourism will grow at 7.3% during the same period.

The study defines luxury tourism as consumer goods, services and valuables for and during trips by individuals whose net assets amount to more than $1 million (£777k, €900k). With a value of nearly $263 billion (£204.4bn, €237bn), the United States currently leads the luxury travel market, but China and India’s luxury markets are expected to grow most rapidly over the next five years.

As global wealth fluctuates and younger generations gain economic influence, a new luxury mindset is emerging, with high-net-worth individuals embracing Liberation Luxury and using their wealth to pursue flexible, footloose living.