As consumers seek to purchase experiences over goods, the successful fashion and luxury companies will be the ones that are best positioned to take advantage of the shift. North Americans are spending more time outdoors: snowboarding, hiking, and in fitness. And there is also a rise in leisure vacationing. To this effect, high end accessories will have slower growth and expensive clothing will see similar stagnation. Brands will need to focus on adjusting by merchandising their products around the paid experiences that illicit memories far more valuable to consumers than high fashion or cutting edge electronics. - @web
Successful men's brand Taylor Stitch launched a sub-brand, designed around technical fabric blends, to promote sustainable travel. This is one of the many (effective) marketing pitches that you will see from brands who are now positioning themselves as the secondary to the costlier experiences that we pursue.
MEDIA: That's precisely what happened when I came across a commercial for the brand Adidas. However the spot was not made by Adidas nor its agencies. I could make a snide remark and say something like that's why this spot is so darn good and so darn inspiring and why every brand needs to watch it and draw its own inspiration from it.
BRAND: For instance, Nike reports that 28 million people use its Nike+. Fitbit, meanwhile, cited 9.5 million active users in 2015. Garmin, an early entrant into the category, has 15 million users of its Garmin Connect. While those companies battle over athletes and weekend warriors, a potentially bigger audience might loom for health trackers.
ECOMMERCE: That leaves the business model, and this is perhaps Amazon’s biggest advantage of all: Google doesn’t really have one for voice, and Apple is for now paying an iPhone and Apple Watch strategy tax; should it build a Siri-device in the future it will likely include a healthy significant profit margin. Amazon, meanwhile, doesn’t need to make a dime on Alexa, at least not directly: the vast majority of purchases are initiated at home; today that may mean creating a shopping list,.
ECOMMERCE: The job postings were originally spotted by Recode's Jason Del Rey. Business Insider has independently confirmed that Amazon is launching its own athletic clothing label. According to the job posting, Amazon is looking for candidates with "established relationships in fashion and/or athletic apparel, supply chain or vendor community" and a "passion for sport, athletes and those living an active lifestyle."
CAPSTONE: Tumult did come to define 2016, but there were certainly bright moments for the modern luxury market and neighboring industries. Phlur made a big splash in the summer, introducing an innovative take on fragrance and a considerable PR push that put it on many shoppers’ maps from June to December.
BRAND: Plank likes to say that the key to Under Armour's success is that he never focused on all the reasons it couldn't happen. A former Division 1 college football player, Plank famously bootstrapped Under Armour's launch in 1995 armed with one simple insight: The cotton undershirts football players wore under their pads slowed them down when they became soaked with sweat.
DATA: In GILT we are building automated cognitive systems to detect dresses based on their silhouette, neckline, sleeve type and occasion. On top of that, we are also developing systems to detect dress similarity which can be useful for product recommendations. Furthermore, when integrated with automated tagging, our customers will be able to find similar products with different facets.
MEDIA: This is tragic, but also expected. Medium rigged that VC bomb and is failing to disarm. And just like most other VC bombs, it too will explode and take with it the prospect of a lovely, smaller, important typewriter business. The web, of course, will go on, if murder is indeed what she’ll write. Especially for anyone who moved to Medium but hedged their bets by keeping their own domains. A quick dump and nothing will break — except our hearts. Again.
ECOMMERCE: Amazon’s US patent on its one-click payments technology will expire this year, enabling other online retailers to deploy similar technology on their sites, PYMNTS.com reports. The patented tech is a signature part of Amazon’s checkout process that allows customers to complete a purchase with a single click by using payments credentials and shipping information previously stored with Amazon.
ECOMMERCE: Nordstrom, although known for being digital savvy, has been on a cost-cutting mission to reevaluate its e-commerce operations and tech teams in an effort to move out of the doldrums. In September the retailer promoted Ken Worzel, its executive vice president of strategy and development since 2010, to president of its Nordstrom.com unit, part of an executive shuffle to jumpstart the department store chain's e-commerce efforts.
ECOMMERCE: ShoeBuy CEO Mike Sorabella, his executive team, and ShoeBuy’s 200-plus employees will continue to be based in Boston and will join our e-commerce organization,” Wal-Mart says. Additionally, the ShoeBuy online store will remain operational and maintain its brand name as part of the deal. ShoeBuy generated an Internet Retailer-estimated $374.2 million in online sales in 2015, up 8% from $346.5 million in 2014, according to Top500Guide.com.
BRAND: Brands are bringing some manufacturing to U.S. soil in an effort to speed up the production cycle. Under Armour’s “Lighthouse” center and the Adidas “Speedfactory” are but two examples. Robotics also has the potential to take costly labor steps out of the manufacturing process. Every day we are hearing of a new method or technique that is on the horizon or actually in use.
Continuing On...
The plan is to continue 2pml.com by further improving its writing, design, function, and curation. While I won't use the word "startup" to describe this project, I do hope that 2PM Links can be the authority on these matters and if the team must grow to achieve that, it will.
I began 2PM Links to grow as a student of commerce and the interconnectivity of data, media, and brand. Each day, I devoted hours to it. However, I look back on early writings with a bit of pause. My views on certain industries, companies, and initiatives were often determined without inspection. And that is a benefit of this letter. What you will take away from reading this letter is an evolved view of an ecosystem that fosters growth for companies. You will have an even better understanding of media, data interpretation, brand management, and commerce are the foundational pillars of many companies that thrive today. Fluidity is our modern law and the ecosystem is readjusted often enough to promote a need for collective effort.
The interconnectivity of our professions is what drives each of them along. And the plan for 2pml.com is to continue highlighting all that each industry offers, without opinion or sensationalism. I hope that you'll stick around after no. 180.
