Finding a practical application for new technology within sales can be difficult. Augmented reality is hardly a new idea anymore, but its potential as a sales tool is still in its infancy. Fortunately, augmented reality developers Hidden have produced an infographic to help sales departments understand, and incorporate the technology into their thinking.

In our hunt for the Next 100 Global Challenger Brands that will feature in the next issue of M&M, we’ve come across an emerging paradigm in the luxury sector in Asia, aiming to recreate the authentic value of Eastern traditions and culture and replace the notions of luxury imposed by the West.

One example of this trend is the Hermès-backed Chinese luxury brand Shang Xia (meaning ‘topsy-turvy’ in Mandarin) that opened its first store in September last year in the upscale shopping area in Shanghai on Huaihai Road and has since managed to cause a great buzz without any advertising, PR or celebrity endorsements. 

Although Hermès had 20 stores in China already, Shang Xia was launched as a unique homegrown luxury brand led by a designer from Shanghai, Jiang Qiong Er, and is oriented towards traditional Chinese craftsmanship and materials in creating contemporary jewellery, apparel, housewares and furniture which is 100% manufactured in China. The move was initially received with scepticism, since Chinese consumers had developed a preference for foreign brands due to the perception that they are of better quality. Yet, Shang Xia successfully challenged this misconception and is now planning on opening another store in Beijing, followed by Paris as first steps towards going global.

 

Craftwomen display their skill on cashmere during the store opening of Shang Xia in Shanghai on 16 September 2010

According to Jiang Qiong Er, the Chinese homegrown luxury brands that had been present a century ago withdrew in the early 90s as the Western ones took over. However, gradually attitudes started changing as consumers stopped shunning all things Chinese aside, recognising a need to reconnect with their own cultural backgrounds and becoming more curious about their heritage.  

“I think more people in China realize the importance of looking back to our cultural roots, going back and trying to re-evaluate the value of Chinese culture,” Jiang says in an interview for Jing Daily.

“More people here are starting to realize that, in our lives today, we’re dominated by Western lifestyles. But if you look back at the history of the world, you’ve got both Western and Eastern cultures. At one time, Eastern culture was on the peak, but that flipped. So maybe it’s time to flip it around again in some way.”

Interior of the Shanghai flagship

One of the strategies that sets Shang Xia apart from other luxury brands is prioritising time over profit with goals set in a 100 to 200-year timeline; since the essence of luxury is, in fact, time. Additionally, the marketing philosophy behind the brand is based on word of mouth, in a way to make consumers feel that they are discovering something themselves, or relying on a trusted source. Yet, this doesn’t imply a lack of proactive marketing, in fact, Shang Xia have come up with some highly insightful and creative solutions. For instance, they recently sourced designs of a unique cultural object on the theme of “Heritage and Emotion,” organised a two-week exhibition to showcase the winning object: a box called “Pass it On,” designed to keep family pictures and objects. At the exhibition, the brand set up a post office where visitors could send Shang-Xia designed postcards across the glove, with Shang Xia paid postage.

 In India, established designers such as Ritu Kumar and Sabayasachi Mukjerjee, who have been drawing inspiration from India’s ancient craft and fabrics, equally recognise the revival of homegrown luxury. 

Sabayasachi Mukjerjee's bridalwear collection

“A lot of Indian women like wearing clothing which defines them as Indian. I might be doing Western clothing, I might be doing Indian clothing, but there is always a common denominator, and that is India.  If you look at the approach, if you look at the artistry, if you look at the textiles, there’s always a strong indigenous feel,” Sabayasachi claims. His designs focus on using local, handwoven fabrics like khadi, handloom silk as well as regional arts like block printing, bandhani and gota.

Likewise, Ritu Kumar’s designs draw heavily on the textile and embroidery heritage of India. Her work under the brand ‘Ri’ will be featured in an upcoming Hindi film, Love Breakups Zindagi, due to be released in early October this year.

Shraddha Kapoor photoshoot for Anita Dongre's Global Desi collection

However, blending the best of the East and the West through modernisation of Indian traditional styles is beginning to gain recognition beyond the luxury sector in India with Anita Dongre’s high street fashion brand Global Desi that capitalises on “global style, Indian trends.”

Perhaps the flip to the East anticipated by Jiang Qiong Er isn’t that far from gaining international traction.

 

Cream dissects the roots of creativity in the Nordics and showcases some of the cleverest media campaigns that have hit the right note with their target audience.

The Playtype concept store in Copenhagen, a pop-up shop selling fonts from brand consultancy e-Types

Modern Nordic aesthetics are an amalgamation of Danish neo-classicism, Finnish craftsmanship, Norwegian folk art and the Swedish social approach to design. The result is a cool, blonde, refined look. Compared to other cultural centres in modern Europe, urbanisation and industrialisation came relatively late to the Nordics. This meant that values from a more agrarian culture were transferred directly into the new industrial setting, translating into an aesthetic movement rooted in a social setting.

Art and design had a responsibility to help create a world that was clean and functional. Influences of the British arts and craft movement found particular resonance in Sweden, and the style we today recognise as Nordic is easily identifiable. So much is design a part of the region's consciousness, that it is even possible to visit a font shop (pictured) in Copenhagen, run by a local brand consultancy. 

This design ethic is mirrored in the region’s media. A largely moderate political climate with social democratic leanings has created a culture of cooperation between individuals, which has enabled creative media industries to thrive. 

Sweden, in particular, has secured its place in the industry as a hub for digital excellence, with the work of Hyper Island, Prime and Perfect Fools winning plaudits and accolades at a global level. Sweden secured seven out of 80 Cyber Lions at this year’s Cannes festival, accounting for nearly 10% of the category. But digital excellence in one market hasn’t eclipsed the innovation and popularity of more traditional media channels. As recently as 2010, a newspaper-based campaign in Norway walked off with the ‘Award for Media Bravery’ at the Festival of Media Awards in Valencia. Print media enjoys a relatively healthy existence in the Nordics, particularly in Finland, which ranks third in the world for newspaper consumption with 31 seven-day dailies in circulation. At the first signs of contraction in the channel, Finnish print media has been quick to respond, launching campaigns to gently remind Finns that reading is a national pastime.

Subtle nuances make it difficult to generalise about the creative characteristics of a region, but there is a phrase on 358 Helsinki agency’s website that neatly sums up the creative pragmatism that is  present throughout Nordic media: “When Finnish old folks see something that’s good for someone they say, “that’s good advertising... Idea one: Anything that helps people like a company more is an ad”.

A quick tour of Nordic creativity

Norway: Heartbreaker (Starcom)

Since the birth of services like Napster, the traditional business model of phased single and album releases has died a slow death. Kaizers Orchestra decided, therefore, to shun CD, mp3 and vinyl formats and release its new single, Hjerteknuser, on paper. Before the song was heard was anywhere on the radio, the band made the sheet music available on posters,  forums and torrent download sites. The only way to hear it was to play it yourself. Fans started posting their covers in different styles and genres. As word spread, the band became a popular topic for bloggers on twitter and in the press.

Sweden: Chocography (Prime)

To learn where Marabou chocolates fitted the values and interests of Swedish consumers, the brand conducted a survey which identified a number of different ‘chocolate profiles’. The results revealed some chocolate truths; Fruit & Almond was the perfect gift for cultural city women, while a woman with a shoe fetish would love a Swiss Almond. The idea of ‘chocography’ was seeded among the blog community. TV, online and in-store advertising directed fans to the campaign site, which shared functionality with social networks.

Denmark: Extra summer (PHD)

Danish summers are very short and the winter dark. The 2009/2010 was the longest in 14 years and by February the Danes were craving light.By changing to daylight saving time (summer time) on 21 March instead of 28 March, Somersby could deliver an extra week of summer time to Denmark.From a pop-up campaign office in Copenhagen, it led the national rally for an extra week of summer, kick-started by a TV commercial introducing the ‘mission’ and running across multiple platforms to spur group involvement.

Finland: Burn (Helsinki 358)

When the Cancer Society of Finland wanted to communicate its non-smoking message to teenagers, it knew that talking to this audience required subtlety. So Cancer Society tapped into the teenage obsession with celebrity. The result was Burn, a magazine emulating popular lifestyle magazines, with celebrity gossip, showbiz news and light-hearted features. The difference in Burn was that all the content was related to smoking issues. Response has been positive. Initially intended as a one-off project, interest in the title has seen a steady increase and issue four is now due to be published. 

It’s a journalistic cliché to say that you should never meet your idols, although when M&M met Martha, she didn’t disappoint.  This is a woman who has made a sustained career, and empire, out of being ‘Martha Stewart’, and within seconds of seeing her up close, you can see how.  When she took to the stage at the IPG Women in Media breakfast in Cannes, she looked every inch the domestic goddess that has brought gracious living to print and TV for the past four decades.

I was in Cannes with my colleague Martina, features editor at M&M. And we arrived at the Majestic Hotel bright and early to secure front row seats to see Martha. Any remnants of a hangover from too many Camparis the night before were quickly forgotten in the excitement. Rumours of Martha sightings on the Croissette abounded. We took our seats, and then moved because a pillar potentially interfered with a clear view of Martha. As more people arrived, the nervous anticipation grew. What would she look like? What would she say? Would she talk about prison?

The women in media presentation didn’t hold any surprises. There were some statistics from Sylvia Ann Hewlett about women at the top of the profession that were either familiar or predictable, followed by a panel discussion with a number of women from brands and agencies. Panel discussions are only really interesting when you have debate, but listening to six women agree with each other for 40 minutes is never going to make for a compelling viewing. Fortunately, the panel included the deeply fabulous Wendy Clark from Coca-Cola. Clark is one of those marketers who bring both talent and star quality to the profession. Unintentional comedy was present on the panel courtesy of one marketer, who shall remain nameless, whose hair reacted so badly to the Cannes humidity that it offered some much needed comedic respite as it turned afro before our eyes. I had to leave the room on two separate occasions because of giggling. 

Wendy Clark, Coca-Cola. Deeply fab.

Martha was introduced on stage by Soledad O’Brien, famous to American TV viewers for her stints on NBC and CNN, and as they sat down to chat Martha’s media magic quickly became apparent. The woman has a knack for dealing with the media. She is a media mogul of the highest order (anyone with ‘omnimedia’ appearing after their name surely qualifies as a media mogul), and that isn’t a position one reaches without knowing how to deal with the media, and the public. O’Brien gamely tried to tease insight and revelation from the conversation, but it quickly became obvious that O’Brien’s agenda was irrelevant. Martha Stewart knows exactly what she’s going to say to a journalist before they even ask the questions, and the disconnect between O’Brien’s questions and Stewart’s replies made for bizarre, but compelling viewing.

She talked candidly about her career, her regrets and her ambitions. She even talked about her spell in prison – although I was disappointed that there were no fruity stories about teaching the other inmates how to fold their bed linen, or craft a homemade shiv from an old toothbrush. 

As the time for Martina’s private audience approached, I could see she was nervous but excited. Like the good friend and colleague I am, I abandoned her to go and sit in the sunshine and interview Wendy Clark. What follows is a third hand account of when Martha met M&M.

Normally, press interviews are conducted in offices, restaurants or coffee shops. It’s probably fair to say that when Martina was at college studying to be a journalist, dreaming of the day she might get to meet Martha Stewart, she didn’t think such a meeting would take place in a hotel storeroom.  Understandably she was disappointed with the dark and dirty location that had been arranged by the conference organisers for the interview - as was Martha.

When Martha entered the room, or shall we say the dumping ground for broken hotel furniture, she proclaimed that “no one should sit in a room like this” and instructed that the interview should take place in the hotel lobby, where it did and you can read Martina’s interview here.

M&M&M. Martina Lacey talks to Martha Stewart. Pushy PR can be seen on the far left.

When you’re a name like Martha Stewart, having an entourage is a fact of life. Martha’s publicist came from the school of pushy PR, where directness is confused with rudeness, and everyone thinks they’re Samantha Jones from Sex in the City.

“One minute,” chimed ‘Samantha’, when there was clearly five minutes left for the meeting. She went on to remind everyone there was “one minute left” for each of the remaining four minutes. I appreciate that everyone has a job to do, but a bit of courtesy and diplomacy costs nothing.

Keen to demonstrate her knowledge of all things Martha, Martina ended the interview by sharing the two ways the domestic goddess had changed her life. Martha nodded in approval, with the polite grace of someone who probably hears this kind of thing on a daily if not hourly basis. One of these important life lessons involves the trick of folding a fitted sheet flat, a technique which has acquired a near mythic status back in the editorial office.

Samantha eventually had her way, and the audience with Martha was over. “What are we doing now? Are we going for lunch?” asked Martha. “Yes, we’re going to go to lunch now, the car is outside,” replies Samantha.

Martha remains seated. “Are you going back to the hotel to get changed first?” Everyone turns to look at the PR.

“I was going to wear this” replies Samantha. Everyone looks back at Martha.

Samantha has unwittingly walked into a trap. The hotel lobby falls silent, even the hotel staff who are bustling around are watching Martha for her reaction to what is a clear act of defiance from one of Martha’s minions.

Martha’s response is delivered with a quiet, amiable tone which comes loaded with an unquestionable air of authority “So, you don’t think that you need to get changed?” Back to the publicist.

Samantha looks down at her outfit, a little linen number clearly picked out to counter the Cannes heat, “I guess I can go to the hotel first and get changed.”

The PR knows she’s beaten, and makes her excuses to go. Everyone in the lobby finally breaths out. When the mortals in Greek mythology encounter their gods, they come away dazed and confused. And this lot have just seen Martha Stewart in action.  

Martha Stewart, the official photo.

The complete Martha Stewart M&M interview. 

By Mike Woods, Framestore

Easy one this week. But be wary. Gore, swearing and exceptionally bad taste – yes, its ZomBinLaden. Unfortunately, this isn't a real film, but a made-up trailer by an inspired French production company. Somewhere in Hollywood at this very moment, there is an executive pondering...

 

Last week at the corner of Broome and Crosby in Soho, New York, more than 180,000 people walked past a giant chalkboard which was blank, apart from a twitter handle (@giantchalkboard) and website (giantchalkboard.com). A few days later, the beginnings of an elaborate equation appeared, full of challenging twists and turns that combined mathematics with numbers that are significant to scientific human achievements throughout history - and a banner that says “Solutionism. The new optimism.”

Described as a mathematical poem, more of the equation was revealed over the following five days. People were invited to participate and guess meanings of different elements of the poem through Twitter and the giantchalkboard website. On the fifth day the answer was revealed, and can be viewed here.

The poem was the teaser to a new campaign from the Dow Chemical Company, from Draftfcb. It’s refreshing to see such creative thinking in an industry not known for embracing a more esoteric approach to marketing.

Chemicals companies are normally so keen to promote their individual CSR initiatives that there isn’t time for any art or subtlety. It’s nice to see that a brand other than AkzoNobel’s Dulux can flex its creative muscle in the chemicals space. The full equation, and its meaning can be viewed here. 

ATG, the Swedish horse racing authority wanted to engage a new younger audience in horse racing, and the result is The Race, one of the most ridiculous but entertaining branded games we’ve seen here at the Cream office. Developed by a local Swedish agency called Åkestam Holst, The Race is a real-time multiplayer game where you compete against up to five other people on the net.

How does the brand fit? It’s a horse racing game, promoting horse racing so the brand fit is pretty obvious. But the stroke of genius is the ability to use your voice (through a computer’s in-built microphone) to cheer your own horse forward.

 

Is it any good? Yes. After last week’s disaster this is a return to form. The voice encouragement is a neat touch, as is the web-cam enabled photo finish. The controls are simple enough, with the keyboard divided into three sections. There’s even a helpful guide you can print out to keep track of the controls. If your horse is lagging behind, you can munch on carrots for extra speed or answer the pop up questions that appear during the race. As we mentioned, it is ridiculous. We were rubbish at it, but it didn’t matter.

Verdict: Brand fit 9/10. Game play 8/10. The facility to cheer your horse along is an inspired touch that helps recreate the trackside experience of a real horse race. ATG have a history of producing entertaining campaigns to promote Swedish horse racing, and this game continues that tradition. We loved it. Try it for yourself here. 

Welcome back to the Cream world tour. We hope you enjoyed last week's trip to Mexico. This week, we are taking you to New Zealand where all eyes are currently turned to for the Rugby World Cup.

Cream is filled with great case studies from New Zealand. Here is a small selection of a few to give you a taste of what goes on down under...