-Major luxury brands enjoyed a “blockbuster” 2011 and expect an even better 2012, according to The Wall Street Journal, as “emerging markets power seemingly relentless demand.” The Journal also reports that Chinese consumers are losing interest in fakes, a shift that’s driving expansion plans in China among foreign companies. -“Down and out” is becoming the [...]
-Beijing’s office rents are now higher than New York’s, reports The FT. -Indonesia and the Philippines are among the developing countries demanding better treatment for their unskilled workers abroad, a trend The Wall Street Journal says “could shake up global labor markets.” -Recently released data from fellow WPP company Landor suggests that most companies need [...]
-From the Arab Spring to capitalism, Time brings us five hot topics from this week’s Davos conference. -With food security on the agenda at Davos, The Financial Times takes a look at how governments, industry and other organizations are scrambling to address an increasingly urgent issue. -Two executives attending Davos report in for The Guardian: [...]
-With the Western version of liberal capitalism flapping about, The Economist‘s January special report focuses on the rise of a new form of state capitalism in emerging markets. -According to the Global Risks 2012 report, world leaders are pessimistic about the likelihood of global catastrophes in the next decade, thanks to income inequality, fiscal woes, [...]
British department store Selfridges is tapping into several key trends with its new 3,500-square-foot pop-up “library” in the flagship London store. Two of our 10 Trends for 2011 play a role here. There’s De-teching—more people choosing to log off, at least temporarily—since one stated aim is to “to prompt people to switch off their mobile [...]
-Fast Company has predictions from around the web for 2012; The Economist goes around the world to do the same thing. Here at JWTIntelligence, we released our annual 100 Things to Watch list, while The Wall Street Journal consolidates predictions from ad land. -The Guardian publishes its technology trends for the year ahead. -McKinsey Quarterly [...]
As CEO of the Luxury Institute, Milton Pedraza has seen the pendulum swing from the exuberance of the mid-2000s to the stalled spending of the recession to the more exclusive market we are seeing now, four years after the downturn started. But while the luxury market has quickly evolved, luxury itself is timeless, he says. [...]
-McKinsey Quarterly outlines why the cheap commodity prices that helped fuel 20th century prosperity will remain high and volatile for the near future. -The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is warning that “extreme weather events” will only increase in coming decades. -Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland examines corruption in India and the middle class’s rising anger over [...]
-An International Energy Agency report concludes that the planet is “headed for irreversible climate change in five years” barring changes to our fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, the economic and human impact of climate change is likely to be “even more staggering than previously thought,” according to a Huffington Post report on a new study. -Time [...]
-The New York Times examines the price everyday Chinese are paying for the country’s growth, as part of its “Endangered Dragon” series on China’s new economy. -Women in Egypt and Tunisia are “both hopeful and fearful” about how revolution will change gender politics, according to The Economist. And Time takes a look at a debate [...]
In the digital era, saying “I love you” has become so easy, there’s even a Facebookapp to do it for you. But these days people are craving physical tokens rather than virtual ones: The idea of Objectifying Objects is one of our 10 Trends for 2012, and stationery is among our 100 Things to Watch for this year. As we noted last November, various digital services now help people send real-world messages. For Valentine’s Day, eHarmony Australia developed an easy way to create a keepsake. For those who “like” the online dating site’s Facebook page and fill in the relevant details, eHarmony’s “Calligraphy Cupids” will craft a handwritten love letter and deliver it. —Will Palley
Dubbed “a Spanish Starbucks for sandwiches” by Bloomberg Businessweek, this 11-year-old chainis now targeting international customers with its cheap menu and environment that encourages lingering with friends. Its numerous “montaditos”—a tapas staple that here takes the form of mini-sandwiches—are just €1 in Spain, while beer is €2. 100 Montaditos ventured outside Spain in 2010, opened in Miami in 2011, and plans more North and South American and European outlets for 2012. Watch for others to jump on the montaditos bandwagon. —Jessica Vaughn
When the remote control was brought to market in the early 1960s, it reshaped the way we watched television, creating legions of “couch surfers.” Fifty years later, several alternatives to the traditional touch-button remote are coming to market, positioned as easier, more intuitive means to control the screen.
At this year’s CES, two major brands showed TVs that integrate voice recognition. LGdebuted a remote with voice recognition for its Smart TV, with users able to search the Web, tweet and post to Facebook, by speaking rather than typing. They can’t change the channel or control the volume, however. Most ambitious is Samsung, which released a range of televisions that integrate voice-, gesture- and facial-recognition technologies. Built-in cameras recognize viewers’ faces, automatically signing them in to their user profiles; users can then control the TV via voice commands or gestures.
As these developments continue, watch for the next generation of easy-to-operate consumer electronics to come to a store near you. —Will Palley
Knowledge-based work and routine tasks will increasingly be sliced, diced and contracted to the lowest online bidder as companies and consumers post micro-jobs like proofreading, translation, coding, doing laundry and much more. Coffee & Power, Amazon’sMechanical Turk, Freelancer.com and others are creating the next assembly line, splitting up knowledge-based assignments. Companies like TaskRabbit, available in five U.S. cities and aiming to expand to 12 this year, focus mostly or errands. Employers get connected to the cheapest global vendor, while hungry workers willing to put in hours can rack up a modest living. —Deanna Zammit
Fourth-generation wireless communications will reach most parts of the globe by the end of 2012. In the BIC markets, China Mobile has started trials in China; in India, several major telecom providers will launch 4G in the first half of this year; and Sky Brazillaunched a 4G-based mobile broadband service in December. Meanwhile, more manufacturers are releasing 4G smartphones, including RIM, which debuted the first 4G Blackberry in August. Apple is expected to dive into 4G with the iPhone 5 sometime this year. —Marina Bortoluzzi
The latest innovation in contactless payments may be a throwback: microchip-embedded wristwatches that enable small mobile payments. Watch2pay, which has adopted the tagline “Time is money,” uses MasterCard’s PayPass technology and comes with a reloadable, prepaid MasterCard (the watches are made by LAKS). So far it’s available in Poland and the U.K., where it launched in November for £99. A few other markets have introduced similar watches in recent years, including Turkey, where Garanti bank has been offering the “Bonus Trink Watch,” which it describes as a “watch-shaped credit card.” —Will Palley
As the U.S. Post Office makes plans to scale back services, there is at least one startup that sees opportunity in the business of snail mail. Austin, Texas-based Outbox plans to soon start testing a service that would intercept mail at local post offices, scan it and send it to a digital mailbox. The target is busy moms, who can use bits of downtime on the go to peruse their paper mail.
While a few other companies receive and manage bills online, such as Hearst’s Manilla and two-year-old Zumbox, they bypass the post office altogether, setting up a direct line between customers and companies. Outbox assumes there’s still a place for real, honest-to-goodness mail, even if it comes via a digital screen. We’ve written about people creating analog greetings via digital devices—now, ironically, that snail mail could become digitized once again before it gets to its destination. —Patty Orsini
After a radical rebrand in mid-2011, 24-year-old singer Lizzy Grant re-emerged with a sultry American-retro look and a new name. A few months later she posted an emotionally charged video for her single “Video Games” on YouTube, then promptly sold out an upcoming show in minutes and won Q magazine’s “Next Big Thing” award. The media is abuzz, despite some online griping about her authenticity. Del Rey recently secured a modeling contract, and her debut album, Born to Die, is due Jan. 31. —Will Palley
The debunking of the notion that the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012 isn’t going to get in the way of marketing. Mexico, home to part of the Mayan civilization, and its hospitality operators have been using the doomsday story to draw tourists. Axe has been having fun with the idea for a while, creating a Final Edition body spray. With the likes of Harold Camping predicting end times almost daily, some brands with an edge may look to add a little tongue-in-cheek urgency to their product messaging. —Aaron Baar
Earlier this month the comedian Louis C.K. announced he would sell a concert video directly to fans online for $5. The novel idea has been a hit: Grosses have already topped $1 million. Watch for more such moves as new distribution models, technologies and consumer habits translate to bypassing the traditional middleman between content creators and their customers.
In music, for example, services like VibeDeck and Moontoast for Music (Billboard’s No. 2 Top Music Startup of 2011) allow bands to easily sell to fans on Facebook and elsewhere. And authors are using Amazon’s Kindle Direct, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! and similar platforms to bypass the traditional publishing model. —Marian Berelowitz
