Future Laboratory Guest Talk

We had a really interesting presentation from someone from the Future Laboratory last night that really opened my eyes to the marketing side of fashion and the future of advertising/marketing in general.

The Future Lab speaker Ravi Khanna was a past student of Nottingham Tent University who studied Fashion Marketing. He won an award during his time at university which landed him a job at the Future Laboratory. He worked and lived in New York and now travels almost everywhere. His job involves traveling, interviews and presentations of his findings, publications and client work.

The Future Lab began by distributing a magazine called Viewpoint which looked at issues that could effect the word. It then moved on to creating a website similar to that of WGSN which looked at current trends and movements effecting the globe. This updated daily so was used by many individuals and companies.
Here are some facts and notes I found really really interesting during the lecture -

- "the growing need for customers to collaborate with brands " "participating culture" - letting customers interact with the brand is becoming more and more popular.

- brands need Conversation, Collabortaion and Creation to be successful.

- Conversation - approachable, casual, open
Collaboartion - flexible and democratic
Creativity - imaginative, inspirational and daring.

- even though brands are becoming more involved with the customer, the public believe brands;
- lack honesty 32%
- lack fairness 12%
- lack inegrity 14%
- are deceptive 6%
- 46% want brands to be friendly
- 33% want brands to be personal
- 31% want brands to be local
- 30% want brands to be simple.

- Technology makes brands more accessible, it's all about customers changing the brand, for example Burberry had a live show online with a comment box, which made it as if the public were on front row seats and their views were important.

- brands have to be interesting and fun - 'Wish You Were Here' swap shop - swapping New York store with London for a fun new perspective in stores.

- We have to think of the brand as more of a personality rather than a public or private entity.

- Overall brands, to be successful have to think LATTE - LOCAL, AUTHENTIC, TRUSTABLE, TRACEABLE and ETHIC.