Emma Hunter
We Londoners are famed for our love of queuing but I put this down to good manners and not a genuine enthusiasm for waiting in line. Recently there seems to have been a celebration of this custom with increasing numbers of restaurants forcing us to a standpoint for our supper.
Last week I enjoyed eating my weight at ‘hip’ eatery The Meat Liquor. After forty-five minutes of queuing we were then invited to queue at the bar for another twenty minutes before they finally squeezed four of us into an occupied table with space for about two. The food however was seriously tasty and after sampling most of the menu I was satisfied yet a little disgusted with myself. I was however led to wonder whether the satisfaction was due to the quality of the food or that fact that I was so thankful to finally have eaten.
It seems that to be a ‘trendy’ restaurant in London these days then booking is a no-go, with The Meat Liquor being just one in a plethora with a no booking policy. Da Polpo, Lobster & Burger, José, Ducksoup and Koya are just a few of the hot-spot eateries, which you have to queue for. It certainly makes economic sense for the restaurants as it creates higher bar tabs while guests wait, removes the commission that they have to pay at online booking sites such as Toptable, as well as creating that much coveted hype. On the flip-side it does make the restaurants more accessible without month-long waiting lists and sorts the wheat from the chaff as without quality, customers won’t stand the wait.
In Manhattan no-booking is the status quo but just because it works there does it mean that it can travel well? Personally, I think that the policy is predominantly for the convenience of the restaurant, which sadly results in a decrease in customer-service. I value good service right up there with quality food and therefore feel this is a real shame.
This all being said, and maybe I’m just a wannabe scenester, but it’s not going to stop me from waiting in line for my noodle soup at Koya next week…
Tyler Mallison
One of the biggest and most talked about new art exhibitions in London is the first ever major UK retrospective of British artist Damien Hirst — himself, one of the most talked about and controversial living artists of our time!
Having experienced his early work firsthand in the mid-90′s and followed his progression over the years, I couldn’t resist being one of the first (among many of course, given that it coincided with a UK bank vacation weekend) to check out his new show at the Tate Modern — live butterflies and all.
Although it’s easy to be critical of his work given the commercial success that Damien Hirst has achieved and his unapologetic quest for fame and fortune, the fact remains that he has created some of the most iconic imagery of our time. And despite the naysayers and critics, he has effectively sparked provocative questions about what defines art, life, death and success. Importantly, he’s also engaged a wide cross-section of people in the discourse of modern, conceptual art.
Is that not fundamentally what ‘art’ is all about?
Tyler Mallison
Today marked a significant and orchestrated promotional push from Starbucks in the UK. Television ads amazingly announced last night that a free Latte was yours today before noon. And true to its word, Starbucks handed out countless Lattes this morning with a wide smile, impeccable organisation, grace, good quality coffee and most importantly, a personal touch.
Over recent years, the brand has suffered as result of its aggressive expansion and movement away from some of its core values. The business, being shepherded back to health by its original founder, Howard Shultz, is once again showing its soul. Starbucks is demonstrating that it’s listening to its local markets and consumers once more and that it’s a true part of the community. It’s also ‘giving back’ through the new Starbucks cards/My Starbucks rewards programme – so much more than a standard punch card. The system offers real added value to consumers— including free WiFi access, frequent promotions and daily advantages every time you order your £2.30 skinny daily indulgence. More…
Andrew Mulholland
After reading Unilever’s latest business strategy, I think we should all hold our breath and keep our fingers firmly crossed. Doing well by doing good is not just a CSR mantra, they look deadly serious about this and I think this is what the world has been waiting for.
Capitalism in its current guise is morally and financially bankrupt, governments are powerless to act and if we come out of this depression treating ‘business as usual’, we all deserve what we get. To my mind the only way out of the mire is to have visionary companies lead the way – and the time is now.
The FTSE For Good is one sign that business is starting to pay attention to the genuine need for CSR, but it needs everyone’s support to truly get the ball rolling. Let’s take this kind of thinking and applaud it – labelling it green-washing seems a cynical response when you see the size of the ambition, just as treating this as a corporate re-brand would be to totally miss the point.
This is epic and we should spread the word!
Tyler Mallison
According to the Grocer, Kraft Foods is about to unveil its latest innovation in spreadable cheese to the UK market. It’s an indulgent mash-up of two key tasty ingredients (soft spreadable cheese and chocolate) as well as, more importantly, two of its key power brands in their respective categories: Philadelphia and Cadbury.
As an indulgent spread targeted towards ‘guilty snackers’ — women aged 25-40 who want to eat healthily but also want an indulgent snack— it will be interesting to see what share of the market it can steal from the leading chocolate spread, Nutella.
When consumers vote with their baskets, will they impulsively choose the child-like chocolatey option marketed as “healthy” due to its ingredients — or make a conscious choice to cut the calories by nearly 50% and opt for the new Philadelphia spread?
But perhaps more fundamentally, without a rich tradition of cheesecake, and chocolate cheesecake in particular, as in the US, this may be a big ‘leap’ for British consumers. Regardless, given that so much of the nation wholeheartedly embraces such oddities as Marmite, there’s definitely hope.
As for me, I think it sounds quite nice— especially on a digestive biscuit.
Stef Gilmore and Tyler Mallison
So we can’t tell you what you will be seeing glide down the runway over the next few weeks, but we can let you in on some the urban/street trends that you can expect to see at the end of the year, thanks to our recent trip to Bread & Butter, Berlin. As ever, there were numerous trends in varying degrees, so we have picked out 4 of our favorites.
colorful continues
Having been around for a couple of seasons now, colorful bottoms continue to trend, but in a more quirky, detailed way. Key players and jean specialists showcased creatively colorful jeans – they have experimented with dyeing effects, different prints and piecing. Brands including G-Star and One Green Elephant are continuing to brighten up the high street.
Spot the details
We noticed an increase in unconventional identity placement and quirky detailing a while ago but Bread & Butter confirmed our suspicions. Brands are stepping beyond traditional fashion cues to increase product engagement. Peter Werth is continuing to buck tradition by moving their shirt logos down from the breast to less assuming areas. Also, Mood of Norway is replacing traditional care label information with witty sayings like “made with love by really really pretty blonde girls”.
Eye eye
According to the show, there doesn’t have to be bright sunshine to wear bright shades come autumn. This AW you can expect classic, vintage shaped shades in bright, modern materials. Brands like Spitfire, Lotho and Adidas Original have produced gorgeously bright yet distinctly vintage glasses for AW12.
Dandy does denim
Given the display of sharp, gentlemanly jeans, men about town will more frequently be opting to wear jeans with their shirt and jackets. This year saw a noticeable increase in the smarter, modern jeans with a twist. In a nut shell, brands are using old manufacturing techniques to create new modern cuts.
Tyler Mallison
In every hip city around the world, ‘pop-up’ shops and galleries have become a nearly ‘permanent’ feature (ironically) in the creative urban landscape. In equal measures, craft studios and limited edition print shops have become the counterbalance to the industrially manufactured mass goods we have come to love and voraciously consume.
The latest entry, spotted last week in London was the Jealous Gallery pop-up print studio at Heal’s— an institution in domestic design. The shop typically oozes good design and has proven itself as a reliable destination for quality furniture of good taste. However, in contrast to its younger sister next door, Habitat, it has at times looked a bit too bourgeois, irrelevant and tired for the young creative professional consumer. This is especially true as a result of the ongoing economic turbulence and consequent reassessment of what defines ‘good value’, which has driven dramatic shifts in trading up and down across categories.
The ‘Jealous Gallery’ interactive pop-up print space has certainly brought a fresh energy to the shop, with the creative activity and buzz of the printers bringing a new life to the shopfront, inviting shoppers in from the cold. The young, contemporary vibe was a pleasing contrast to the somewhat static and posh air typically present in the shop. But what will be the impact after it leaves? The question is how Heal’s will retain this creative energy that it gained from the short-term partnership?
Hayley Burnham
At The Gild, we believe at a very broad-level, that balancing the ideas of ‘art’ and ‘science’ is the secret of brand success.
And for many years, the beauty industry has failed miserably at finding this balance. Historically, beauty-brands have tried to sell the ‘art’ of beauty through romanticised, emotive adverting campaigns that allude to the promise that your looks and your life might be ‘magically’ improved through a new anti-aging cream, a new foundation, or a new mascara. As we’ve talked about in our What Women Want study – women these days are very savvy to these kinds of ‘empty-promises’ that offer little ‘functional’ reason to believe why this would be true.
More recently, beauty brands have tried to counteract this by highlighting and specifying a plethora of scientific ‘miracle’ ingredients that by their very mention—‘prove’ that anti-aging cream will really work (‘it contains ‘micro-glycerine anti-acids, so of course my skin will look ten years younger in a few weeks!’). For years, consumers have been sceptical about how much anti-aging the beauty world can really deliver. More…
Lizzie Carr
Do any of these statements ring true ….
- Do you get impatient when you have to wait inline to buy a sandwich at lunchtime?
- Do you go off and do something else whilst you’re waiting for the kettle to boil?
- Do you friends or partner tell you to slow down when you’re speaking to them?
- Do you finish off people’s sentences?
- Do you think multi-tasking is ‘the best’ thing since sliced bread?
If you’ve nodded your head to a few of these, you might be suffering from ‘Hurry Sickness’. I first heard of this term when I attended a Merlin Lecture held by the Marketing Academy back in January and since then I’ve really tried to reduce my ‘sickness’. More…
At this time of the year, we see and read articles from a variety of agencies with their predictions for 2012. Some are worth the paper they’re written on, others are a bit bland and old hat. So, we thought we’d compile The Gild’s trends and top tips for 2012.
The re-shaping of Asia: looks like a China and India are up to all sorts of fun stuff. China is booming the Art market with leading galleries opening there, such as Gagosian and White Cube. India is becoming the new Dubai, with luxury stores like Hermes and Tod’s. Even Prada created a special collection called Made in India especially for Indian women! So, if you’ve got put your stake in the ground yet, you better hurry …. More…