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We recently covered a program at Oakland Mall that offers startups low-cost and short-term leasing to help them to set up shop. This summer, KiosKiosk will bring a similar idea to the streets of London by offering a small kiosk space to startups selling ceramics, art, fashion and other creative products. At no cost to its temporary tenants. Creative organisations, businesses or individuals ready to trade simply send in their details and explain why they're a good candidate to fill the space. KiosKiosk's founders note that, although the number of people enrolling in design courses in the UK increases each year, it's difficult for creative businesses to find affordable retail space in locations with enough foot traffic to attract potential buyers. The initiative is backed by the London Sustainable Development Commission, working to promote creative independent shops instead of more dime-a-dozen souvenir stalls. The first KiosKiosk—an eyecatching design by Geraldine and Wayne Hemingway—will be set up outside London’s City Hall all summer, with plans to roll out the concept in other parts of the city and country at a later stage. As well as encouraging startups and up-and-coming designers, the kiosk is a low-cost way for London to showcase the abundance of local creativity to visitors from around the world. Website: www.kioskiosk.co.uk Spotted by: intelligentnaivety.com via Raymond Kollau P.S. On a side note: back in 2004, our sister-site trendwatching.com coined the phrase pop-up retail, and one of the examples used was Delta's pop-up store in New York. Five and a half years later, Southwest Airlines is opening a pop-up lounge in Bryant Park, as reported by nytimes.com. Southwest is starting service at LaGuardia, and the "Southwest Porch" will be serving sandwiches themed to the cities they'll be flying to. Some trends just never grow old ;-) |
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Similar in many ways to Hollrr, the site where consumers help promote the products they love, Thinglink is a new global catalogue for design that enables designers, brands and enthusiasts to connect and converse on the web. Currently in invitation-only beta, Thinglink launched at the Milan Furniture Fair in April with 10 design brands: Arabia Finland, Design Eero Aarnio, Fokus Fabrik, Helsinki Design Week, Iittala, Harri Koskinen, Martela, Selki Station, Ilmari Tapiovaara Design and Woodnotes. Designers and brands can use the site by uploading their catalogues and building a community of fans around their products. Enthusiasts, meanwhile, can use the free service to post messages about their latest design discoveries, flag products they own, ask and answer questions about new and vintage products, and share photos of their favourite design objects in real-life settings. The Thinglink catalogue includes a wide variety of products from classic and contemporary designers and manufacturers, ranging from serially produced products to limited edition items and unique one-of-a-kind objects; on Thinglink, any of them can become the center of a conversation, with photos and discussion by owners and fans. Besides giving enthusiasts a place to connect and learn more about the brands they love, of course, California-based Thinglink also gives brands a way to keep tabs on consumers' impressions of them. Next step? Do more than just create conversation and actually put consumers to work for the brand—tapping into their design suggestions or their grassroots marketing muscle. Ask the crowds, and ye shall receive—just make sure to thank them in kind! ;-) (Related: Consumers get paid for input on new products.) Website: www.thinglink.com Spotted by: John Greene |
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Members of Hyatt's Gold Passport loyalty program already enjoy numerous benefits when they visit one of the company's hotels. Soon, however, they'll also benefit from a new initiative at the company to deliver random acts of kindness. Hyatt's mission is to provide what it calls "authentic hospitality," defined—in the words of CEO Mark Hoplamazian—as "making a difference in the lives of the people we touch, including guests, employees and others." As part of a new effort to take better care of its Gold Passport members, the company will soon begin targeting those guests with pleasant surprises designed to delight them during their stay. "We will be empowering hotel employees to perform what we’re calling random acts of generosity," Hoplamazian wrote in a recent blog post. "So, don’t be surprised if Gold Passport picks up your bar tab, comps your massage or treats your family to breakfast. It’s part of bringing authentic hospitality to life and making you feel more than welcome." Not only does the effort stand a good chance of boosting the authenticity of Hyatt's service delivery, it's also a shining example of the kind of corporate generosity that's increasingly being sought by disillusioned consumers and offered by clued-in brands. (A similar example from our sister site's briefing on Generation G: Wings, a credit card brand owned by one of Turkey's largest banks, partnered with five upscale restaurants in Istanbul to offer a random selection of lucky cardholders a pleasant surprise. After having dinner at one of the restaurants and paying with their Wings card, the customer was notified that Wings would foot the bill.) Time to start spreading some kindness of your own? (Related: Clothing brand asks its wearers to be kind — Online game focuses on real-world kindness.) Website: goldpassport.hyatt.com |
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Parking garages are notorious for being grim and grey affairs, unadorned by any significant form of decoration. That's due largely to fire code regulations, but a new, patented technology now allows large-scale ads to be created on the walls of such garages, essentially transforming them into immersive, branded environments. Carspaze has created a new advertising platform for parking-garage walls centered on the ability to digitally print photo-quality images onto specially developed fire retardant materials. Developed three years ago, the process has undergone technical trials and improvements in Germany over the past two years. Now, focusing on garages near retail centers, Carspaze creates branded zones 10 to 20 parking spaces wide bearing advertising on the walls in front of parked cars. Only sustainable materials are used in the production of such advertising, including recycled panels and frames, wheel stops made from crushed rubber tires and lighting units made from recycled fiberglass and plastic. In addition to creating a more cheerful, safer-feeling parking place, the ads have been found both to give consumers a way to remember where they parked their cars and—no doubt as a direct result—to dramatically increase top-of-mind awareness for the brands advertised and boost purchase likelihood. Garage owners, meanwhile, receive revenue for each installation. We're certainly not advocating the use of advertising on every available patch of public space, but there's no doubt a bright, unified splash of branding can be a welcome improvement over the dimly lit concrete of most garages. Luxembourg-based Carspaze launched in Europe in 2008. In the US, jetBlue is pioneering the concept with installations at two shopping malls (Century City in Los Angeles and Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia), and a roll-out in Asia is planned for later this year. Carspaze is actively seeking franchise partners—one to bring to unadorned garage walls near you...? Website: www.carspaze.com |
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Summertime, cell phones and free love seem to go together, if last year's rash of music festival phone chargers was anything to go by. This year, US Cellular is kicking off what could be a brand-new trend by giving consumers free, fully charged cell phone batteries in exchange for their drained old ones. Launched late last month, US Cellular's Battery Swap program lets customers go to any company store and change out a dead or dying battery for a fully charged one at no charge. The provider is the first to offer such a service for free, it says. "Our Battery Swap program is a convenience for people who depend on their wireless devices as their lifelines, such as business people, parents, not to mention heavy users who drain their battery daily," Jay Ellison, the company's executive vice president and COO, explains. "We're offering this service to help our customers stay connected whenever they need it." In a competitive industry like wireless—and during tough economic times—a little free love can go a long way toward making customers happy. Other providers: the Generation G* train just pulled into the station—better hop on board! ;-) Website: www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/x_page.html?p=batteryswap * The G stands for generosity—more on that in our sister-site trendwatching.com's briefing about how businesses are following a societal shift from taking to giving. |
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Consumers suffering from an excess of online oxygen and a shortage of the old-fashioned kind have long been able to rediscover life's natural rhythms in a farm camping vacation. A network of working farms in the UK and beyond offers a decidedly compelling twist on the classic notion. Feather Down Farms are small-scale, working farms that offer cottage-style tents with "traditional interiors" including feather beds, wood-burning stoves and flushing toilets. A far cry from a rustic tent, the spacious accommodations feature master and bunk bedrooms along with an extra canopy bed—sleeping up to 6 in all. There is no electricity in Feather Down tents, but oil lamps and candles are provided for lighting and hot showers are available nearby. Children can get cosy with the barnyard creatures, and a farm store provides locally grown produce and necessities. Guests can also gather fresh eggs in the farm's henhouse each morning—or, at some UK farms, a private chicken coop is even available for rent, as are recipes, ingredients and implements for select farm-style meals. UK rental prices begin at GBP 195 for a 3-night midweek stay, including firewood or coal for the stove; a private chicken coop starts at GBP 10 for a midweek stay. Bicycle rentals are also available. Targeting double-income families with kids, Feather Down Farms just recently expanded into the Netherlands, France and the US, with additional nations in its plans for the upcoming future. Farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs around the globe: one to get in on now? (Related: Nostalgia for hire — Try-before-you-buy urban chicken farming — Boutique camping.) Website: www.featherdownfarm.co.uk — www.featherdown.com — www.unlitaupre.com — www.boerenbed.com |
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We've already written about a few microfinancing platforms focused on the developing world, including Kiva and C4-World. Next up is Mobile Movement, a Canadian initiative we just learned about that works via mobile phone. Few young social entrepreneurs in the developing world have computers, so Mobile Movement provides mobile phones and training to foster both micro-funding and professional advice via SMS, MMS and email. Through a collaboration with UN-HABITAT, Microsoft Research India and the Vancouver-based Environmental Youth Alliance—with funding from the MacArthur Foundation—Mobile Movement's first prototype project is currently under way in Kenya, where it is working with 15 youth groups from the slums and low-income neighbourhoods of Nairobi that are part of UN-HABITAT's Urban Entrepreneurship Program. One such group aims to open a tailoring school for at-risk youth, for example; another hopes to build an urban agriculture project. Last fall the groups were given mobile phones and trained in their use, allowing them to begin taking photos and sending emails and texts soon afterwards. Thanks to Mobile Movement's storytelling website and videos, several groups began to secure funding for their projects earlier this year, and a creative business partnership was formed between a bone-craft collective in the Kibera slum and a New York City jewelry designer. Potential donors of funds or advice begin by reviewing the groups' project descriptions online. When they find one that interests them, they can write a comment on the group's page, and it will be sent directly to the youth group's phone. The group will respond via text message or email, and Mobile Movement will notify the donor that the youth group has responded. From there donors can offer creative business ideas or mentoring as well as microfinancing loans and community grants, sent via PayPal or CanadaGives. The Environmental Youth Alliance and UN-HABITAT manage and administer funds raised; 90 percent of proceeds go directly to the youth, while 10 percent is reserved to administer the fund and maintain the website. Ultimately, Mobile Movement hopes to get companies to use its platform as a way to personalize their employee charitable donations programs. For the next phases of its test project, it seeks technological, management and marketing experts to help improve its current system. Later this year it hopes to expand to additional East African cities, followed by a broad public launch in early 2010. More information can be found on NetSquared; one to join up with, participate in, or be inspired by! Website: www.mobilemovement.tv |
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We’ve all received greetings cards that, upon opening, play a stripped down rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. California-based GreetBeatz is here to personalize that concept and bring it into the 21st century by way of Facebook. GreetBeatz allows users to commission songs for their online friends. Customers provide details of their friend via an online form, which then appear in a custom song produced by a member of GreetBeatz' network of performers. Around 5 days later, the end result appears on the recipient’s Facebook wall for all to enjoy. A two-minute song with a few words of customization can be commissioned at no cost, while fully-customized ditties are available for USD 9.95 for 60–90 seconds and USD 49.95 for longer songs. A wide range of sample tracks can be heard on GreetBeatz' website, and they're surprisingly catchy and funny. We’ve spotted related endeavours before, including TailoredMusic.com’s love songs and Faux Show’s personalised radio shows, but this is the first time we’ve seen made-to-order audio tributes that are seamlessly integrated with Facebook, which should help the concept spread with minimal marketing investment. Interesting opportunity for singing sellsumers, too: GreetBeatz is currently seeking independent artists to handle the incoming flow of commissions. Website: www.greetbeatz.com Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski
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Vendors of T-shirts, jewellery and wool clothing—not to mention bananas, coffee and spinach—have been using product life stories for some time now to demonstrate their efforts at sustainability. Whereas most such efforts have been individual ones, however, Made-By offers a more central approach to transparency by tracking and documenting the efforts of all participating fashion brands. Dutch nonprofit Made-By aims to expand the market for environmentally and socially conscious fashion by facilitating sustainable production processes and then giving brands a way to share their product stories with consumers. Made-By begins by advising participating brands on how to clean up their manufacturing process where necessary and—together with fair-trade NGO Solidaridad, which launched Made-By back in 2004—it helps develop production chains in which a garment can be manufactured in a sustainable manner from start to finish. It can advise companies on getting an organic cotton supplier certified, for example, or refer them to its network of trusted sustainable suppliers in Latin America, Africa, Europe, China and India. Member brands use organic cotton and work with sewing factories that have a social code of conduct; to proclaim their participation, they identify their clothing with a small blue button placed near the care-instructions label. Perhaps even more interesting, however, is Made-By's Track & Trace database system, which allows consumers to see the product story of their clothing online. Developed in collaboration with Organic Exchange and UK IT company Historic Futures, the database gets populated when each link in the production chain enters information about its production processes—how many bales of cotton were received, for example, and whether an organic certificate was included. Made-By verifies that every party enters the relevant information and also keeps all supplier pages up-to-date with photos and comments. Participating manufacturers then include a unique code on the label of each item of clothing they produce. Consumers can enter that code into the Track & Trace system to see who was involved at each step in the production of their garment; a link to Google Maps shows the location of each factory and plant involved in just a single click. Made-By also publishes scorecards online and in its annual report each year to show the proportion of each brand’s collections that are produced sustainably. “I can tell people that Komodo is a fair label, but will the consumer believe me? Made-By is like a certification for us, and proves to consumers that we are a fair label," explains Mark Bloom, director of participating brand Komodo UK. It's all about turning transparency tyranny into transparency triumph, in other words, which is what happens when you make the most of being under the spotlight. Shrink from scrutiny and you're sure to wither; boldly proclaim your credentials (after making sure you have some, of course), and you'll certainly shine! ;-) Website: www.made-by.nl |
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No-frills chic hotels have been around for years, offering guests a stylish stay without the bills to match. More recently, hotels and restaurants have been experimenting with pay-what-you-want schemes to attract budget conscious customers. And now San Diego's Rancho Bernardo Inn is taking yet another approach, offering travellers a rather novel pricing model dubbed the Survivor Package. Rancho Bernardo Inn asks cash-strapped guests "How low will you go?", letting them set their price by excluding the amenities they can live without. The hotel's Survivor Package, valid through June 15th and promoted on Twitter by General Manager John Gates (@GMGoneMad), is presented as follows: Deluxe accommodations with breakfast for two for USD 219 per night. No word yet on whether anyone has been willing to pay USD 19 to sleep on the floor, but it definitely makes for an eye-catching price strategy ;-) (Related: Austrian village asks tourists to set their price.) Website: www.ranchobernardoinn.com Spotted by: Matthew Cua |
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