Art, commerce, and... landlordism?
Ikea insights and initiatives // UK gov to pressurise retail landlords // old Borders redrawn // Selfridges experiential push // the future of live music at Koko + more!
It’s been a little while…
Hello!
Here’s some links and thoughts they’ve provoked over the last month or two.
Perhaps the best thing I’ve read on retail this year so far: Ikea analysis from The Hustle. From the Gruen effect to how meatballs make people buy more. Brilliantly insightful stuff.
Speaking of buying too much stuff / consequences of consumption, this New Republic piece on illegal logging in Romania is sobering and alarming in equal measure.
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A good listen:
Some solid thinking from Doug Stephens and his guest psychologist Sheldon Solomon (whose work focuses on mortality and its effects on our behaviour).
At the 13 min mark Depop’s head of sustainability, Justine Porterie, critiques the notion of ‘the consumer’. I imagine that many of us have felt an uncomfortableness with the term for sometime now. “The world would be a bit better if we thought more like citizens than consumers.”
Porterie talks about a study Depop did with Bain on younger consumers and their interest in conscious consumption, alongside the tension with how they behave in regards fast fashion. “One of the barriers… is the design and ease… if we want someone to adopt a more eco-friendly attitude, is it as easy, seamless as the other option?”
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Landlords forced to let empty shops (Retail Gazette)
For all the utter f*ckery of this government, every now and then a chink of light shines through. This policy has the potential to be a game-changer. Also, well done to whoever stopped the needless demolishment of the iconic M&S store in central London. It seems absurd that this was even a consideration, let alone initially approved. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Borders book…
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What happens when you’ve thousands of old stores?
Old Borders stores - a study in re-approriation - by Addison Del Mastro in The Bulwark
“a little more than a fifth of the former Borders spaces I looked at are no longer retail at all; their uses include studios, gyms, medical clinics or facilities, a daycare, and a co-working space.” (found via Benedict Evans’ always A+ newsletter).
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Camp and the kid experience
Sadly Camp* was closed when I went to NYC at the beginning of April, but I’m hopeful it might make the move here in due course. This video, while cheesy, goes a little way to show how important the right kind of service is for kids.
*first noted in Oct 2019 issue
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I should Koko
The revamp of Koko in Camden sounds fascinating - really geared up for the future of live music (Evening Standard)
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Nice little review of Selfridges recent efforts in experiential retail (Matter of Form)
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One of my favourite artists, Ryan Gander, has created a shopfront installation in Sunderland. It’s a betting shop with all the fixtures made of transparent materials (and is the image you saw at the top there).
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The rise of the supermarket in the US / too many products. Great report by Paul Ellickson that has several slightly bonkers growth charts for Walmart’s business over the past few decades. “From 1974 to 1990, the number of products carried per store went from 9,000 to 30,000, while store size grew steadily at 1000 sqft per year.”
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Ikea again..! I’ve been seeing posters for this Ikea / H&M initiative around youngish, trendy London neighbourhoods recently. It offers creators within 100km of a new store in Hammersmith a chance to get their designs produced and sold. Sounds good. I wonder what it’ll lead to for those who do get their products stocked.
I tend to agree with this from Marcus Engman (Marcus Engman, chief creative officer at Ikea’s parent Ingka Group) : “You can either see it as a challenging time for retail or that there has never been more opportunity for developing the future ways of retailing than right now. We try to have a positive outlook and see things will get better.”
(I’m not one for ‘there has never been’ statements, but I’m down with the sentiment, at least.)
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Is it me you’re looking for?
If you’d like to chat about any upcoming projects, drop me a line - I’m working on some fun / progressive stuff at the moment but have some capacity for new projects over the coming months. I’m on LinkedIn, if that’s your bag, or you can just reply to this.
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Thanks for reading :-)