Shout it from the store windows

Wanna get noses pressing up against the windows of your city centre store? Then take a look at fashion retailer, All Saints. They recently filled their Manchester store windows with classic Singer sewing machines. It’s a big, bold nod to the virtues of DIY craftsmanship and hand-finishing. (Cheers, Gemma.)

Ref. http://www.drapersonline.com/trends/menswear/hit-or-miss/all-saints/5002448.article

Packaging you can eat

In the cosmetics world, packaging is king. Let’s face it: people wouldn’t buy half the products they do without the lure of the beautiful boxes they come in. Lush, however, has long bucked this trend. They’ve been selling loose, unpackaged soaps and bath bombs for ages, as well as using plain black tubs for their hand-creams and body lotions. It may not be glam but it’s definitely green. (Thanks, Dr. Woo)

As well as improving existing containers so they break down quicker after use, Lush has introduced a new packaging innovation: popcorn. Lush says popcorn works brilliantly as a packaging material. To experiment, they once sent a lightbulb through the post six times, encased in popcorn, and it arrived in one piece every time.

The popcorn is 60% lighter than the shredded paper the company also uses, and takes 10% less energy to transport. Although the energy needed to produce the popcorn equals that used to shred the paper, the popcorn is so clean and effective that there’s no need to wrap the products – which Lush says will save 4.6 million bags a year. And once you've unpacked the box you can pop the popcorn in your compost bin where it will completely break down. If you don't yet have a compost bin, Lush thoughtfully include details on how to get one inside the box. (Sadly, the popcorn isn’t really edible because it absorbs the smell of the products. Although, eating it might be a way to dispose of it if you don’t have a composter.)

The other clever thing about the idea is that it’s maybe the funnest green packaging there is. Which is quite something when being green tends to have so many worthy, un-fun connotations. But were Lush really the first to use popcorn as packaging? Not that surprisingly, no. A Dutch computer firm tried it back in 1990 but it never really caught on. So, will it this time? And are there other green forms of packaging that we're missing out on?

Ref. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2007/aug/06/popcornblog

Be an olive-tree-hugger

Ever fancied your very own olive oil from your very own olive tree? Preferably in Italy? Daydream no longer. In Villa La Rogaia, you can adopt an olive tree, which not only gives you a nice, warm, green feeling but a litre of delicious olive oil every year too – with your name on it. (Ta, Wadey.)

Ice cream as subculture

Prepare for a clash of the mainstream and the underground as the Icecreamists explode onto the scene with a subterranean ice cream installation. The Icecreamists have taken over the Ultralounge at Selfridges on Oxford Street to create the ultimate ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbetto boutique. And it’s all freshly prepared for your guilty pleasure.
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You can forget mint choc chip and raspberry ripple, though. The  exciting menu of sweet and savoury ice creams include Selfridges Ice Cream Sandwich with cream of cucumber, then there’s Gordon's Glory which is a 21st century reimagining of the knickerbocker glory and The Sex Pistol, a Viagra ice cream served as a shot in a pink water pistol.
The Icecreamists are also giving you an exclusive opportunity to invent your very own flavour, the quirkier and yummier the better. And if you visit the Icecreamists’ boudoir this autumn for breakfast, lunch or dinner, you might be treated to a DJ or in-house band performance, or even be served by one of their celebrity ‘scooperheroes’.

People power

GetaGreatBoss is a South African site which operates under the principle that ‘people join companies, but they leave bosses’. The site facilitates reviews of managers by those best qualified to do so: the people who work for them. (A big thanks to Elliot.)

Both HR departments and managers themselves can initiate reviews through the site, whether it’s for honest feedback or to help recruit new employees. Employees can then email in their evaluation of the boss's managerial style, and all feedback stays anonymous. Managers can even conduct a subsequent anonymous online conversation with the employees who reviewed them.

The cost of initiating a review is US$220, while for an extra US$ 10 per month, managers can keep an active link to the results to use with their résumé. If, alternatively, a current employee reviews a manager and the manager then requests a complete review, the employee gets a US$50 commission. Similarly, the same amount goes to recruiters and online job portals that include links to GetaGreatBoss reviews with their ads.

Potential employees, meanwhile, can search GetaGreatBoss's online job listings, each of which contains a link to the results of the review of the boss in question. There's no doubt that managerial style plays a key role in the employment equation—as do corporate culture, lifestyle preferences and countless other considerations.

Ref. http://springwise.com/life_hacks/getagreatboss/

Milking the obvious

The Milka cow is a well-known icon for the famous chocolate. So if the cow looks like the packaging, it makes perfect sense for the chocolate to look like the cow.
(Thanks, Wadey, for yet more insights from Poland.)

At last. A ‘convenience’ for women that’s actually convenient.

Women have long had to put up with a lack of public conveniences. Where men can simply stand up on the roadside or take advantage of city centre lavatories, women usually have to either stand and wait in a snaking queue or just ‘hold it’. But this could all change quite soon, thanks to a German company who claim to have designed the world's first pocket toilet for women. (Thanks, Pinky.)

Eva Tinter, the inventor of the Ladybag, believes she’s on to a winner. She told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, ‘It can be used in cars, to avoid dirty toilets or at open-air festivals when you don't want to queue. You can just nip round the back of the toilet and use this.’

The size of a chocolate bar when folded, the Ladybag takes the form of a plastic bag and is fitted with absorbent polymers, which turn the urine into a gel. It has a wide opening and can be used squatting, sitting or standing. The gel can absorb a pint of urine but in an emergency the bag itself can hold 2.2 pints.

Ref http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6130918/Germans-invent-portable-toilet-for-women-that-fits-in-a-handbag.html

A licence to print money

Now, here’s a great way to keep things local: give your town its own currency. The Brixton Pound (B£) is the UK’s first local currency in an urban area, and the UK’s fourth Transition Town to have its own currency. It joins the Totnes Pound in Devon, the Lewes Pound in Sussex and the Stroud Pound in Gloucestershire. (Cheers, Mino.)

The currency will work alongside sterling and can only be used by independent local shops and traders. The idea is to put back into Brixton what you take out of it. At the moment, only a small percentage of money spent in Brixton actually stays there. The new currency is designed to encourage local people to spend locally, preserve local jobs and businesses, and encourage local trade and production. This should, in turn, preserve the area’s unique character and cultural diversity, protecting it from the homogenising effects of corporate and international supply chains.
The B£ project was initiated by Transition Town Brixton (TTB), a community-led organisation for action on energy issues and climate change. TTB seeks to engage the whole community in imagining, planning and achieving the transition to a better low energy future, where local resilience is key. TTB working groups focus on ‘energy descent’ in all areas of our lives – business and economy, skills and training, food and growing, buildings, transport, waste and resources, and more.

Ref. http://brixtonpound.wordpress.com/

Outdoor door-to-door

How can you dramatize what you’re famous for?

Think like Domino’s.

Most people order pizzas when they're at home or at work. So in order to broaden their delivery horizons, Domino's Pizza in the Netherlands went around placing Domino’s-branded white doors in parks and on beaches.

Dubbed Domino's ‘Delivery Points’, the doors feature the company's phone number, as well as doorbells for delivery people to ring.

Dutch director of marketing, André ten Wolde, explained that as long as they're within delivery range of a local Domino's, customers can have a pizza delivered pretty much anywhere.

Targeting summer beach crowds and an influx of students in Amsterdam, the campaign draws on the power of showing instead of telling. Does your product or service have hidden benefits that you could demonstrate in an equally effective (and cost-effective) manner?

Ref. http://www.springwise.com/marketing_advertising/dominosdoors/

Savings are in the eye of the beer-holder

Market rules apply at Broker's Bier Borse, a popular pub in Berlin's financial district. The price of each of the bar's sixteen brews is set according to its popularity. So the more popular a beer is, the higher the price climbs, while the less desirable beers get cheaper.

A large electronic ticker overlooks the bar updating prices every three minutes. This means all customers get an up-to-the-minute shot at making a saving. Supply-and-demand determines the bar’s food options as well, from breakfast specials to lunch-time sell-offs.

The fluctuating prices of a real-time free market system make for the perfect change-up to any business-as-usual tavern.

Ref. http://www.iconoculture.com/Approach/WhatWeIdentify/Observations/BoomersMatures/index.aspx?DocName=oa_BrokersBeerinBerlin_112924

Luxury experiences VS. luxury items

Pack away your Breitling, your Vuitton bag and your Mont Blanc pen. There’s new research out, published by McKinsey, that reveals a decline in Japanese consumers’ seemingly insatiable appetite for luxury goods.

The over-55s are the group most likely to prefer luxury experiences to luxury goods, with travel as the main beneficiary of this shift.
The manager of a leading luxury Tokyo hotel said that most of his guests are Japanese, and many are Tokyo residents, “A large part of our customer base is 35–55-year-old ladies with money, so we are going after the same wallets as the luxury manufacturers.”
Furthermore, across demographic groups, one-third of all consumers, and as many as 43% of those aged 55 or older, agreed that “owning luxury goods is not as special as it used to be.” And only 32% of respondents said they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ interested in luxury products, compared with 51% in the same survey in 2004.
This looks to be a universal trend that isn’t going away anytime soon.

Ref. http://www.futurelab.net/blogs/marketing-strategy-innovation/2009/09/luxury_experiences_not_luxury_.html

Car showroom chic

Nissan has opened a luxury brand outlet for its Infiniti car range. Building on its high-end, prestigious magazine, Adeyaka, the dealership centre offers a level of service the company claims will be unique, dished out from premises designed to feel like a luxury 'boutique hotel'.
(Cheers, petrol-head Jonny.)

The art on the walls is all original and specially commissioned, while the sofas and chairs are all designed by acclaimed designer, Walter Knoll. The lounge and gallery area itself is filled with natural light and the lobby’s high ceilings evoke that feeling of exclusivity.
Ref. http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=20571

 http://www.infiniti.co.uk/dealers/reading.html

Crash the autopilot

Thomson Airways have produced an in-flight safety video with a difference. Instead of the usual rictus-grinning air-hostess going through the motions, they’ve used kids to deliver the safety messages instead. Now, instead of glazing over or looking out of the window, passengers listen, captivated, and many even applaud when the video ends.

(Many thanks to Claire for sharing experiences from her Gran Canaria trip.)

Take a look at Alice & Co and see what you think . . .

Helping people find their own way

Travellers looking for a good map or guide must first navigate through an overwhelming array of impersonal alternatives. But new Swiss start-up, A la Carte Maps, takes a more handcrafted, artistic approach. A guidebook, tourist map and original artwork in one, they give you information the way a local friend might, using hand-drawn maps and friendly language.

Currently available for Barcelona, Munich, Zurich, Shangai, Tokyo and Washington DC, the maps present each city’s best-kept insider tips on a beautiful, 70x42cm, hand-drawn map. The accompanying welcome letter gives key information such as where to exchange money and what to do on a rainy day, while access to a comprehensive city database lets you create a customised itinerary. In addition to these ‘My City à la Carte’ maps, seasoned travellers can also use their own notes and artwork to create a more personalised map.

Both types of map are ad-free and matt-laminated, and cost €8.90. Even better, A la Carte donates 10% of the profits from each map to a social project in the city it represents.

Ref. http://springwise.com/tourism_travel/alacarte/

Technology that’s literally ‘cooking on gas’

A ramen robot restaurant named Fuamen Ramen has recently opened in Nagoya, Japan.
The two robotic chefs prepare bowls of noodles for customers simply by pouring
the broth, boiling the noodles and mixing all the ingredients together.

According to the store owner and industrial robot maker, Kenji Nagoya, the benefits
of using the robots include, 'the accuracy of timing in boiling noodles, precise
movements in adding toppings and consistency in the taste.'

And not only do they prepare customers’ meals, but they also perform tricks.

(Many thanks to Dr Woo)

ref. http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/25/view/7227/ramen-robot-restaurant.html