Brief 1/6 Brands and culture

Sophie Maxwell Insight director at Pearlfisher writes some inetresting articles about Brands and Culture from an Agency perspective.

The Burberry store and the Vuitton campaign pay testament to the power of design as a creative, commercial and cultural force to be reckoned with and asks the question, are today’s brand designers becoming as important as artists when it comes to creating aesthetic expressions that represent the cultural signs of our times?

The appreciation of brand design as an art form does need to gather more momentum and acknowledgement although hopefully we are now moving towards an exciting tipping point as more luxury brands start to fully realize their own potential. In terms of desirability and aspiration the pull of the luxury world is still second to none and we should be looking at it’s brand design – and the role the art of brand design fulfills - in not just building the future picture of our luxury culture but as a force for future change across all sectors.

The Burberry World Live - Burberry has opened a digitally intergrated store.

Full-length screens wrap the store, transitioning between audio-visual content displays, live-streaming hubs and and mirrors. At times, models will walk between video screens, mimicing the "Burberry World Live" experience staged in Taipei in April (see below). The sight and sound of rain will start quietly and build into a downpour, climaxing in a thunder crack that will show on every screen and echo in every space in the store, including fitting rooms.

Perhaps the coolest bit of technology is Burberry's use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. Chips have been attached to certain clothes and accessories so that when a customer approaches one of the screens in the common areas or in a fitting room, specific content — say, information about a bag's stitching and craftsmanship, or a video showing how a skirt was worn on the catwalk — will appear. The chips will be attached before products leave manufacturing centers to assist with inventory tracking and management as well.

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Amid the many claims made by Burberry when describing the store, from its ‘digital rain showers’ to its 38-square-metre video display unit, the largest in the world, the one that seemed most far-fetched was that Burberry wanted everyone to feel comfortable here – not just the retail elite who could afford to buy; that ordinary shoppers were encouraged to come and experience the brand in a multi-sensory way – treating it as a living brand showcase, rather than merely a store. Burberry, with its expensive, aristocratically nuanced clothing and glossily composed branding songsheet, just doesn’t seem particularly approachable. But, surprisingly, an approachable, relaxed store is exactly what they have created.

Its almost like Brands are creating Culture and Cultural spaces Buberry have even creaed a space for vinatage Macks almost like a museum.