Yes, £480 for its latest cycling jersey and shorts is steep, but I’m still puzzled why the high-end brand, and those who wear it, are the focus of such ire
Few technologies have attracted the sort of claims that IBM has made for Watson, the computer system on which it has pinned its hopes for carrying AI into the general business world. Named after Thomas Watson Sr, the chief executive who built the modern IBM, the system first saw the light of day five years ago, when it beat two human champions on an USA question-and-answer TV game show, Jeopardy!
But turning Watson into a practical tool in business has not been straightforward. After setting out to use it to solve hard problems beyond the scope of other computers, IBM in 2014 adapted its approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xcmh1LQB9I
Rather than just selling Watson as a single system, its capabilities were broken down into different components: each of these can now be rented to solve a particular business problem, a set of 40 different products such as language-recognition services that amount to a less ambitious but more pragmatic application of an expanding set of technologies.
Though it does not disclose the performance of Watson separately, IBM says the idea has caught fire. John Kelly, an IBM senior vice-president and head of research, says the system has become “the biggest, most important thing I’ve seen in my career” and is IBM’s fastest growing new business in terms of revenues.
But critics say that what IBM now sells under the Watson name has little to do with the original Jeopardy!-playing computer, and that the brand is being used to create a halo effect for a set of technologies that are not as revolutionary as claimed. “Their approach is bound to backfire,” says Mr Etzioni. “A more responsible approach is to be upfront about what a system can and can’t do, rather than surround it with a cloud of hype.” Nothing that IBM has done in the past five years shows it has succeeded in using the core technology behind the original Watson demonstration to crack real-world problems, he says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xcmh1LQB9I
The debate over Watson’s capabilities is more than just an academic exercise. With much of IBM’s traditional IT business shrinking as customers move to newer cloud technologies, Watson has come to play an outsized role in the company’s efforts to prove that it is still relevant in the modern business world. That has made it key to the survival of Ginni Rometty, the chief executive who, four years after taking over, is struggling to turn round the company.
Watson’s renown is still closely tied to its success on Jeopardy! “It’s something everybody thought was ridiculously impossible,” says Kris Hammond, a computer science professor at Northwestern University. “What it’s doing is counter to what we think of as machines. It’s doing something that’s remarkably human.”
IBM’s initial plan was to apply Watson to extremely hard problems, announcing in early press releases “moonshot” projects to “end cancer” and accelerate the development of Africa. Some of the promises evaporated almost as soon as the ink on the press releases had dried. For instance, a far-reaching partnership with Citibank to explore using Watson across a wide range of the bank’s activities, quickly came to nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXCF5e1_HI
Since adapting in 2014, IBM now sells some services under the Watson brand. Available through APIs, or programming “hooks” that make them available as individual computing components, they include sentiment analysis — trawling information like a collection of tweets to assess mood — and personality tracking, which measures a person’s online output using 52 different characteristics to come up with a verdict.
At the back of their minds, most customers still have some ambitious “moonshot” project they hope that the full power of Watson will one day be able to solve, says Mr Kelly; but they are motivated in the short term by making improvements to their business, which he says can still be significant.
This more pragmatic formula, which puts off solving the really big problems to another day, is starting to pay dividends for IBM. Companies like Australian energy group Woodside are using Watson’s language capabilities as a form of advanced search engine to trawl their internal “knowledge bases”. After feeding more than 20,000 documents from 30 years of projects into the system, the company’s engineers can now use it to draw on past expertise, like calculating the maximum pressure that can be used in a particular pipeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymUFadN_MO4
To critics in the AI world, the new, componentised Watson has little to do with the original breakthrough and waters down the technology. “It feels like they’re putting a lot of things under the Watson brand name — but it isn’t Watson,” says Mr Hammond.
Mr Etzioni goes further, claiming that IBM has done nothing to show that its original Jeopardy!-playing breakthrough can yield results in the real world. “We have no evidence that IBM is able to take that narrow success and replicate it in broader settings,” he says. Of the box of tricks that is now sold under the Watson name, he adds: “I’m not aware of a single, super-exciting app.”
To IBM, though, such complaints are beside the point. “Everything we brand Watson analytics is very high-end AI,” says Mr Kelly, involving “machine learning and high-speed unstructured data”. Five years after Jeopardy! the system has evolved far beyond its original set of tricks, adding capabilities such as image recognition to expand greatly the range of real-world information it can consume and process.
With its purchase of the Weather Company’s digital assets for a reported $2 billion in 2015, IBM took another big step in that direction, acquiring an enormous arsenal of local data about weather conditions. The information, which was already being used by companies in the airplane, insurance, and agricultural industries, could be put through IBM’s Watson system to produce new understandings of weather patterns and more accurate forecasts. Using Watson for such real-world, consumer-centric applications could help IBM gain a reputation as a data company, not a computer company, and might be good for business, too: It says that $500 billion worth of annual commerce is dependent on weather.
The brand name comes from the 1960s cycling team Rapha, famous for its love of drinking St Raphaël after a long ride, whilst the logo is inspired by that of Citroën’s H Van. Founder by Simon Mottram, a Chartered Accountant who got creative at Interbrand, and Luke Scheybeler, a digital designer with Sapient who preferred to design fashion, Rapha makes luxury cycling clothing fusing high tech fabrics with sporting nostalgia.
Walk into a Rapha Cycle Clubs – in London or New York, Sydney or Osaka, and you can see, smell and touch a love of cycling. The business has grown rapidly, building a direct relationship with consumers, through events and online community, as well as its coffee-shop stores. There are also line extensions into luggage, skincare, books and travel. Tour de France and Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins, and his Team Sky wear Rapha, whilst there is a co-branded range with designer and cycling enthusiast Paul Smith.
Rapha is a brand that polarises opinion. For some it has created the ultimate in high performance equipment, dedicated to a sport that breeds passion and perspiration. For others, it is over-priced and over-designed vanity wear for middle-aged men who have taken up weekend cycling in recent years. Whichever your view, it gets talked about. Especially items such as the $450 pair of yak-leather cycling shoes, or the $150 pro-glide coffee tamper, to flatten your coffee like the best baristas after your run.
Inside Rapha: Is it just branding?
Extract from Cycling Weekly
One of the first things that catches your eye on entering Rapha HQ are the race numbers located around employees’ desks. “When you join Rapha, every employee gets a silk race number,” explains head of R&D, Simon Huntsman. “It shows how long you have been here.” Huntsman is number eight and proudly proclaims that he is “the longest standing employee after founder Simon Mottram” — No.1 naturally.
Head of central marketing James Fairbank, who joined the company in 2010, is number 47 and in his time has seen the company’s annual turnover grow from £2 million to £40 million. But, he notes, “I have friends who work for Nike and they are like number 87,000 or something.”
Rapha may be a cycling success story with an ever-growing presence out on the roads but the company, started in 2004, is not operating out of a gold-plated skyscraper yet. HQ — titled the Imperial Works — is actually a former abattoir somewhere around the back of Kings Cross Station.
The vibe inside is typical of a creative 21st century start-up: post-industrial and open-plan with walls festooned with cycling memorabilia.
The brand inevitably has it detractors, who say that Rapha’s cycling apparel is too expensive and for poseurs. Even Fairbank admits, “Before I worked for Rapha, I couldn’t afford to buy much of the stuff.”
But he believes the business has been successful precisely because it’s focused “on a particular part of the market rather than trying to be all things to all people.
“Some people think we are a bunch of marketers trying to make as much money as possible, but if they could come down and visit us and take a look around, nothing could be further from the truth,” he says. “We are just cyclists. And we are passionate about it.”
Indeed, the bike racks downstairs are full and it’s estimated that at least 90 per cent of the staff regularly travel to work by bike. It’s not just commuting either: Wednesday is company ride day when staff are encouraged to ride, even if they’re busy.
Having staff that ride is important to Rapha. “All the product team ride and that knowledge gets extracted and put back into the products,” claims Huntsman.
For instance the O-ring zip pullers that have become synonymous with Rapha products “came from needing to locate your zip puller really easily” when overheating on a climb.
Huntsman also cites Rapha’s gloves, which feature two different tried and tested pads on the back of the thumbs for wiping away sweat and snot.
It’s not the stuff of fluffy blue-sky, white-board brainstorming, and Huntsman notes: “Things like that only come directly from rider insight.”
If Rapha was already getting plenty of insight in-house, they gained a whole load more when they took over from Adidas as kit supplier to Team Sky at the beginning of 2013. Although the relationship will end this season, they’ve found that working with a core group of team riders who are particularly interested in their kit has reaped rewards.
“We get so much insight from those guys as to what their priorities are and what they think is important,” says Huntsman. “Some things we think are important, they couldn’t really care
less about.”
But even in these instances, Rapha has a mission of ‘Zero Distraction’. “If we ask riders how was it, and the riders say that they didn’t notice, then we consider it job done.”
Fairbank adds: “A huge amount of effort goes into making sure the fit is right. Psychologically the riders like putting something on where there is no wrinkling, no gathering, and no excess fabric.”
And when it comes to matters of personal preference, chamois type and leg length on shorts is entirely up to the rider.
Working with the team is not always at the cutting edge. Remember that mesh jersey that gave Chris Froome sunburn? “It came from Sky that they wanted an open mesh,” Huntsman explains.
“This is a good example where we can say, ‘You asked for that but we can actually give you better solutions that keep you cooler and also protect you from the sun.’”
It’s from Huntsman’s R&D department that new products, some including technologies borrowed from other industries, are devised and prototyped. Working with a long-term focus, they’ve recently been researching yarn technology for crash protection, wearable tech and biometric data.
“We are actually looking at heating elements and lighting in garments too,” explains an excited Huntsman. There are, he notes, other companies working on some of these things — but they want to “do it the Rapha way”.
“It is not hyperbole,” says Fairbank of the company’s passion for cycling. “We believe this is the greatest sport in the world and that should inform every aspect of people’s life — from the food you eat, to the coffee you drink, to the friends you keep — the whole lot.”
Why do cyclists love or hate Rapha?
Extract from article in The Guardian
When it comes to cycle clothing, one brand polarises cyclists like no other: Rapha. The very word will leave some purring at the thought of their next visit to its Soho store, while others will twitch involuntarily at the very mention of the name.
Forums see these two entrenched camps trading blows, which often fall below the waistline. Rapha occupies a position in the high-end sector of the market and there’s no denying that its clothing is expensive, but premium fabrics and construction deliver performance and longevity. I rate their kit highly, but it is not infallible.
Earlier this month, Rapha unveiled its new Shadow collection and even the staunchest supporters of the brand were taken aback by the £480 price tag for the jersey and shorts. Critics came out in force on social media ridiculing the price, pointing out that the jersey cost twice the price of its obvious rival. “Two hundred and sixty pounds for a pair of shorts is a grotesque amount of money!,”said one. “For £260 I could buy 32 and a half pairs of Decathlon’s finest!,” screamed another.
I’ve always been puzzled as to why Rapha in particular is the focus of such ire from a substantial section of the cycling community. And it’s not just the brand itself that seems to raise their shackles. Anyone who wears their kit is deemed guilty by association.
Shouldn’t we be celebrating such a globally successful and innovative British brand? Do we ridicule someone who chooses to wear designer jeans over a pair from Primark? And if so, how many of us would own up to the fact that a little bit of envy lurks behind our sneers? Conversely, roll up for your pre-ride espresso flaunting a new set of aero wheels and your cycling friends will whistle in admiration.
A common accusation levelled at Rapha is that it is a brand that is all about style, but would Sir David Brailsford with his mantra of ‘marginal gains’ have teamed up with a kit supplier that was concerned solely with image?
Simon Mottram always envisaged its clothing would offer superlative performance and the Team Sky sponsorship gave impetus to this objective. It was a symbiotic relationship: Rapha found a wider, global audience, while the clothing it supplied to the Sky squad helped to secure two Tour de France victories and a smattering of Classics. The partnership, Mottram noted when announcing that they were parting company at the end of this season, had provided success “beyond expectations”.
The Shadow range is one of the final manifestations of their relationship, but can Rapha justify that hefty price tag? It claims that the bespoke yarn, comprehensively tested, represents the pinnacle of its technology and delivers unrivalled wind and rain protection. “It has a fantastic range of movement and fit and, that crucial difference, amazing breathability,” claims Graeme Raeburn, Rapha’s lead designer.
Sales already suggest that many are prepared to pay a premium for extensive R&D. The innovation will trickle down to the mid-market manufactures in due time. Where Rapha go, many follow.
Rapha celebrates road cycling and though that does not make it unique in the industry, few can match its commitment. Its website regularly posts inspirational essays, videos and photography; Rapha sponsors events, invests in grassroots and women’s cycling and its Super Cross series continues to grow in popularity. Mottram even resurrected the Bordeaux-Paris endurance race, once a staple of the pro calendar, raising £200,000 for an autism charity in the process. Sure, this all helps to promote the brand, but its heart is in the right place.
Despite playing a significant role in the invigoration of the UK cycling scene, Rapha remains a ‘marmite’ brand, though Mottram is comfortable with that: “What we wanted to create was a brand for a certain type of person that was absolutely for that person. So it was everything to some people and nothing to some people. I didn’t want to be something to everyone.”
It’s no surprise, therefore, that a principal perception of Rapha is that it is too aspirational and only for the wealthy.
Mark Bourgeois, 47, is executive director of a London-based listed property company, who only started road cycling two years ago. Those credentials alone suggest he is the classic Rapha customer, but he describes himself as a ‘cycling chameleon’. During the week he trains with Rapha CC, but every weekend he heads home to Yorkshire, a traditional cycling hotbed, where he rides (and races at Cat 3 level) with Ilkley CC.
“Rapha clothing”, he observes “is far less ubiquitous in Yorkshire than it is in London. You rarely see packs of Mamils riding in head-to-toe Rapha, like you do around London.”
He admits to being quite self-conscious when wearing Rapha clothing up north and has identified a breed of anti-Rapha cyclist in Yorkshire: “They tend to be those who have been riding to a high standard since their teens. It’s possible they feel a certain resentment that Rapha has sort of stolen their sport and made it their own,” he suggests.
From the outset, Mottram made no secret of the fact that he wanted to ally his fledgling brand with the sometimes tough nature of cycling: “The suffering is the most appealing thing for me,” he told Cyclist magazine in 2013, “I passionately believe that this is why cycling is the greatest sport in the world – it’s the human experience.”
The company’s marketing features black and white images of Rapha-clad models toiling up iconic climbs, faces contorted in pain. “It’s what matters most to customers – the fact that cycling is bloody hard. It’s about application and commitment,” he said
Many critics of Rapha have a less romantic connection with their sport, rooted more in the heritage of the domestic cycling scene. To them, it’s all about how you cycle.
Henrie Westlake is 42 and has been road cycling all his adult life, but would never contemplate wearing Rapha’s clothing. His choice is not down to the cost, nor the quality. “It has become the uniform of a certain sector of ‘new’ cyclists,” he contends, “and by that I refer to the stereotypical cliché of ‘all the gear, no idea’.
There are sections of the cycling community who are dismissive of those who spend more time talking about kit in the cafe than actually riding a bike. “I’ve frequently heard cyclists say that you rarely see a good amateur cyclist in Rapha.” In his opinion, “the best way to look good on a bike is to drop everyone on a climb.”
The unwritten rule of road cycling is to always acknowledge another rider on the road. It’s the recognition of a kindred spirit and a shared passion. Hopefully the day will come when the two parties on either side of the Rapha divide lay down their cycling caps and accept that we are all cut from a similar cloth.
Sonae is a leading retail group, founded in 1959, by Afonso Pinto de Maglhaes, in Maia Portugal, initially focused on decorative wood laminates, although de Maglhaes himself also founded a bank. During its first two decades, Sonae stayed small, focused on wood derivatives.
During the 1980s the company began a period of rapid growth, which coincided with Portugal’s entry in the EU and in 1985, Sonae Investimentos SGPS, S.A was created on the stock market. At this point Sonae began to diversify its business, through the acquisition and creation of new enterprises: the opening of the first hypermarket in Portugal (Continente), hotels development (with Sharaton), the purchase of Star (a travel company) and the opening of the two shopping centres (in Portimao and Albufeira). In the 1990s this was followed by expansion into IT, entertainment and tourism, plus taking many of the businesses into new international markets.
Today the business portfolio is structured as follows
Core Businesses
- Sonae MC – Portuguese leader in the area of food retail, with a set of different formats: Continente (hypermarkets), Continente Modelo (supermarkets), Continente Bom Dia (convenience stores), Continente Ice (specialised in deep frozen food), Meu Super (franchising format of close-by stores), Bom Bocado (restaurant services), Book.it (bookshop) and Well’s (drugstores).
- Sonae SR – Responsible for Sonae’s non-food related retail area, particularly sports, clothing and electronics, through the brands SportZone (sports), MO (textile), Zippy (Kids clothing and accessories), Worten(household appliances, consumer electronics and entertainment), Worten Mobile (mobile telecommunications), Pets&Plants (garden supplies and articles for pets).
Core Partnerships
- Sonae Sierra – International specialist in shopping centres. Founded in Portugal in 1989, it is owned by Sonae in 50% of the shares. The remaining 50% are owned by Grosvenor
- Sonaecom – Partnership in the areas of telecommunications, software, information systems and media, which develops an active role in the integrated management of the business units. The universe of companies that are connected to this area is formed by: NOS (telecommunications), Biztech (commercialization of multi-brand IT solutions), WeDo Technologies (supplier of software solutions) and Saphety (simplified solutions and processes automation). In the media area, Sonaecom also owns Publico, a reference daily newspaper.
Retail innovation
Sonae has investment in innovation, research and development, with an average annual growth of 14.5% since 2005. Ten years later, this investment has reached 110 million euros, involving over 150 partners from 25 countries across the world.
In 2015, Sonae carried on its strategic investment in innovation, generating and implementing hundreds of innovations which contributed to sustain leadership positions for its retail businesses in Portugal and to strengthen their global presence.
According to the data presented in the “Retail Book of Innovation 2015”, a pioneer report in the international business sector which has been consecutively published for the past seven years, Sonae’s investment in research, innovation and development rose from 22 million euros in 2005 to 96 million euros in 2014, translating an average annual growth of 14.5%.
This evolution surfaces as the teams dedicated to innovation tasks were duly strengthened, with the direct involvement of about 4,400 employees over this past year. Innovation processes also benefitted from the collaboration of employees from Sonae’s retail areas, helping to generate ideas and implement innovations.
Nuno Lopes Gama, Head of Innovation and Future Tech at Sonae, states: “Innovation is strategic for Sonae, for which every year we insist on a strong financial and human investment so as to guarantee we remain on the path towards becoming even stronger and faster in fulfilling or customers’ needs and preferences, while also aiming higher in our performance. This investment allows us to generate hundreds of innovations every year, which contribute to our leadership positions and to establish Sonae as a benchmark multinational company, with interests in over 80 countries. The Retail Book of Innovation is a central piece of our investment, as it not only reports the balance between the activity developed and the results obtained, but also recognizes and celebrates the collective determination of our people and partners in producing Innovation that has a positive impact in the performance of our businesses and in our customers’ shopping experience and quality of life as well.”
The “Retail Book of Innovation 2015” presents a selection of 75 innovations developed and implemented by Sonae’s retail brands, where one can find the Deeply Zipperless Suit, that already represents 70% of its range sales; the Shopview, that allows to automatically monitor shelves in Continente, reducing time spent on the task by 90%; and the Sales Assistant, which allows Worten employees to begin, carry out and conclude the selling process via tablet or web page, reducing time spent in the process by 63%.
Examples of innovation also include Zippy’s new children’s fashion store concept that improves the shopping experience for both parents and kids, with over 80% satisfied customers; the new Ice Transporting System in the fish centre; Worten’s new pricing system; the store model for Continente Bom Dia, that is more efficient in terms of costs and operation; Continente’s new packaging for sliced smoked ham; or the new range of backpacks by Note! with built-in LEDs, speakers and GPS.
Open innovation involves over 150 partners from 25 countries
Sonae invests in an open innovation strategy, working in a growing collaborative ecosystem that acts as a propeller of innovation. This network includes universities, R&D centres, technology transfer units, startups, incubators and accelerators, business partners and companies from the most varied sectors of business, including other retailers.
Nowadays, Sonae’s retail businesses work towards innovation with more than 150 partners around the world, involving institutions from 25 countries, in four continents. This is how Sonae intends to foster the sharing of knowledge and the development of initiatives through collaborative networks.
Download your copy of Sonae’s Retail Book of Innovation
Self-driving cars have been much talked about, but for most of us it still seemed like science fiction. Distracted by the sleek electric vision of Tesla, self-driving seemed like a step beyond in terms of industry change, but has now suddenly become a reality.
The world’s first self-driving taxis were launched in Singapore in August 2016 … not by Google, Tesla or Uber … but by nuTonomy. The US-based start-up is a developer of software for self-driving cars, founded in 2013 by two world-renowned experts in robotics and intelligent vehicle technology, Drs. Karl Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli of MIT, and based in Cambridge MA. Earlier this year, nuTonomy was the first company to get permission from the Singapore government to test self-driving cars, in a small area of the town. It’s now progressed to taking passengers.
Whilst many people looked to the conventional car manufacturer brands to shape the future, it was always more likely that those with adjacent capabilities (like software, or charging, or marketing – Google, Better Place, or Uber) would “change the game” – redefine customer aspirations, business models, and the way the industry works.
nuTonomy is not a car manufacturer, so don’t expect sic-fi-looking cars to start navigating that Orchard Road traffic today. Instead a range of Renault and Mitsubishi electric vehicles have been equipped with the company’s complex system of cameras and lasers that operate like a radar to monitor the car’s surrounding. Which is certainly a step up from autonomy’s initial trial vehicles, which were electric golf carts.
The taxis will run in a limited 4 sq km area in the west of Singapore, with designated pick-up and drop-off spots so you can’t yet get on or off wherever you prefer.
The choice Singapore as a start-up location is important. It is already a taxi heaven. Owning your own car is mind-bogglingly expensive and many people take taxis on a regular basis. Cab rides are cheap and there’s a very high demand. Add the rather disciplined and organised approach to traffic. When Singaporeans talks about a traffic jam, all they mean are a few cars more than usual at a traffic light!
nuTonomy’s goal is to expand it to a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018.
Of course nuTonomy is not only company with a self-driving vision. Uber seeks to launch its own service on the streets of Pittsburgh USA over the next few weeks. Google was one of the first to openly declare its vision, and seeks to have been testing driverless cars at its GoogleX Moonshot Factory for years now. Tesla too, has a bold vision. Not just of driverless cars, but driverless car sharing was a corner stone of Elon Musk’s new strategy launched last month.
Press release, 25 August 2016
nuTonomy, the leading developer of state-of-the art software for self-driving cars, today launched the first-ever public trial of a robo-taxi service. The trial, which will continue on an on-going basis, is being held within Singapore’s one-north business district, where nuTonomy has been conducting daily autonomous vehicle (AV) testing since April.
Beginning today, select Singapore residents will be invited to use nuTonomy’s ride-hailing smartphone app to book a no-cost ride in a nuTonomy self-driving car that employs the company’s sophisticated software, which has been integrated with high-performance sensing and computing components. The rides will be provided in a Renault Zoe or Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric vehicle that nuTonomy has specially configured for autonomous driving. An engineer from nuTonomy will ride in the vehicle to observe system performance and assume control if needed to ensure passenger comfort and safety.
Throughout the trial, nuTonomy will collect and evaluate valuable data related to software system performance, vehicle routing efficiency, the vehicle booking process, and the overall passenger experience. This data will enable nuTonomy to refine its software in preparation for the launch of a widely-available commercial robo-taxi service in Singapore in 2018.
Earlier this month, nuTonomy was selected by the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) as an R&D partner, to support the development of a commercial AV service in Singapore. This trial represents the first, rapid result of this partnership. nuTonomy is the first, and to date only, private enterprise approved by the Singapore government to test AVs on public roads.
CEO and co-founder of nuTonomy, Karl Iagnemma, said, “nuTonomy’s first-in-the-world public trial is a direct reflection of the level of maturity that we have achieved with our AV software system. The trial represents an extraordinary opportunity to collect feedback from
BeMyGuest helps travellers discover a vast and constantly growing choice of unique travel experiences. We have it all; adventurous, thrilling, family friendly, wholesome, culturally enriching, romantic, rejuvenating, up close and personal with nature and more.
C0-founder Clement Wong tells us how it began:
“A few years back I was in Kenya on a business trip. I extended my stay over the weekend to go on a safari. While at the Maasai Mara Reserve, I asked my driver if he could take me to a Maasai village. He told me it would cost $20, and I thought, sure, let’s help the local community. Once there, I was curious to find out how far the $20 would go in sustaining them and what they would spend it on.
Sadly, a Maasai responded, ‘Sir, we do not get the $20. We only get $2. All the rest goes to the driver.’ Apparently, if he did not do so, the driver would simply take tourists to another village.” That inspired me to do something about it, to help local communities to truly benefit from tourism, and this led to my journey with BeMyGuest.”
Wong founded the business with Blanca Menchaca in 2012 to address the dearth of resources available to members of Asia’s rising middle class who want to travel their own region independently. Wong noticed no one was helping local tour companies bring their products online. BeMyGuest now has over 13,000 activities listed on its platform. In 2013, it raised $508k from South Korea’s Tidesquare. In 2014, it raised $800k led by TNF Ventures. In the same year, it won the Start-UP Asia competition against 150 competitors. To date, it has received $3.5m funding.
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Now, BeMyGuest acts as an important platform for small- to mid-sized operators, enabling them to market and manage their offerings with everything from translation services to dynamic pricing tools. The company’s content management system is free; travelers pay a small fee for every booking.
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In 2015 BeMyGuest launched a platform that enables travel agents to plan itineraries for their clients drawing from BeMyGuests’s inventory. It made a huge deal to integrate its tour offerings with China’s online travel colossus Ctrip, fueling an average month-over-month growth of more than 100%. BeMyGuest is the first Asian activities and tours API to be fully integrated into Ctrip’s website and mobile app. In the coming months, the company will be announcing similar partnerships with the biggest travel engines in China and India.
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In 2016 BeMyGuest was ranked globally as one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.
$47 billion of luxury fashion accessories are sold each year, yet over half of all luxury consumers say that they want products that are personalised to their own preferences. Some leading brands like Burberry, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton have tried to make customisation work, but found it hard to do it on a global scale.
Yet to the consumer, in a world where luxury brands have become ubiquitous, and their value diminished, it is personalisation that has value. Indeed personalisation is the new luxury.
Now, a New York City startup is redefining bespoke fashion for the digital age, combining old-fashioned craftsmanship and modern technology in ways that could signal the future of customisation. 1Atelier believes it has found a solution to creating bespoke handbags, allowing consumers to design and receive their perfect bag within 21 days.
1Atelier’s CEO is Stephanie Sarka, a seasoned entrepreneur with deep experience in building businesses and brands. Initially following the traditional path to Goldman Sachs, she quickly realized that she is a builder, not a banker. So she went to Paris to work for a year at International Flavors & Fragrances. After getting her MBA at Harvard, she worked for Lew Frankfort at Coach for seven years, where she earned her stripes as a “merchant” and an “operator” and held numerous leadership positions; she also led the successful re-launch of Mark Cross, the American luxury goods brand.
Sarka is supported by her creative director Frank Zambrelli who has an extensive background in product design, branding and production technology for luxury leathergoods. Headed for medical school, an unexpected trip to the European fashion shows radically altered his plans. He instead went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and graduated with a dream job at Chanel, working between Paris and New York, during the brand’s renaissance under Karl Lagerfeld. At Cole Haan, under the guidance of John Varvatos, he further developed his craft in European factories. Frank subsequently went to Coach where he led the successful launch of the venerable firm’s foray into footwear.
Here is an extract from Fast Company’s recent article about 1Atelier:
When you walk into 1Atelier’s studio in the Garment District, tables are strewn with large bolts of premium leather, from full-grain cowhide to more exotic varieties of snake and crocodile. You can watch a master craftsman put the finishing touches on satchels, clutches, and hobos, each designed to the exact specifications of the customer. One saddle bag is made of champagne-colored python skin with a contrasting pink trim; a colorful tote comes in fuchsia, orange, and blue. There’s a little machine that stamps the owner’s name in gold lettering onto a label inside the bag.
Tables are strewn with large bolts of premium leather, from full-grain cowhide to more exotic varieties of snake and crocodile.
In the past, a client would need to visit a workshop to order a customized bag, but at 1Atelier, she can do everything online. The company’s website allows customers to pick a style, then play with different colors and textures until they’ve dreamed up their perfect sack. The end product costs between $295 and $8,400, which puts the brand at the lower end of the luxury bag spectrum.
But unlike Chanel or Céline, which requires six months or longer to ship a bespoke order, 1Atelier products are delivered to the customer in 21 days. That’s all thanks to technology, from the snazzy customization tool on 1Atelier’s website to the company’s backend systems that make the supply chain and manufacturing models of efficiency. “Technology is the lever that allows us to transform the entire luxury experience,” says Sarka. Even the brand’s logo reflects how deeply 1Atelier’s mission is intertwined with tech: the number one surrounded by a circle resembles the power-on symbol.
Sarka believes that there’s a massive market opportunity to bring customization to the luxury accessories sector. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal from last year, 56% of luxury consumers say customization is increasingly important to them—an uptick that reflects a broader trend in consumer behavior. Deloitte research revealed that 36% of people want personalized goods and services in their everyday shopping experiences. “This makes sense,” says Zambrelli, who worked at Chanel, Coach, and Judith Leiber before cofounding 1Atelier and becoming its creative director. “We’re now surrounded by a culture in which we are encouraged to customize everything from our Facebook profile to the color of our smartphone. It was inevitable that this mind-set would enter the luxury industry.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wBhZUlEmYw
Major design houses have taken note. You can now monogram your Louis Vuitton bag or add your own combination of graphics—bees, tigers, flowers—to your Gucci bag, jacket, or shoes. You can choose the heel, color, and fabric on Manolo Blahnik’s classic BB stiletto. Jimmy Choo offers a collection of clip-ons and buttons to adorn your heels or clutch. For the 35th anniversary of Ferragamo’s iconic Vara and Varina shoes, you could customize these styles to your taste. And at the Opening Ceremony SoHo location, there’s an embroidery station where you can add the imprint of your choice to a shirt or jacket.
But as Zambrelli points out, these are personalized details on a few products from a collection. “These are condiments on an entrée, rather than a handcrafted meal,” he says.
Offering a more complete customization experience, where the customer has a hand in the entire design process, presents a logistical challenge for big brands, whose supply chain and manufacturing networks usually span multiple countries. In 2011, for instance, Burberry offered a bespoke service that allowed customers to alter every aspect of its iconic trench coat, from the cut to the fabric to the color, for between $1,800 and $8,800. But when the service failed to be profitable, Burberry quietly shut it down in 2015 and launched a simpler alternative, the Scarf Bar, where shoppers can monogram their initials onto scarves for $475 to $995.
Sarka and Zambrelli kept these case studies in mind when they built 1Atelier. “It’s hard to customize at scale unless you’re uniquely dedicated to it,” Sarka says. “We’ve been building our systems and infrastructure, thinking about how we can scale everything from the production to the user experience.”
Hence, the crucial role of technology.
Over three hundred years ago, The East India Company’s pioneering merchants were the leading traders of luxury goods of their time, forging trade routes across the tumultuous oceans between the East and the West and trading a range of products including tea, coffee, spices, gold, silver and porcelain.
At the height of its power, the company controlled large parts of India with its own armed forces. But it was disbanded after soldiers of the company’s own army rose in revolt against the British in 1857. A tiny rump of the company lived on, however, consisting of its trading name and a small tea and coffee concern. This shadow of what was once a global trading power was acquired in 2005 by Sanjiv Mehta.
Now, the Indian entrepreneur has relaunched the famous brand, starting with a range of fine foods (and also gold coins!), available online and from the company’s stores in London, and in other global cities.
The East India Company seeks to stand again for quality and innovation in each and every area of trade. It scours the best of manufacturers from all over the world to develop a range of foods that are exclusive and unique to our brand. It insists that our lines are made to the highest specifications with the finest of ingredients we can find, researching historic recipes till this very day as well as maintaining a close working relationship with the artisans that produce the innovative recipes in the true spirit of The East India Company.
Sanjiv Mehta’s stores showcase a range of 350 luxury products, including 100 varieties of tea, chocolates, spices and mustards developed by the company from across the world.
Recreating the lost brand
The recreated brand philosophy seeks to recapture the spirit of exotic discovery:
We are pioneers, explorers and innovators.
We are idealists, dreamers and traders.
We are sensitive to the cultures and beliefs of others. We seek to enrich and enliven the world and increase our positive impact through our corporate and personal actions.
At the heart of it all, we are adventurous, honourable merchants; traversing the oceans to forge new connections, to set up trading relationships, to discover the exotic and elusive.
Soon after receiving royal approval from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, The Company began to use an identifying mark called The Merchant’s Mark or the ‘Chop ‘ on all its goods and cargoes. Derived from the Hindi word, ‘chap ‘, meaning stamp, this mark was considered by many to be the first commercial trademark and soon became a global symbol of excellence recognizable across all of the brand’s activities.
Initially a simple mark, it evolved by the 1700 ‘s into a heart shaped figure surmounted by a figure four, or sail, and containing the initials of the company, EIC. It is this same symbol today that we carry forward today to mark the quality and exclusivity of each and every one of our products.
https://vimeo.com/29371436
https://vimeo.com/29371391
Inspired by a great story
Granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, The East India Company was founded to explore the mysteries of the East. As The Company grew, it mapped trade routes through unchartered territory and changed social customs, tastes and ways of thought to influence the very fabric of our lives today.
The Company’s pioneering spirit and sense of adventure created British India, founded Hong Kong and Singapore and introduced tea to Britain and India. Their warehouses were places of wonder, stocking never before seen silks, chintzes, calicos, porcelain, coffees, chocolates and spices from around the world. They played a pivotal role in writing our history by planting the first teas in Darjeeling, causing the Boston Tea Party; holding Napoleon captive; and generating the fortune of Elihu Yale, founder of Yale University.
1600: The Royal Charter … The Company of Honourable Merchants of London trading into The East Indies was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I, and established itself with 125 shareholders and £72,000 of capital. Sir Thomas Smythe was appointed The Company’s first Governor.
1601: The First Voyage … Five vessels left Woolwich for the Spice Islands or East Indies in February, 1601. The mission, led by James Lancaster, carried six letters of introduction from The Queen, each with a blank space for the name of the local King. Though Lancaster’s intention was to trade iron, lead and British broad cloth for spice, he made little impression, as the Dutch restricted British access, and the broad cloth was deemed too heavy to be of use by those living in the tropics.
1608: Landing in India … The Company’s ships first arrived in India, at the port of Surat, in 1608. Sir Thomas Roe reached the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, as the emissary of King James I in 1615, and gained Britain the right to establish a factory in Surat.
1613: Japan Landing … The Clove, an East India Company ship, became the first British ship to reach Japan. Bearing official letters and gifts from King James I for retired Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and his ruling son, Hidetada, and with the assistance of Englishman William Adams known as ‘Anjin’ (a trusted advisor of the Shogun), the Commander of The Clove, Captain John Saris presented from England, a telescope, a precious cup and cover and English Wool. By return, Hidetada presented Saris with two suits of armour for King James I, while Ieyasu gave to him ten spectacular painted gold-leaf screens, as well as a warm letter for the King and an official Vermilion Seal Letter granting the English permission to live and trade throughout Japan, thus beginning a remarkable friendship between two countries on opposite sides of the world.
1684: Trade with China … England, with the demand for tea booming, The East India Company placed an order for 100 lbs of tea and by 1750 annual imports reached 4,727,992 Lbs. The Company received Chinese permission to trade from Guangzhou (Canton) importing silk, tea and porcelain, and so trade began with the Hongs who controlled trade within China. Having initially traded tea for silver, the English were concerned that too much silver was leaving their shores. So they began to trade a product locally grown in its Indian territories, opium, in exchange for tea, which lead to the Opium Wars between Britain and China.
1733: St Helena, The Forgotten Coffee … The East India Company first introduced coffee plants and seeds from Yemen to St Helena on board the Houghton from the Red Sea port of Mocha. Unique and rare in flavour, St Helena coffee is produced from a single type of Arabica bean known as Green Tipped Bourbon Arabica. It is still grown in St Helena and remains one of the world’s finest and most respected coffees. Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled to the island in 1816, remarked on the fine quality of St Helena coffee, and allegedly even asked for it as his dying wish.
1773: The Boston Tea Party … This was driven by resistance throughout British America against the Tea Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act as it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Men thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians dumped 342 chests overboard the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver ships into the Boston Harbour. Each chest was loaded with precious cargo, tea from The East India Company. Today, a single chest, with its original East India Company marks survives in Boston’s Tea Party Museum.
1848: Darjeeling Tea Established … Once a botanist, Robert Fortune was hired by The Company to obtain the finest tea plants from China to establish plantations in India. He began his espionage disguised as Chinese man ‘from a distant province’ and hired an interpreter as a precaution, as the Chinese were extremely protective of their virtual monopoly on tea production. His efforts eventually resulted in the shipment of 20,000 plants to the Himalayas, established Darjeeling as one of the finest tea producing regions in the world, and India as a dominant world tea producer.
1873: The East India Company Stock Redemption Act … By the time of The Act’s passing, the East India Company was effectively dissolved, as The Crown had assumed all governmental responsibilities held by The Company by The Act for the Better Government of India. The Company’s 24,000-man military force was incorporated into the British Army, leaving it with only a shadow of the power it had wielded years earlier. Its legacy was to last forever, as quoted by The Times in 1874, “[The Company] accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other company ever attempted and as such is likely to attempt in the years to come.” Queen Victoria, the ruling monarch at the time, became the first monarch to use the title ‘Empress of India’.
Of course the history of the company is also controversial. Whilst The East India Company is widely recognised as the world’s first multi-national company, it also had a significant army, which ruthlessly used its power to secure its advantage. A visit to the magnificent Powys Castle in Wales demonstrates the vast wealth acquired from colonial India over these years. An excellent broader perspective is found in this recent article by The Guardian.
Flying has never been fast and easy, and certainly not as easy as watching a movie on Netflix, listening to music on Spotify, or jumping into an Uber taxi. There is the hassle of searching through schedules and flights times, booking tickets, selecting seats, checking in, waiting, queuing, boarding, and much more. But no longer.
A new generation of airlines has landed, challenging the very idea of booking a seat on a plane.
First there was Victor, described as “the Uber of private jets”, trying to democratise luxury air travel but still with multi-thousand pound tickets. The UK startup works much like the taxi service. Prices vary depending on time, place, and the size of each airplane. The cheapest fare I found was a flight to France for £450 per seat, if you have seven friends who fancy a bit of impulse wine-tasting. Victor claims to be cheaper and more transparent by removing additional fees and partnering with aviation suppliers, so there’s no need for brokers who might hike up costs through commission, CEO and founder Clive Jackson says. It even has a “Pets on Jets” service, for those obsessive chihuahua owners.
But it still didn’t transform the business model, like Reed Hastings or even Elon Musk might seek to do. So how about an unlimited travel subscription model?
Imagine flying as often as you want, anywhere and anytime, for one monthly fee?
I remember exploring this exact concept when managing marketing at British Airways. We called it the Pegasus Pass, the ability to jump on any plane as often as you wanted. We calculated that even the busiest traveller flies no more than 20 flights per month, and the ability to offer the simplicity of travel (albeit with a headache of capacity management!) was worth it. At the time we couldn’t make it work, because of old rules (like needing paper tickets – remember them – with the IATA convention typed on the back). Now a former colleague from my days at BA has set up a new airline for Europe, doing exactly that.
Surf Air was launched in 2013 by Mucker Lab, a Los Angeles business incubator, charging $1,750 a month. Fly as much as you want. Arrive a few minutes before takeoff. Park for free. Forget TSA security; you don’t even need an ID to board. And then get comfortable, every seat is both a window and an aisle.
In the first 2 years Surf Air grew to 1,400 members, with a waiting list of 600. The original business plan targeted business people traveling between Southern California and Silicon Valley. Now the Santa Monica company is gearing up for a major expansion to four other California markets by October: Santa Rosa, Monterey, Sacramento and Palm Springs.
Surf Air hoped that with its entry into those cities, chosen because they are gateways or popular as weekend getaways, it will evolve from a business airline into one that includes personal lifestyle travel.
At a time when commercial air travel is universally loathed, Surf Air has become a gamechanger among entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. About a third of its passengers work in the tech sector; others include lawyers, consultants, real estate agents, sales and advertising reps, entertainment types and retirees.
After a much-hyped launch, the airline by early 2014 was struggling and had signed on just 225 people. Members complained that the flights they wanted were always booked, while prospective customers languished on the wait list for months. Flight delays and cancellations were also a problem.
“We didn’t have a lot of confidence in the model at that point in time,” said William Woodward, managing partner at Anthem Venture Partners, which led Surf Air’s seed and Series A rounds.
Those growing pains led to a shake-up that saw the exit of co-founder and Chief Executive Wade Eyerly and other executives. Eyerly recently announced that he would be launching a similar all-you-can-fly private membership airline serving the Northeast.
At Surf Air, the controls were handed over to longtime membership and aviation executive Jeff Potter, who was brought in because of his experience running a major airline as the former chief executive of Frontier Airlines. Potter, who is CEO, and Executive Chairman Sudhin Shaman have now launched a multiyear growth plan across to shake up the airline world. Simon Talling-Smith is making it happen in Europe.
Under Armour’s mission is to make all athletes better through passion, design and the relentless pursuit of innovation.
Founded in 1996 by former University of Maryland football player Kevin Plank, Under Armour is driven by a passion for high performance clothing – engineered to keep athletes cool, dry and light throughout the course of a game, practice or workout. The technology behind Under Armour’s diverse product assortment for men, women and youth is complex, but the program for reaping the benefits is simple: wear HeatGear when it’s hot, ColdGear when it’s cold, and AllSeasonGear between the extremes.
Born out of sweat
In 1996, 23-year-old Plank, turned an idea born on the football field into a new industry that changed the way athletes dress forever. Back in his playing days, Plank hated having to change his sweat-soaked cotton T-shirts over and over again during two-a-days. Knowing that there simply had to be something better, he set out to create a solution.
Plank named his new company Under Armour, and after extensive research on the athletic benefits of synthetic fabrics, he designed the first Under Armour HeatGear T-shirt, which he named the #0037. Engineered with moisture-wicking performance fibers, the shirt helps keep athletes cool, dry, and light in the most brutally hot conditions.
Working from his grandmother’s basement in Washington DC’s Georgetown neighborhood, he traveled up and down the East Coast selling his revolutionary new product out of the trunk of his car. By the end of 1996, Plank made his first team sale, and Under Armour generated $17,000 in sales.
In 1997, Under Armour introduced the now-famous ColdGear fabric, which keeps athletes warm, dry, and light in cold conditions, and then the AllSeasonGear line, which keeps athletes comfortable between the extremes.
By the end of 1998, Under Armour outgrew grandma’s basement and moved to an all-new headquarters and warehouse in Baltimore.
In 1999, Under Armour played a supporting role in one of the year’s most-talked about movies. Plank and his team signed on to supply product for the Oliver Stone film Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx. In the film, the football team wears Under Armour apparel and accessories in key scenes.
Realizing the incredible opportunity to leverage the exposure from Any Given Sunday, Plank bet big and bought his first print ad in ESPN the Magazine. A risk at the time, the move paid off, generating awareness and a $750,000 increase in sales. For the first time since starting Under Armour, Plank officially put himself on the payroll.
Growing by word of mouth
In 2002, to support its continued growth, the Brand moved its global headquarters to an old soap factory in the Tide Point section of south Baltimore located on the historic Inner Harbor.
With word of mouth growing every day, the Brand bet big again and launched its first-ever TV campaign. In 2003, the legendary Protect this House TV commercial featured former University of Maryland football standout Eric “Big E” Ogbogu and a group of young athletes bringing the Brand’s voice and overwhelming passion to life in a way no one had ever seen before. Protect This House became a rallying cry for athletes everywhere, it established the Brand as the authentic voice for the next generation, and it officially made Under Armour a household name.
Under Armour officially launched its women’s line, UA Women, in 2003. In 2004, the brand introduced lines specifically for boys’ and girls’ and Outdoor athletes. Under Armour Golf was introduced in 2005, and, in the same year, Under Armour signed its first all-school deal with Plank’s alma mater, the University of Maryland.
On November 18, 2005 Under Armour went public and became the first U.S.-based initial public offering in five years to double on its first day of trading.
Less than 10 years after its launch, Under Armour ended the year with $281 million in revenue.
Head to toe sportswear
In 2006, Under Armour set its sights on dressing the athlete from head to toe.
A new campaign, Click-Clack launched the brand into the footwear business through the introduction of its first line of football cleats and the Brand captured a 23% share of the market in just the first year. On the heels of this enormous success, the Brand expanded its cleat business to include baseball, softball and lacrosse cleats.
In 2008, after nearly 12 years of providing technically advanced performance accessories and apparel, and less than two years removed from its foray into cleated footwear, Under Armour revealed its highly anticipated line of performance trainers marking its official entry into the athletic footwear market.
This period also marks the beginning of key additions to Under Armour’s elite roster of world-class athletes, including future NFL Hall-of-Famer Ray Lewis, gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn, MMA World Champion Georges St-Pierre, and Brandon Jennings, the first US basketball player to go straight from high school to a European professional league. But that was just the beginning. By the end of 2010, the Brand added the most accomplished Olympian of all-time and Baltimore native Michael Phelps, two-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady, and a young tennis phenom named Sloane Stephens.
In the midst of launching new product lines and new athlete partnerships, Under Armour also opened its new European headquarters in the old Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam and built its first branded-retail store in Annapolis, MD.
In 2010, on the biggest stage in college football field, the Under Armour sponsored Auburn Tigers won the 2010 BCS Championship game, led by future Under Armour athlete and NFL Rookie of the year Cam Newton.
2010 ended with a truly incredible financial milestone as Under Armour surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue almost quadrupling revenues in a five-year period.
Will power
Over the years, Under Armour has made significant strides in establishing a strong presence outside of the US. Through on-field partnerships with elite professional teams and players, the Brand gained enormous traction with athletes in Japan, Europe, Canada, and Latin America. The international footprint skyrocketed in 2011 when Under Armour opened its first-ever brand store in China and became the official technical partner to Tottenham Hotspur of the Barclays Premier League. The Tottenham Hotspur partnership is Under Armour’s largest individual team deal to date.
2011 is the same year the Brand ended a long-running feud with one of its biggest enemies: cotton. After years of declaring, “Cotton is the Enemy,” Under Armour further cemented its reputation for relentless innovation by developing Charged Cotton, a line of cotton apparel that dries fast and performs. From Charged Cotton came Charged Cotton Storm, which gives athletes the same quick-drying cotton with revolutionary water-resistant technology.
In 2012 and 2013 two key Under Armour athletes celebrated monumental accomplishments. In the summer of 2012, on sports biggest international stage, Michael Phelps cemented his legacy as the most decorated Olympian off all time by winning seven medals and increasing his medal total to 22 including 18 gold medal performances. In January of 2013, Ray Lewis capped off his career as one of the game’s best ever-defensive players by bringing home the second Super Bowl ring for the Baltimore Ravens.
17 years after that first moisture-wicking T-shirt, Under Armour innovation took center stage once again with the launch of all-new Armour39, the first-ever performance monitoring system that measures what matters most to an athlete: your WILLpower.
The Brand’s mission is to make all athletes better through passion, design, and the relentless pursuit of innovation. Its commitment to that mission has led to countless game-changing products that give athletes an advantage.
In college, Kevin Plank had an idea to help football players get better. Today, with revenue approaching $2 Billion, the Brand is widely recognized as a global leader in performance footwear, apparel, and accessories, and its commitment to making all athletes better drives its never-ending dedication to building tomorrow’s next great innovation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh9jAD1ofm4
Changing the game in Rio
Under Armor’s 90-second long “Rule Yourself” advertising starring the Team USA Women’s Gymnastics is athletic ad perfection. It’s on the verge of 3 million views and deserves every single one of them. It makes pudgy, middle-age men want to do some gymnastics. And while it’s not the 5.6 million views of Under Armor’s companion Michael Phelps ad, it’s the superior spot—making a successful argument in 90 seconds that even P&G’s Olympic “Like a Girl” campaign could appreciate.
It would be easy to congratulate Under Armor for rising so fast since its 1996 founding to become a sponsor of something as global as the Olympics. UA, however, is not a Rio Games official brand, but Nike is. In the past Nike has successfully elbowed its way into events like the Olympics despite official competing sponsors, like Adidas. It has become the kings of “ambush marketing”.
The practice is now a codified marketing strategy for global sporting events, with ambush marketing prevalent in nearly every event: the 2010 World Cup (Nike ambush Adidas) to London 2012 (Beats ambush Panasonic, Nike ambush everyone) to Euro 2016 (Nike beat Adidas again). One thing obviously in common with all of those events is Nike as the ambusher. But now in Rio, Nike has become the ambushee.
Out-thinking Nike
How is Under Armor out-ambushing Nike? Essentially by doing everything Nike did to every other athletic brand for 20 years until about 2005.
It currently uses “Rule Yourself” but “Fake It ’Til You Make It” should be Under Armor’s motto. The brand itself traces its big break to Hollywood, when filmmakers put UA logos on the jerseys and gear of athletes in hit football movies Any Given Sunday (1999) and The Replacements (2000). “The object was authenticity, and Under Armour delivered,” the brand says. The brand’s huge push in 2003 built around “Protect This House” was no “Just Do It” but it got the job done. Under Armour was slowly going from that “weird upside-down U’s” logo to that laughable upstart brand that actually thinks it can challenge Nike. Of course, today Nike is the only athletic brand bigger in the US than Under Armour.
In 2007, working under the slogan “Click Clack,” UA had an IPO and its first retail experience. Under Armour was signing up random teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and damaged star athletes like Ray Lewis. And from the beginning, Under Armour recognized female athletes were an underserved market; at 10 years old, its women’s product sales were by far outpacing its men’s sales. The brand owed some of this success to tapping into female designers, years before and signing up under-the-radar female stars from the women’s US soccer and Olympic softball teams. By 2016, Nike maintained a lead in the headspace of the American consumer, but not much.
Under Armour’s recent ambush of Nike at the 2016 Rio Games is a page from Nike’s playbook. But it’s also thanks to loosening International Olympic Committee rules, especially Rule 40. Attention to Rule 40 started at the 2012 London Games, and the rule governing what ads can and cannot be broadcast during the Olympics has expanded since. Ironically, allowing Under Armour easier access to ambush Nike, came thanks to decades of Nike’s successful Olympic ambushing of other brands.
The Freitag brothers defy the stereotype that creative minds cannot be also commercial. In 1993, the two college graphic design students had an idea for a product. Twenty-one years later they have a flourishing company with retail locations all over the world, their own manufacturing plant, and hundreds of employees. Their products are displayed in the design museum in Switzerland and MoMA New York. They shared how their personal story informed their brand identity and the success of their business with the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.
They admit they didn’t have any real business skills or experience when they started. They just had creativity and a philosophy oriented from their story. The brothers grew up in environmentally-conscious Switzerland, paid attention to marketing ads at a young age, and lived in a student flat located right next to a freeway. Many Europeans biked to decrease their carbon footprint, but no one had a useful travel bag for biking cities in unpredictable weather conditions. The combination of these points led them to create bike-able bags made from recycled semitrailer truck tarpaulin.They started with one simple design: durable recycled one-of-a-kind items that were easy to carry on a bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnGrcCVG8TE
How has such specificity lead to wider success? Never mind the fact that they tapped into an unsaturated market at the right time. They have seen many competitors enter the market, but their business continues to expand with loyal customers and new products because they stay true to the personal philosophy that emerged from their story. Their products are always eco-conscious, always individual, always made from durable truck tarpaulin, and always bike-able. They shared how their personal story influences these products. From their visit to the Berlin School, here are three tips that other business brand managers can take away from the Freitag narrative-oriented philosophy:
1. Narrative gives you a firm foundation in which to root your brand identity and your business mission.
A series of life events led the Freitag brothers to a certain business mission. In their presentation they talk about having a holistic approach, meaning “to think from the beginning to the end and once back again,” to their company. To build a brand with a holistic perspective, you must know your values. Brand identity emerges from those values, but often the values are rooted in personal experiences.
For example, growing up in a green-minded atmosphere made the Freitag brothers value recycled materials and decreased car use. These values show themselves in Freitag’s product made from recycled materials for people who don’t drive cars. The brothers communicate that one’s product must be good, but business isn’t just about the product—“it’s about the world around the product.” And the world around the product is fixed in the story of creating the product.
In short: What happened? What do you value in light of what happened? What products exude those values? That’s your brand identity. That identity fuels the company mission.
2. Narrative provides ways to expand your product into other areas while staying true to your values.
Freitag started with bike messenger bags. Now they have several collections of bags with a wide range from functional to fashionable. They also sell other bike-able accessories, allow people to design their own bags online, and house a flagship store that lets customers view the freeway from the same location where the brothers created the first bag. In each expansion, Freitag adds value to their product line without sacrificing their product identity. New products are grounded in the Freitag story—different items all carrying a single identity. Knowing and staying true to a narrative allows a business to expand products (and perhaps revenues) without coming to market with items that don’t represent its values. (i.e. products that are prone to fail under the brand identity.)
3. Narrative gives customers a loyalty-inspiring caveat to your value proposition.
Freitag never discounts its products. Retail stores display signs that say, “Everything 50% Off (except Freitag).” The company has this luxury because its customers aren’t shopping for a price. They are shopping for a bag that they believe in. They buy Freitag because they believe in using recycled materials, in having one-of-a-kind products, in having a durable bag that will last for years. They are buying more than the bag: they are buying the story surrounding the bag. They believe this dynamic creates loyal customers who won’t run to competitors when their prices are lower.
Freitag continues to communicate its narrative and personal philosophy to employees and customers. The most loyal Freitag customers compete in design competitions, RSVP to tarpaulin-cutting parties, and make special visits to the flagship store. They dish out time and money for Freitag products because they know the story and they believe in the values that transpire from that story.
In college, the Freitag brothers were under the assumption that building up a brand meant one needed money, a business plan, a target group, an advertising campaign and so on. What they found is that (1) all of those things can’t grow a business that doesn’t have clear narrative-focused values and (2) all those details come to fruition much easier when they stick to their story.