Blog & Inspiration

Two big names and at the same time two legends with a bit of common history. In 1969, Zenith presented the famous Chronograph El Primero. In the same year, the British car manufacturer Land Rover introduced the prototype of the first luxury off-road vehicle: the Range Rover, which went on the market in 1970. Dedicated to the pioneering spirit of the founders and in honour of two legends that changed the world of watches and car manufacturing significantly, the two traditional brands now join half a century later in an unusually comprehensive partnership to make ‘El Primero Range Rover Special Edition’.

At the end of the 19th century, someone stepping into ‘Abercrombie & Co’, a small shop on the waterfront in downtown Manhattan, would have found him- or herself in the midst of a large selection of expensive and in some cases quite exotic outdoor and sports equipment. The shop had everything – from tennis shoes to snake-proof sleeping bags and hunting rifles for big game. David Abercrombie had established the company on 4 June 1892, and one of his regular customers, wealthy New York businessman Ezra Fitch, soon became his partner.

Art has always been collected by private individuals but also by companies. Just think of the Medici with their Florentine family empire, or of today’s large and medium-sized companies. Art stimulates creativity in a business, shows a sense of culture and displays economic power. But still, most people have never heard of all these corporate collections that are often not accessible to the general public. Some of these collections are used for representation and marketing purposes or, at least, can be admired by customers, such as the collection of management consultant Roland Berger.

Through digitalisation, the world has become smaller. The multitude of online distribution channels and social media at our disposal today also means we can communicate in various ways with more people in more time zones simultaneously. For a standard campaign, an average company uses at least eight different distribution channels nowadays. This new age of communication offers the modern marketer diverse options, but poses challenges as well – personalisation and localisation.

The Swiss fashion and lifestyle label Strellson has recognised and dealt with the growing importance of social media for company’s communication strategies for a long time. This June, they opened the world's first online shop, where you cannot pay with money, but with likes. We talked with Mehmet Arici, Marketing Director at Strellson, about the innovative idea and marketing of the future.

Yellow and black gadgets for the house and garden, there is a good reason why many will recognise that we are talking about Kärcher here. Michael Meyer, Head of Industrial Design Home & Garden Products at Kärcher, tells us in an interview how the company manages to anchor its consumer product worldwide in different markets, how product innovation comes about and which channels it has to pass to reach product maturity.

A changing world entails unknown challenges. Questions arising from this provide the fertile ground in which new ideas germinate. Expanding building sizes in metropolitan cities have inspired the creative heads at thyssenkrupp elevator technology to rethink the traditional elevator principles. Head of Product Development, Markus Jetter, tells us how it is possible for the new elevator system, Multi, to go sideways.

The unique history of Red Bull goes back to the 1980s, when it was launched as a completely revolutionary product – the energy drink. Today, it is one of the world’s strongest brands, known as much for the beverage as it is for Formula 1 and extreme sports. With the same innovative dynamism, the company is now also designing ready-to-wear apparel for men and women, combining functional fabrics and textile innovations with natural, high-end materials. Ahmet Mercan, Head of Global Consumer Products at Red Bull, talked to us in greater detail about the exciting AlphaTauri brand and its plans.

Only very few enterprises enjoy as much affection among people across the globe as the Swedish furniture and home furnishing company Ikea. The wonderful, diverse designs on offer at Ikea’s countless emporia allow everybody to express their personality. However, just what steps the individual products have to go through before being added to others on the shelves in stores is known only to very few. The primary focus of the rigorous design process is always very clearly on customer benefit. As Head Designer, Marcus Engman manages a team of 20 designers, responsible for creating and producing all Ikea products. We spoke to Marcus about his exciting work and the design philosophy behind it.

Communication agencies face a Herculean task with digital transformation, because in order to accompany their customer’s digitalisation they first have to advance their own. The digital revolution not only changes how and where advertisements are now perceived, but also how all types of adverts are produced in general.

The place where inkjet printers and programmable pocket calculators were once invented is where the focus is now on other topics. The HP Labs, the innovation lab of the eponymous corporation, are currently on a quest to research mixed reality applications – albeit ones that are user-centric and therefore as mass market-compatible as possible.

A photo taken in 1944 shows a bombed-out wasteland. The west of Bremen is nothing but rubble, not a building or outline recognisable as far as the eye can see. The only exception: a high-rise bunker – in the centre of the ‘desert’ – undamaged, unaffected by the severest of air raids on the city of Bremen. At the time, the eight-storey high-rise bunker saved lives. Soon, it will be protecting people’s business interests, namely digital data. Bombproof, both then and now.

Digital transformation is networking the entire globe to an ever greater extent. And it is the wholesale sector in particular that is currently facing a digitalisation process that will fundamentally change its business model. We asked Alexa Wackernagel, Head of Digital Business at Swiss wholesale enterprise Elektro-Material, a company that looks back on more than 100 years of experience, how it is dealing with this topic.

In Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi blockbuster “Alien: Covenant”, a small vehicle made by Audi caused a stir. The Audi lunar quattro is a rover used to navigate and explore the terrain of foreign planets, gathering data for the team aboard the “Covenant” colonisation ship. In the meantime, a real trip to the moon is on the horizon for the Audi lunar quattro, which will cause a stir beyond Hollywood’s borders. Audi has supported the Part-Time Scientists (PTScientists) start-up from Berlin since 2015. Their common goal for 2018 is the “Mission to the Moon”, to explore earth’s only natural satellite, the moon.

The customer experience ecosystem is no longer a linear paradigm moving from being educated about the products to purchase to support. Customers go online not only to shop, but also to find inspiration to research products and to avail post-purchase services.  Enterprises engage with customers along their purchase lifecycle, collect their digital footprints and enrich future interactions. Processing these large amounts of data at optimal levels and delivering on the consumer’s expectations can be challenging even for the most tech-forward enterprises.

Es ist fünf vor Umbruch. Denn in gut acht Wochen, am 25. Mai, tritt die europäische Datenschutz-Grundverordnung unweigerlich in Kraft. Doch dass dies überhaupt kein Drama für Marketingverantwortliche bedeuten muss, erklärt uns Marketing- und IT-Security-Experte Andres Dickehut im Interview.

Already an established part of everyday life, digitalisation is gradually becoming a fixture in politics and business as well. Initially eyed with scepticism, many businesses have since come to realise the benefits of digitalisation and the advantages it brings as they attempt to keep pace with developments. We spoke with two experts about the current state of digitalisation in Germany and Europe.

Carefully designed details and an immaculate fit combined with top-quality material is the recipe for timeless items of clothing. For 60 years, the Italian Slowear Group, which consists of 4 brands, has been passionately devoted to manufacturing products which are beautiful, sustainable and reliable at once. Every single brand has kept its own identity and is specialised in what it can do best, which is the way to achieve excellence.

Sweet and smoky — if there is one trendy scent, it is sandalwood. A warm, strong basic note, which is intensive, woody and spicy at first. Combined with cedar, cardamom and leather, it creates a subtle masculine fragrance whose strength is, however, mellowed and rounded off by violet and iris. The result is “Santal 33”, one of the exclusive unisex fragrances of the perfume label Le Labo, which are equally suitable for men and women.

Distance is an illusion. Today we live in an era in which flight connections and various ways of communication have shrunk the world. New possibilities to stay loyal to your social environment have opened up, even if you are thousands of kilometres away. We are on the edge of a revolution that will change the way we live and work.

Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group (ATAP), which focusses on researching future technologies, is currently transforming textiles into interactive surfaces. Here, new weaving techniques are being developed that permit sensors and electro-conductive yarns to be integrated into fabrics.