It’s fashion week around the world and yet in 2021 we’re still not able to do ‘business as usual.’ Is fashion week still an important ‘moment in time’? In an “always on” world, what does Fashion Week mean to the industry? What are the most valuable ways you have found to build your brand and stay relevant?   

The way we experience Fashion Week has changed, but the idea of forecasting trends and looking forward to future seasons certainly continues to play an important role within the industry as a whole and for us as a retailer. Gap is built on classic styles that evoke modern American optimism – our product crosses generations and we use our creative to tell that story in a new and relevant way each season. Our new spring campaign is a great example of that, tapping a collective of unique individuals, it’s about shaping the future and forging a positive and inclusive path for people and the planet. Our product story has evolved to a new ease, an effortless style based in elemental pieces that reflect the uniqueness of each individual.

Also agree that we are living in an “always on” digital world and that is also a source of inspiration for our design and marketing teams. Seeing trends accelerate on social media, with consumers and influencers fueling the resurgence of the 90s classic Gap hoodie on Tik Tok, has certainly inspired us to bring energy to this iconic, elemental piece by reinventing it in new proportions, colors and fabrics.

Gap just launched Generation Good, a campaign that aims to amplify the voices of unique individuals acting on the shared values of inclusion, diversity, sustainability and community. What’s the inspiration and objective of this initiative?

Gap was founded with the mission to do more than sell clothes. GENERATION GOOD reflects this ideal that we can all be our true selves and move things forward by being a force for good. It takes a collective to change the world and this campaign features a multi-generational group of culture shapers and makers who are having an impact. GENERATION GOOD is a group of unique individuals taking action – they are groundbreakers that are changing the paradigm, propelling a real shift in how we show up, represent, listen and learn across generations. This GENERATION GOOD inspires the good in all of us, working together for a brighter future. Some GENERATION GOOD icons include: Aurora James, creative director and founder of Brother Vellies, founder of the 15 Percent Pledge and activist; Dr. Woo, choice tattoo artist; Evan Mock, skater and creator; Mikhail Baryshnikov, performer, artistic director for Baryshnikov Arts Center; Kimberly Drew, curator, advocate, and co-editor of Black Futures; Dizzy Fae, musician; Melissa King, award-winning chef, entrepreneur & TV personality and Kayo & Bombette Martin, skaters and Olympic hopefuls.

Sustainability is now at the forefront of fashion brands, it has changed the way they think about products, technologies, processes, and business models. How are you planning to make the business more sustainable?

We are constantly evolving to do better by our planet, and this continues to be at the forefront of our brand ethos. In 2016, we launched GAP FOR GOOD and dedicated ourselves to use less water, more sustainable materials and to give back. For example, our denim is part of Gap’s water-saving Washwell program, which uses 20% less water compared to conventional wash methods; a program that has saved millions of liters of water since its inception. We have been increasing our use of organic cotton and recycled materials in our tees, outerwear and fleece. We are committed to the goals set and making bold progress against them.

This Spring, we are taking our sustainability commitment to the next level with our Generation Good namesake collection, featuring Gap’s most sustainable essentials to-date across Adult, Teen, Kids and Baby. Made of organic and recycled fabrications, Generation Good redefines new product icons that check all the boxes on Gap’s Good List: less waste, less water, lower emissions, better materials, and support for workers. Launching on World Water Day, March 22, the collection promotes environmentally conscious product while reducing impact on the planet. 

The pandemic redefined the shopping experience for consumers at every single level, forcing brands to rethink their retail and online channel approaches. What are some of the most interesting customer insights have you gathered this past year? How have you innovated around these new needs? 

The pandemic has certainly shifted everything across the way we live, work, dress, and shop. To make an impact with consumers in today’s “always on” hyper-connected world, our approach is a fully integrated brand experience across every consumer touchpoint – a seamless digital to store experience. Consumers are using online more to pre-shop and also to order online and pick up in store or at curbside.  This convenience is a true benefit that we’ll continue to focus on because it has become a permanent part of the way consumers engage with our brand, especially time starved parents who are busy juggling work and learning from home along with the pressures from the pandemic.

Our creative approach also shifted in 2020. It’s rare to have all marketing 100% created by one internal team that is the heart and soul of the brand. We’re living Gap all day, every day, and that soul pours out through every piece of marketing – wrapping your arms around each marketing touchpoint that’s a synchronous beat, informing a consistent, cohesive experience. The other insight is that consumers are looking to fewer, more reliable and trusted brands which has allowed us to differentiate GAP brand and grow share of market in our key categories of fleece, active, denim and with our kids, baby and new Teen business.

In a challenging retail environment – what are your key growth priorities for 2021 and beyond?

We will continue to build momentum in our key businesses and keep our focus on innovating with responsible practices and materials as part of our long-term sustainability commitments. Sustainability is integral to the brand, knowing we have impact and carry that responsibility to people and the planet.

We look forward to continuing to empower and encourage our greater community through vehicles such as our P.A.C.E and pipeline programs that help equip participants with the right tools, knowledge, and experience to not only grow but succeed in their field.

We will continue to use our platform for good and amplify voices who may not always be heard, though have a strong message for the world to hear. Inclusivity and diversity are integral to our concept of Individuality—each person authentically unique but part of something bigger than themselves that can be a force for good that drives change toward a better tomorrow for all generations.

Tell us more about Gap Inc.’s new 15 Percent Pledge partnership. 

The 15 Percent Pledge and Gap Inc. are creating a new, unique approach to focus on workforce opportunity. While 15 Percent Pledge partnerships to date have focused on retailers committing to 15% of their shelf-space to Black-owned businesses, Gap Inc.’s pledge offers a different build by creating more access and new workforce opportunities through early empowerment pipeline programs to further economic equality and prosperity.  As Gap Inc. strives to enable a culture of inclusion and belonging for all, it’s exciting to partner with the 15 Percent Pledge to accelerate our commitment to amplify voices and increase access and opportunity for Black and Latinx communities. We are starting with early empowerment pipeline programs – these programs include internships, externships, and learning experiences.  By focusing here, we are able to leverage learnings from our existing programs, to expand our reach and impact.  

• In honor of Black History Month, Gap is underscoring its commitment to Black representation with The Gap Collective spring capsule, designed by Courtney Minor, Tatiana Hill, and Dwayne Dupréy, artists and allies in Gap Inc.’s African American Networking Group.

There is a pretty strong cast for this spring campaign – how did you go about selecting these trailblazers?

We looked to cast a collective of unique individuals taking action. Acting on the shared values of inclusion, diversity, sustainability and community, these ground breakers are changing the paradigm, propelling a real shift in how we show up, represent, listen and learn across generations. Gap Adult culture shapers cultivate community and create with audacity to break barriers for themselves and the generations who follow. Some GENERATION GOOD icons include:

• • Aurora James (@aurorajames) creative director and founder of Brother Vellies, founder of the 15 Percent Pledge, activist
  • Dr. Woo (_@dr_woo_) choice tattoo artist
  • Evan Mock (@evanmock) skater and creator
  • Mikhail Baryshnikov (@mishabaryshnikov123) performer, artistic director for Baryshnikov Arts Center
  • Kimberly Drew (@museummammy) curator, advocate, and co-editor of Black Futures
  • Dizzy Fae (@dizzyfae) musician
  • Melissa King (@chefmelissaking) award-winning chef, entrepreneur & TV personality
  • Kayo and Bombette Martin (@kayo_martin) (@bombette_martin) skaters and Olympic hopefuls
• Gap Teen showcases youth demanding a spring awakening to meet a future of their making. Across gender equity, climate justice, racial equality and anti-bullying platforms, this natural born chorus of young voices raises the bar on what’s expected and what’s possible
  • Ina Bhoopalam (@inabhoopalam) gender equality and climate justice activist, co-founder of @dreamequal and @oneupaction
  • Rebekah Bruesehoff (@therealrebekah) transgender youth activist
  • Mari Copeny (@littlemissflint) clean-water activist and philanthropist
  • Nandi Hildebrand (@nandihildebrand) anti-bullying activist and speaker
  • Jahkil Jackson (@officialprojectiam) equality activist and founder of Project I Am
  • Jaden Winn (@jaden.winn) social-change artist, motivational speaker, and founder of @YouthIgnitingChange
  • Archie Eicher (@aboynamedarchie) model, actor, inspiration behind @TheArchibaldProject, and Sandal Gap Studio founder
  • Lily Oyen (@lilyoyen) independent producer, singer, and songwriter

The post 5 Questions with Mary Alderete, Global Head of GAP Marketing appeared first on brandchannel:.

What do museums, sports and design have in common? They’re all conduits for culture – helping us foster a sense of community. Diego Zaccaria, founder and Creative Director of the Centre du Graphisme in France is deeply fascinated by the interplay between all three. And this fascination manifests through the “L’Art du Sport” exhibition which, through 150 works of art, explores the link between sport, design and creativity in the modern era. We spoke to Zaccaria about the exhibition, the changing nature of the sports industry and the role of design in navigating an anxious world.

In a world where we’re inundated with information, competing for people’s interest and attention becomes a growing challenge. How does the Centre du Graphisme engage people through visual arts?

The mission of the Centre du Graphisme is to explore the relationship between visual communication and society. With so many diverse forms of visual communication, we keep an open program in order to reach a wide audience. We showcase graphic designers with alternating thematic exhibitions, which allows us to cover major artistic and societal movements such as pop music and sport. We offer a varied programme; rolled out through two Mois du graphisme (‘Graphic Design Months’). This is our biennial flagship event which offers a detailed overview of a  nation or nations’ design outputs (we’ve previously covered Japan, Poland and Latin America to name a few), with around ten exhibitions spread across the various towns in the greater metropolitan area of Grenoble.

We also create initiatives aimed at children and young teenagers. We offer educational platforms throughout the exhibition period, such as  artistic practice workshops for  the individuals that could be future designers.

“L’Art du Sport” features 150 works that highlight the excellence of sport visual communication. What was the idea behind this exhibition?

It started from this notion that sport is a place of memory for art and graphic design, and a place where the two are intertwined. We all have sporting and social memories etched into our minds. I wanted to bring together visual works that combine the slower pace of art with the immediacy of visual communication. So, the posters from the 1982 World Cup are a great example of this. This World Cup took place in Spain soon after the death of Francisco Franco and just as the Spanish communities regained their autonomy. Each region invited a notable painter to create a poster of their city. Cities like Barcelona and Madrid sent a strong message by including artists such as Tàpies and Arroyo, who had always been anti-Francoists. Elsewhere, we have Ludwig Hohlwein’s posters for the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the Summer Olympics in Berlin: (which are outright propaganda posters for Hitler’s regime). These are just some examples that show how sport is clearly a major social phenomenon, but also plays an important socio-economic and political role in our world history.

Design seems to be more important than ever to force consistency, authenticity and relevance in the sports industry. What’s your take on that?

Graphic design is a necessity in an age of globalisation. It’s a cultural distillate of a society, or a private enterprise, at a specific moment in its history. It’s an open window into another culture, and it tells us about the strategy that the business has adopted, as is the case with Juventus’ new visual identity, which reinterprets the famous vertical black and white stripes from the old logo and the jersey worn by MichelPlatini, Zinedine Zidane, and so many other great players. It reinterprets and pays an homage to the past – retaining the essential visual and typographical elements of the brand.

Visual identity is a precarious exercise., It has to simultaneously capitalize on the brand’s past, and project it powerfully into the future. From this point of view, I feel that the work done by Interbrand is very successful.

Walking through “L’Art du Sport” you move across several design styles, advertisements, paintings and photography. What are big trends that have influenced design for the sports industry? 

The very same that influenced the world of billboards and commercials, although sport takes the form of an individual and collective public activity, as expressed so clearly by Albe Steiner in his public service graphic design. Look at the Bauhaus as an example. Before it was interrupted by Nazism, the Bauhaus school created a new discipline: design. That is to say, a discipline that takes into account every aspect of social life and how it’s evolved: from industry, to architecture, furniture, social behavior and of course, technology. For many years after the Second World War, this global approach was reversed by the kind of marketing that focused only on commerce and placed corporate social responsibility as second fiddle.  Nowadays it would be unthinkable to ignore the economic, environmental and societal issues that face contemporary society.

Design is more than a logo, a color palette, an illustration and typography. What is its role in today’s anxious world? 

The current situation, which forces us to fight against the coronavirus, points to the need for a social responsibility that is shared by all: individuals, society, and privately-held businesses across all industries. The graphic designer is not a “telegraph operator.”  They are not people who merely transmit a message. On the contrary, graphic designers’ social utility inevitably goes hand in hand with a social responsibility.

The post 5 Questions with Diego Zaccaria, Creative Director of the Centre du Graphisme appeared first on brandchannel:.

The AA – originally the Automobile Association – was formed in Britain in 1905 as a motorists’ mutual aid organisation. While its core functions today remain rooted in those motoring-related beginnings – roadside assistance and breakdown cover, reviews of hotels, pubs and restaurants, route planners and driving lessons – it has expanded into many other areas such as financial services and non-motoring insurance. The AA has just released one of the more striking advertising campaigns of the COVID era, showcasing the freedom of the open road with a Latvian puppet dog and a dose of humour.

Tell us about your career history.

I started creative agency side then swapped Soho for Acton and joined Carphone for a number of years in various roles across various business iterations. Then 3 Mobile for a while, with a focus on through-the-line comms plus digital and social content working with [popular web-based magazine] LadBible on @itsrelaxingstuff – proper creative-led marketing. And then the opportunity came up with the AA, which I couldn’t turn down. It’s a fantastic brand to work for. It’s got so much going for it, and it’s really fascinating at this moment in time. It’s a nostalgic brand in some respects, being at the heart of UK drivers’ lives for so long andthanks to the advertising that we’ve all grown up seeing, and it’s exciting to build for the future.

Trust in brands is evolving quickly right now – how is your brand flexing around that?

There’s an element of having to take a bit of a step back as a brand, as well as having to react quite quickly. Doing those two things at the same time is quite a challenge for companies, and certainly to me, coming in fresh to this role as COVID was hitting. It was a case of identifying quite quickly what made the AA, the AA – what was at the heart of the brand. Its purpose, its vision, which is always important in a brand role. But doing that quickly, to establish what our role would be in a scenario where the UK needed help and assistance.

There is a lot of well-earned trust in our brand – the key thing I’ve tried to bring to the AA is relevance and relatability in this time. I think that’s really important for brands, now and for the future – to really makesure that your actions as well as your words are relevant and relatable. And then it’s about just adapting to what the scenario throws at you.

I’ve been reading an interesting book called The Human Brand by Chris Malone and Susan Fiske. And I think the AA is a very human brand, that has human warmth at the heart of what it does. But what that book talks about is warmth and competence. And those two things are as important as each other – it’s the classic rational vs emotional – but it’s really important that actions lead the way, then marketing and communications follow that. I was really blessed with a brand like the AA; we were already having conversations to think about free breakdown cover for NHS workers and helping ambulance services and being part of the ‘clap for our carers’ campaign and things like that at a very early stage of COVID.

What about consumers? What are you hearing from them about the future?

I think there’s clearly an element of nervousness, but I think there is also an overwhelming sense of getting back to normal. Certainly from our point of view the AA as a brand is all about helping people get back on the road and feeling confident both now and in an evolving transport future, with electric vehicles for example.

The AA are an inherently helpful brand. So it’s actually a very natural space for us to be in, in the sense that as COVID hit, for example, as I said, we were already thinking about ways in which we could help drivers. It is inherent to what the AA does. So that was never really a challenge. I think the bigger challenge was how to communicate that and make that simple and effective for people, so that they’re aware of all of the great things that we’re doing, particularly at a time where lots of businesses are out there with limited media channels available. So thinking about a strategic way of using our social channels, for example, to continue a conversation with people in a way that we might not have done previously.

As we look forward, one of the hypotheses that we have, which is thoroughly depressing, is that we may see more and more of these kind of events – not necessarily health-related but global in nature and sparking a global conversation, which brands may need to respond to. As brand managers and leaders, we do need a perspective on that sort of thing, and we need to understand our brand in that new social dimension.

How did you get to the concept of your new campaign – how did it all come about?

The key thing for me was to avoid the COVID cliches from an advertising point of view, and to very much think about an overwhelmingly positive message and to put a smile on people’s faces. And that obviously, ladders back into the confidence that we want to get across asa market-leading brand.

We were talking about the freedom of driving as the core idea. Regardless of COVID – that feeling of being on the road can relate to a weekend road trip just as much as during or coming out of lockdown.And when we thought about it more, we felt like this was a really good moment to think about how a new brand campaign could be true to our values, and have this distinctive visual identity of the AA – those brand colours that are so well known – that simply embodies that feeling of the freedom of driving and getting back on the road. And doing that with complete confidence and the reassurance of the AA behind them.

And that laddered into the creative in all sorts of ways. So, you know, that confidence came through in choosing to go with a puppetdog that was created by Latvian puppeteers, for example, and the look and style of it, we were really keen to pull out the leadership qualities of the AA brand through everything that we were doing, and the confidence. And that also related to the Sophie Tucker track as well that we use; it’s really bold and confident for the AA. And we think hopefully it speaks to lots of different people who just want to have a have a bit of a smile andpotentially have a bit of a boogie around their living room when they see the ad.

I think it’s humorous in its confidence, which clearly ladders back to the way we want people to feel about the AA as well. And I genuinely think the UK needs a bit of humour right now.

Is there any advice that you would give to someone doing a similar role to you?

The three things I would say are:

First, stick to your brand purpose. That’s the key to my point around COVID cliché advertising – I think you need to be a brand that understands its audience and reacts as a result to that, rather than reacting for the sake of it.

The second thing is to always think about actions as well as words. Often we think about brands just in terms of communications, rather than thinking about the whole business and the importance of your actions in a time of need. And I think that’s been really evident in things like the ‘clap for our carers’ campaign, and how important an action actually is from a brand or an organisation.

And the third thing I’d say is to make people smile. I think advertising can often overcomplicate the message it’s trying to get across; sometimes we just need to put a smile on people’s faces.

The post 5 Questions with Will Harrison, Head of Brand Marketing at The AA appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

Zoom, as it continues to embrace being more than a space for business meetings, is launching its bid to own the virtual event market. It announced OnZoom, its new virtual event platform, on Wednesday at its Zoomtopia conference. (Held, of course, over Zoom.) The platform is launching in public beta for U.S. users immediately, with a broader launch coming next year.  OnZoom attempts to consolidate what has become a teeming, sometimes complicated market for virtual events. Companies like Airbnband IRL want to be the directory of those events; RSVPify, Eventbrite and Stream want to sell tickets. Apps like Shindig and Hopin are trying to create virtual events that don’t just feel like really big virtual meetings. Wei Li, Zoom’s head of platform and AI, said the company built OnZoom as a solution to this sprawling new industry. Right now, she said, event hosts are “forced to manage many different apps and tools to market their events, schedule their events, engage with their customers, collect payment, and conduct business analytics. And event attendees have to deal with even more apps and platforms.” OnZoom, on the other hand, handles everything in one place. Its website offers a sortable, searchable list of upcoming events; it integrates with PayPal to collect money (Li said more payment providers are coming, but declined to specify which), and gives hosts all kinds of information about their attendees and ticket sales. It’s even taking on some of the content-moderation work, Li said, using AI moderators. “We’re committed to providing users with a welcoming, respectful place to share their voice.”

Apparel company Canada Goose has instituted a program it calls the HumanNature Pass, which entitles its workers to take one additional hour off each week – paid – provided they promise to spend it outside doing something active. Canada Goose CMO Penny Brook said that even half a year into the pandemic, “We [still] face the real possibility of further lockdowns, and the return to the office full time is ambiguous. We designed the pass to make it easier for our employees to live and embrace our philosophy, while encouraging the wellbeing of mind and body. It has been scientifically proven that time outside can have powerful effects on our mental health, including lowering blood pressure, reducing stress levels and improving our mood.” While it’s unlikely that American employers will rush to give their legions of work-from-home employees an extra hour off for a weekly hike, there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that long days stuck at home in front of a computer has pushed people outdoors anyway. As early as two months into the pandemic, a survey by CGPR found that home confinement had prompted “an entirely new consumer group [to] discover outdoor experiences for the first time.” And in a survey commissioned by the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, 57% of respondents said that entire days spent indoors had taken a toll on their mental health, but 66% said it prompted them to get outside and be more active close to home.

In an effort to bridge the digital skills gap, Google announced on Tuesday a partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to provide 20,000 students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with access to digital skills training starting in November.

The tech giant will launch a Career Readiness Program through a $1 million grant that will embed its national online skills training initiative, Grow with Google, and custom workforce readiness workshops into the career centers of 20 schools, with the goal to eventually reach all 101 HBCUs and the nearly 300,000 students that are enrolled in them by fall 2021.

The initial $1 million investment is part of a $15 million fund to upskill Black job seekers, which Google announced amid a wave of antiracism activism in June as part of its larger $175 million commitment to racial equity. Nearly two-thirds of the 13 million new jobs created in the U.S. between 2010 and 2018 require medium or advanced levels of digital skills, such as data analytics or social media and content marketing. But about half of Black job seekers lack the required digital competencies employers seek, hampering their economic mobility and exacerbating wage disparity. “We’re seeing this digital transformation and acceleration occur, and so we’re making sure that the career centers within these educational institutions have the ability to immediately provide access to skills training,” said Bonita Stewart, vice president of global partnerships at Google and a graduate of the Washington, D.C.-based HBCU Howard University.

A decade ago, Panera Bread became the first national restaurant chain to disclose the calorie counts of its menu items. Starting Wednesday, it will also lead the charge in labeling items as climate friendly. Whenever the ingredients of the chain’s salads, sandwiches and soups collectively have a footprint of less than 5.38 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, the menu item will carry a badge proclaiming the entree a “Cool Food Meal,” the designation from the World Resources Institute. Panera worked with the environmental think tank to calculate the carbon footprint of the menu, with 55% of its entrees earning the badge. Menu items with the distinction include its Broccoli Cheddar soup and Mediterranean Bowl. CEO Niren Chaudhary said that the change is meant to raise awareness about the link between food and greenhouse gas emissions and give customers the ability to make an informed decision. Grains, fruits and vegetables are at the lower end of the scale, while dairy products and meat are at the higher end. A 2019 report from the United Nations found that the global food system accounts for 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, in response to research and growing public pressure, the restaurant industry has become more involved in the fight against climate change, pledging to limit waste and add more plant-based proteins to menus. One of the most ambitious proposals comes from Starbucks, the second-largest restaurant chain by sales, which said in January that it is striving to become “resource positive.” Panera, which has been privately held for three years, pledged in 2016 to lower its carbon emissions by 15% per square foot by 2022. Chaudhary said that the company is on track to meet that goal.

Earlier this week, Traeger, maker of high-end outdoor grills, kicked off what it’s calling a “bipartisan election campaign.” Without naming any candidates, the company put up an election page on its website with a button that takes visitors to Vote.org, a voter-registration platform operated by a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) of the same name. “We felt the need to remind consumers that regardless of the intense level of partisan division we’re experiencing, and no matter what side you’re on, we still share common interests,” CMO Todd Smith said. While Traeger’s initiative might ostensibly be about getting out the vote, it’s also using humor to achieve a bit of self-promotion. Its election page features a variety of convention-style banners that visitors can download and use as bumper stickers and yard signs. The slogans include: “Left Wing, Right Wing… Mmmm, Wings” and a poster that endorses a presidential ticket of Ribs and Brisket in lieu of actual candidates. Traeger is hardly the first brand trying to get voters to the polls this election season. HBO, Nike, Uber, Facebook and Absolut are among the big-name brands that began mobilizing last month to increase turnout.

The post Brand Moves for Thursday October 15 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

UK-based Rocco Forte Hotels has responded to the continuing confusion surrounding Covid testing for travellers from the UK by launching its own innovative ‘Fit to Travel‘ partnership service. The group, which operates luxury properties in locations including Sicily, Rome, Florence and Puglia, has partnered with Blue Horizon, which will arrange for self-test kits to be couriered to and from people’s homes, entirely bookable online – affording maximum convenience for families in the run-up to half-term. A guaranteed certificate is then produced within 72 hours of travel. The test costs £169, or £129 for Rocco Forte guests who will be given a £40 discount code upon confirmation of reservation. Chairman Sir Rocco Forte said: “These are trying times but I am keen to do anything that will enhance travel and allow our customers to holiday and enjoy themselves. Testing in the UK before traveling to Italy reduces much of the hassle and helps make the trip as seamless as possible. Upon arrival guests will find our usual hospitality and service.” For those travelling last-minute, testing is also available on arrival, with results within 48 hours, at three Rocco Forte properties. Hotels across Italy are facing mass cancellations after the UK was added to Italy’s Covid at-risk list last week, requiring those travelling from the UK to either provide evidence of a negative test in the last 72 hours, or agree to be tested on arrival (risking quarantine if positive). For those choosing to be tested on arrival there is also the issue of some airports only offering testing between 9am-5pm.

Dropbox has announced that it is becoming a “Virtual First” company. Remote work (outside an office), says the company, will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work. “Once it’s safe to do so,” they said in a statement, “ we’ll continue to facilitate a cadence of in-person collaboration and team gathering either through our existing real estate or other flexible spaces. We’ll call these collaborative spaces Dropbox Studios, and we’ll have Studios in all locations we currently have offices – whether they’re dedicated spaces in places we currently have long-term leases and a high concentration of employees (San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, and Dublin to start) or on-demand spaces in other geographies. Every employee aligned to one of our offices will have access to a Studio. To ensure a fair and consistent employee experience, we felt it was important to be prescriptive about how these spaces are used – so Dropbox Studios will be specifically for collaboration and community-building, and employees will not be able to use them for solo work. While there may be some exceptions based on team and role, employees will also have flexibility to relocate outside of locations where we currently have offices. There will be some parameters but the choices will be much greater. As a result, we expect Dropbox to become more geographically distributed over time, and hope this offers our teams more choices in where they live, work, and hire from. Utilization of Dropbox Studios will vary by team needs, so we may set up new ones as our geographic distribution and employee concentration changes. Next, we’re embracing what we call “non-linear workdays.” We’re setting core collaboration hours with overlap between time zones, and encouraging employees to design their own schedules beyond that. As our workforce grows more distributed, this will help balance collaboration with needs for individual focus. We want to prioritize impact and results instead of hours worked.”

Target, Walmart and Tractor Supply Co. might not seem like the coolest places to sell apparel, but brands can’t afford to be picky these days. Levi Strauss is the latest to embrace them: The denim brand plans to expand its presence to 500 from 140 Target stores by next fall. Levi’s had been selling its lower-priced brand Denizen at Target for almost a decade, but began selling its more expensive main label at the big-box retailer last year and is happy with the results. It is also launching a separate partnership with Dick’s Sporting Goods, another relative retail winner during the pandemic. These partnerships come as department-store sales remain depressed. In the most recent reported quarter, Macy’s and Nordstrom saw sales decline by 36% and 52%, respectively, compared with a year earlier. At the same time, mass merchants have been winning more apparel business. Apparel and accessories sales jumped 11.7% at Target in the quarter ended Aug. 1 compared with a year ago, while Walmart-owned Sam’s Club saw its home and apparel revenue grow 10.8% in the same period. Even Tractor Supply Co. saw double-digit percentage growth in apparel. That is also good for the mass merchants because apparel falls into one of their higher-margin categories. Steve Madden is another brand that gave a shout-out to big-box retailers in its latest earnings call, saying that those vendors would be its “growth customers” in 2021. Walmart and Target already accounted for 31.5% of Steve Madden’s accounts receivable last year, and the apparel brand said in late July that sell-through rates at those wholesalers had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

High-end restaurants are starting to jump on the cook-it-yourself meal kit trend. New York’s Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, for instance, is offering a $275 chicken dinner that customers cook themselves at home. The EMP dinner kits feed two to four people and feature a chicken with brioche, black truffle and foie gras stuffing, plus roasting tips for the bird. Alongside are a cheesy potato gratin and baked squash with seaweed, and an apple tart or similar dessert. As a throwback to the three-Michelin-star experience, there’s also a jar of EMP’s signature granola, the perennial parting gift for diners in the restaurant, considered one of the world’s best. Every take-out order will provide 10 meals to people in need through Rethink, a hunger-fighting nonprofit. The intention is to offer the kits until the restaurant reopens, but the EMP team are also planning to offer special holiday meal kits for Thanksgiving and Christmas. EMP’s fancy chicken is the latest in a series of high-end meal kits that have proliferated as a result of the coronavirus. This summer, Carbone offered $500 takeout boxes delivered to the Hamptons, with dishes designed to be cooked and finished at home, like spicy vodka rigatoni pasta and Mario’s meatballs – and a minimum order of $2,000. Still on offer is the $800 Temaki bento box from Masa in New York, that includes its signature Osetra caviar-topped toro; hand rolls are DIY. In San Francisco, Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn provides the Crenn Kit Luxe, a changing offering which might include dishes like caviar and koji rice tart, brioche, tomato and melon salad, cocktails, and dessert, along with video preparation tips from her team ($155 per person). Another notable Bay Area chef, Michael Tusk, has to-go pasta kits from his restaurant Cotogna for cooking multiple meals at home, including tagliatelle with summer squash and their blossoms and spaghetti alla carbonara ($155 for four). Michelin three-star Alinea in Chicago is already offering Thanksgiving packages that include free-range turkey with infused cooking butter, sage stuffing, and green bean casserole for $325 to $895. “We’ve already sold $250,000 of Alinea Thanksgiving,” says co-owner Nick Kokonas. “We’re capping it at 2,000 turkeys. It will be the equivalent of 10,000 covers.”

The post Brand Moves for Wednesday October 14 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

Disney is restructuring its media and entertainment divisions, as streaming becomes the most important facet of the company’s media business. The company has revealed that in order to further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, it would be centralizing its media businesses into a single organization that will be responsible for content distribution, ad sales and Disney+. Shares of the company jumped more than 5% following the announcement. The move by Disney comes as the global coronavirus pandemic has crippled its theatrical business and ushered more customers toward its streaming options. As of August, Disney has 100 million paid subscribers across its streaming offerings, more than half of whom are subscribers to Disney+. “I would not characterize it as a response to Covid,” CEO Bob Chapek said. “I would say Covid accelerated the rate at which we made this transition, but this transition was going to happen anyway.” “We are tilting the scale pretty dramatically [toward streaming].”

Kroger is using visual recognition AI to help people make better use of the leftovers in their fridge. The grocery chain and agency 360i recently launched a Twitter account called Chefbot that can identify up to three foods in user-submitted images and search a database of recipes for the best match. The makers claim the bot is trained to recognize 2,000 ingredients and pulls from a log of around 20,000 recipes. While the tool is fairly rudimentary for now, Kroger has big plans to grow it into something more sophisticated over time. The creators plan to incorporate every interaction the bot has into its training data in order to make future iterations more accurate at identifying foods and customizing recipes. “Over time, Chefbot will continuously learn and improve, and we’re excited about how the experience will evolve and can eventually integrate into Kroger’s mobile app,” Menno Kluin, chief creative officer at partner 360i, said. “This tool makes such good sense for Kroger.” Kroger is also billing the project in part as a way to cut down on food waste, part of its social good campaign around sustainability and grocery accessibility. “It aligns with their mission to reduce food waste, while providing a much-needed utility for people who are spending more time cooking at home than ever before and looking to maximize their purchases,” Kluin said.

Facebook has announced it will remove all content on its platform that “denies or distorts the Holocaust.” The company says this expansion of its hate speech policies is a response to what it calls “the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people.” Facebook has previously faced strong criticism for letting Holocaust denial content spread freely on its platform.

In addition to removing content that denies or distorts the Holocaust, the company says that, starting later this year, it will direct anyone searching on Facebook for terms related to this topic to “credible information” supplied by third-party sources. Earlier this year, Facebook said it would ban anti-Semitic stereotypes that depicts Jewish people as “running the world or its major institutions.” But a report a week later by a UK counter-extremism group, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), found that the company’s algorithm “actively promotes” Holocaust denial content.  Removing content that denies or distorts the Holocaust may seem like an obvious decision for a company that is frequently accused of enabling hate speech. But in the past, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, has presented the company’s tolerance of Holocaust denial as an example of its commitment to principles of free speech. In a recent Facebook post, however, Zuckerberg said his thinking on the matter had “evolved,” in part in response to a climate of “rising anti-Semitism.” “I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust,” said Zuckerberg. “My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech. Drawing the right lines between what is and isn’t acceptable speech isn’t straightforward, but with the current state of the world, I believe this is the right balance.”

Ikea is to buy back its unwanted furniture from UK customers to resell as secondhand as part of the Swedish group’s efforts to become more environmentally friendly. The Buy Back initiative will be launched in Ikea stores across the UK and Ireland on 27 November –Black Friday discount day. Customers will receive vouchers to spend in store, with their value calculated according to the condition of the items returned. Sideboards, bookcases, shelving, small tables, dining tables, office drawers, desks, chairs and stools without upholstery, all previously bought from Ikea, can be taken back after customers register a request online. Some children’s products will also qualify for the scheme. Well-used pieces with several scratches will get vouchers worth 30% of the item’s original value and “as new” pieces can be exchanged for up to half their value. The items will be put on sale in stores and anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Peter Jelkeby, country retail manager for Ikea in the UK and Ireland, said: “Sustainability is the defining issue of our time and Ikea is committed to being part of the solution to promote sustainable consumption and combat climate change. With the launch of Buy Back we are giving a second life to many more Ikea products and creating more easy and affordable solutions to help people live more sustainably. It is an exciting step forward in our journey towards becoming a fully circular and climate positive business by 2030.”

Staples has announced that it is partnering with Optoro, a returns processing software startup, to accept returns from other retailers who use Optoro at more than 1,000 Staples stores starting in early 2021. Retailers who use Optoro include Best Buy, Ikea, Target and Staples. This type of partnership was already becoming more common before the coronavirus outbreak; Kohl’s started to accept Amazon returns at all of its stores last year. Meanwhile, other returns processing software startups like Happy Returns and Narvar have struck deals to allow customers of the companies that use their software to make returns at stores like Walgreens and Paper Source. Retailers have become more desperate to ensure a reliable stream of foot traffic during the pandemic, and accepting returns may be one way to do so. Before the coronavirus, surveys showed that the majority of shoppers preferred to return items in-person, instead of through the mail. What’s unclear, however, is just how many of these shoppers who go to a retailer’s store to return items they bought from another retailer end up making a purchase in store. “We’ve found that 97% of consumers are likely to shop with a retailer again following a positive returns experience, and the stakes this year are higher than ever,” Adam Vitarello, president and co-founder of Optoro, said in a press release announcing the Staples partnership. Kohl’s has made one of the biggest bets on using returns to drive store traffic, given its partnership with Amazon, the biggest e-commerce company in the U.S. When the partnership was announced July 2019. CEO Michelle Gass said that in piloting the service, Kohl’s found that it drove customers in-store who were younger than the typical Kohl’s customer.

MSCHF, a Brooklyn-based startup that describes itself as the “Banksy of the internet” — and which launches bizarrely compelling products every second and fourth Monday of the month — has unveiled its latest drop, squarely targeting the influencer set while providing larger commentary on influencer culture. The company’s new Anti Advertising Advertising Club consists of nine songs made for TikTok that are designed to take jabs at what it has termed “evil” brands — including TikTok itself, Fashion Nova, Amazon, the NFL, Tesla, Facebook, Purdue Pharma, Comcast, and Palantir. “We’ve gone from no one wanting to sell out to everyone wanting to sell out,” reads the campaign’s manifesto, which likens the concept of being an influencer to hawking “cheap, direct-to-landfill products” as a means of seeking approval. “If every user’s desire is to sell out, we’ll happily enable that impulse if it means we can punch at the companies doing the buying.” Previous MSCHF collaborations include Jesus Shoes (or customized Nikes with holy water from the Jordan River embedded in the soles), Cuss Collar (that curses at your dog whenever it barks), and a mobile game collaboration with YouTube star MrBeast, which challenged participants to hold their fingers against their phone screens for as long as possible, and which ultimately handed out $20,000 apiece to four winners.

The post Brand News for Tuesday October 13 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to a new report from Swiss Re, but the risk of tipping points is growing. “A staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services,” said the company, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry. The index is built on 10 key ecosystem services identified by the world’s scientists and uses scientific data to map the state of these services at a resolution of one square kilometre across the world’s land. The services include provision of clean water and air, food, timber, pollination, fertile soil, erosion control, and coastal protection, as well as a measure of habitat intactness. Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing. Just one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of their country area. Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th. Countries including Australia, Israel and South Africa rank near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, with India, Spain and Belgium also highlighted. Countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged up. “If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,” said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research. Jeffrey Bohn, Swiss Re’s chief research officer, said: “This is the first index to our knowledge that pulls together indicators of biodiversity and ecosystems to cross-compare around the world, and then specifically link back to the economies of those locations.” The index was designed to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses but Bohn said it could have a wider use as it “allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making”.

The World Health Organization said this week that demand worldwide is increasing for mental health services because of Covid-related “bereavement, isolation, loss of income and fear,” adding that critical services have been disrupted or halted in 93% of countries across the globe. Meditation apps Headspace and Calm and virtual therapy services like Lyra Health and Modern Health have seen huge adoption by employers in recent months. Headspace said that it’s seen a greater than 500% increase in inbound interest from companies seeking mental health help for their workforce. The number of people starting its “stressed meditation” offering is up six-fold, and the company said that a survey it conducted earlier this year found that 53% of workers feel mental health benefits are now essential. Headspace is currently the fourth-highest grossing iOS App in the health and fitness category. Rival Calm is second. “So many organizations have recognized that mental health is a must-have for employees rather than a nice to have,” said Alex Will, Calm’s chief strategy officer. Will said that corporate sales have become a big and possibly the fastest-growing part of the business, with more than 20 of Calm’s 140 employees now focused on it. He said that when companies join as clients, 25% of staffers sign up for the app within a few weeks. In May, the health plan Kaiser Permanente signed a deal with Calm to make the app available to millions of members.

Microsoft is allowing more of its employees to work from home permanently, the company announced Friday. While the vast majority of Microsoft employees are still working from home during the ongoing pandemic, the software maker has unveiled “hybrid workplace” guidance internally to allow for far greater flexibility once US offices eventually reopen. Microsoft will now allow employees to work from home freely for less than 50 percent of their working week, or for managers to approve permanent remote work. Employees who opt for the permanent remote work option will give up their assigned office space, but still have options to use touchdown space available at Microsoft’s offices. “The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged all of us to think, live, and work in new ways,” said Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s chief people officer, in a note to employees. “We will offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual workstyles, while balancing business needs, and ensuring we live our culture.” While Microsoft employees will be allowed to move across country for remote work, compensation and benefits will change and vary depending on the company’s own geopay scale. Microsoft will be covering home office expenses for permanent remote workers, but any that decide to move away from Microsoft’s offices will need to cover their own relocation costs. Microsoft’s move to more flexible working comes months after the company notified employees that its US offices wouldn’t reopen until January 2021 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Google is planning to build a gigantic new “Downtown West” campus in San Jose. Google intends to make the approximately 79-acre area feel less like a traditional corporate campus by creating a mixed-use development with office space, housing, parks, retail space, and more. While there will be 5,900 residential “dwelling units” and 500,000 gross square feet for things like retail stores, restaurants, and cultural centers, there will be 7.3 million gross square feet of office space. This isn’t the only ambitious campus Google has in the works. The company announced a $1 billion investment to build a New York City campus in Hudson Square in 2018 and proposed a 40-acre mixed-use area in Mountain View in September.

A slew of luxury hotels opening in Thailand amid the Covid-19 pandemic are pinning their hopes on a government plan to lure high-spending tourists, betting those seeking five-star quarantine will help cushion the devastation wrought on the travel industry. About half-a-dozen luxury hotels that opened in Bangkok during the pandemic, or will open soon, from Four Seasons, Kempinski and Capella are likely to benefit from a new visa aimed at attracting long-stay visitors, high-spenders and medical travelers to put the economy back on a growth track. While Thailand has weathered the virus outbreak better than most other Southeast Asia nations, it is faced with one of its worst recessions on record because of the loss of tourists, who in 2019 pumped $62 billion into the economy. Starting this month, tourists with the new visa will be allowed into Thailand for the first time since borders closed in late March. They will be required to stay at least 90 days, including a mandatory 14-day quarantine, which can be served in a luxury hotel. After that, they will be free to travel anywhere they want. “These groups of travelers have the highest potential of increasing money spent on lodging and dining, which can help boost the economy, especially during these difficult pandemic times,” said Yuthasak Supasorn, the head of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. “We have about 800 to 1,000 Chinese tourists who are ready to travel here on private jets in the first phase of reopening.”

YouTube has recently started asking creators to use its software to tag and track products featured in their clips. The data will then be linked to analytics and shopping tools from parent Google. The goal is to convert YouTube’s bounty of videos into a vast catalog of items that viewers can peruse, click on and buy directly, according to people familiar with the situation. The company is also testing a new integration with Shopify for selling items through YouTube. A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the company is testing these features with a limited number of video channels. Creators will have control over the products that are displayed, the spokesperson said. The company described this as an experiment and declined to share more details. The moves have the potential to transform YouTube from an advertising giant into a new contender for e-commerce leaders such as Amazon and Alibaba. Google executives have signaled that YouTube will be central to their e-commerce strategy. On a recent earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai suggested YouTube’s sea of popular product “unboxing” videos could be turned into a shopping opportunity. The video site is full of other popular categories, such as makeup and cooking tutorials, where creators tout commercial products on air. The company has also revamped its e-commerce and payments division. In July, it announced a plan to lure merchants to Google Shopping, its online storefront, which included an integration with Shopify so that sellers could manage their inventory. Late last year, YouTube began testing a similar Shopify integration for creators, who can list as many as 12 items for sale on a digital carousel below their videos

The U.K. risks losing jobs to the Covid crisis that could be resilient to automation while giving a short-term boost to sectors that have no long-term future, according to a report by the Royal Society for the Arts. Jobs in supermarkets, residential care and couriering have all been lifted by the crisis, yet they face a high risk of replacement by new technology in future, according to the report, and that disruption is also being accelerated by the pandemic. For workers in entertainment and the arts, massive cuts are likely in coming months as the virus keeps venues shuttered. However, the industry faces little destruction from automation and had provided some of the fastest employment growth over the past decade, the analysis found. Technology could land a second blow to a labor market already reeling from a nationwide lockdown sooner than anticipated – five years of digital transformation occurred in just five months this year for sectors such as retail, with online sales growing as much between February and July as between 2015 and 2020, the RSA said. Even before the crisis, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP estimated that up to one-third of British jobs could be automated in the next 15 years. “The government’s response to the pandemic risks us losing many automation-proof jobs,” said RSA Researcher Fabian Wallace-Stephens. “Likewise, many workers who need to be retrained may be lulled into a false sense of security by the current pandemic.”

Amidst plunging revenues due to the pandemic, Singapore Airlines is turning two of its Airbus A380 planes parked at Changi Airport into impromptu restaurants, and it’s proved surprisingly popular. All seats at the restaurants sold out within 30 minutes of bookings opening, as people rushed to recapture the excitement of in-flight catering.  Singapore Airlines is selling four different tiers of meals, ranging from a meal in a suite for around $474, right down to an economy experience for the equivalent of $39. Around half the planes’ seats will be available for dining to allow for social distancing. As well as turning planes into restaurants, it said it would offer food deliveries to peoples’ homes, complete with cooking instructions and a “specially curated playlist to recreate the SIA onboard experience.”

The post Brand Moves for Monday October 12 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

Review site Yelp has instituted a new consumer alert, warning you that a business has been “accused of racist behavior.” “Recently, someone associated with this business was accused of racist behavior, resulting in an influx of people posting their views to this page,” the warning says. There has been a substantial increase in the number of reviews mentioning Black-owned businesses, Yelp said in a news release Thursday. This summer, Yelp saw a 617% rise in such reviews compared with last year. “While searches for Black-owned businesses surged on Yelp, so did the volume of reviews warning users of racist behavior at businesses,” the company said. In the interest of the company’s “zero tolerance policy to racism,” it will now place a consumer alert on a business’s page “to caution people about businesses that may be associated with overtly racist actions.”

Waymo said Thursday that it is opening its fully driverless ride-hailing service in suburban Phoenix, Arizona to the public. Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car unit began ferrying a select group of a few hundred customers, known as “early riders,” in vehicles without safety drivers in the summer of 2019. After receiving feedback from those riders, who were bound by non-disclosure agreements not to discuss their experiences publicly, the company is making driverless rides in its Chrysler Pacifica minivans available to all users in the Phoenix area. “It’s a really, really big deal, we think, for us, and for the world,” said Waymo Chief Executive Officer John Krafcik. Waymo plans to reintroduce safety drivers for some rides as it expands its Phoenix service area but is not allowing passengers in vehicles with safety drivers until it finishes installing barriers between the front and back rows. “For the next several weeks, perhaps a month or more, every ride, 100% of our rides with Waymo One will be fully driverless,” said Krafcik.  He declined to say when Waymo planned to introduce robo-taxis in other cities, but did hint at where it might go next: “We’d love the opportunity to bring the Waymo One driver to our home state of California.”

The Church of England Pensions Board has sold all its holdings of Exxon Mobil Corp. because the oil giant failed to set goals to reduce emissions produced by its customers.

The divestment was completed this week. The proceeds went to an index that aligns with the objectives of the Paris climate agreement, said a spokesperson for the board. “Exxon failed to meet the index criteria which embeds the latest assessment by the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), and as a result the board is disinvested from Exxon,” said a spokesperson for the Church of England Pensions Board, which manages funds in excess of 2.8 billion pounds ($3.6 billion) for retired clergy and others who have worked or served for the church. The Church of England Pensions Board has worked with FTSE Russell and the TPI at the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute to develop the FTSE TPI Climate Transition Index. The index, introduced in January, uses forward-looking climate data from TPI to identify companies that are aligned with United Nations climate goals and it significantly underweights or excludes those companies that don’t. The board has invested 600 million pounds in the index this year.

The Singapore government has given approval for cruises to nowhere in a bid to help a tourism sector battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Residents of the city-state will from November be allowed to board the cruises, during which they will be confined to the ships for the entire time. The Singapore Tourism Board on Thursday announced that Genting Cruise Lines’ World Dream would be the first ship to welcome passengers aboard on 6 November. Royal Caribbean International’s Quantum of the Seas will begin sailing in December. The ships launching from Singapore will only be allowed to carry half their full capacity, with extra cleaning schedules and mandatory masks “at all times”. The cruise industry has been among the hardest hit during the pandemic, after outbreaks on multiple ships among staff and passengers sharing enclosed spaces for days. Keith Tan, the Singapore Tourism Board’s chief executive, said the scheme would allow cruise lines to “regain the confidence of passengers”.

Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. and second largest food retailer, is expanding into the ghost kitchen category, going up against a field of startups and delivery service providers including DoorDash. The company today announced the launch of two on-premises kitchens at locations in Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio, in partnership with ClusterTruck, a tech startup that operates delivery and in-store pickup restaurants. Kroger is carving out about 1,000 square feet at each of the stores for ClusterTruck staff to prepare meals. The ghost kitchen, a term used to describe professional cooking facilities built for delivery-only meals, will provide a variety of on-demand menu items with no delivery or service fees. Customers can order from a menu offering more than 80 meals. ClusterTruck is building a software system that creates custom algorithms to optimize kitchen and delivery operations while removing the “pain points” of third-party delivery to ensure all meals are delivered to customers within seven minutes of their preparation and, on average, less than 30 minutes of ordering.

As of August, about three-quarters of the top 50 store-based retailers in the United States offered curbside pickup, according to Coresight Research, an advisory and research firm that specializes in retail and technology. Target said its curbside sales grew more than 700 percent in the last quarter, while Best Buy reported nearly $5 billion in online revenue in the second quarter, a company record, and said 41 percent of that had come from curbside or in-store pickup. The rising popularity of curbside coincided with Amazon’s struggles with its vaunted supply chain and usually seamless home delivery system in the early months of the pandemic. As people rushed to place orders for everything from toilet paper to backyard swimming pools, Amazon dealt with out-of-stock items, price gouging and delayed or inaccurate shipments. That was a boon for chains like Dick’s, Best Buy, Target and Walmart, which harnessed the merchandise in their thousands of stores to new effect especially as summer began. “Amazon struggled a bit at the beginning like everybody did, because, boom, when the demand came, it was so great it hit the whole system and kind of overwhelmed it,” said Walter Robb, a former co-chief executive of Whole Foods and executive-in-residence at S2G Ventures, a venture fund focused on food. “Those that have been able to be agile on their feet with these digital offerings have made some gains.”

But nowhere is the shift more significant than at big-box chains that also sell groceries. The 700 percent growth in Target’s Drive Up offering has spurred the chain to add fresh and frozen groceries to the service and create up to 12 additional parking spaces for pickup at stores. It has announced plans to double the number of store employees dedicated to in-store and curbside pickup services during this holiday season.

A group of Black Atlanta businessmen, politicians and entertainers, including former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, the entertainer Michael Render (better known as Killer Mike) and Bounce TV founder Ryan Glover, have launched a new digital bank focused on developing and promoting local communities and cultivating Black and Latinx entrepreneurs and small businesses. Named Greenwood in an homage to the thriving Tulsa, Oklahoma, business community known as “Black Wall Street” that was destroyed by white rioters in 1921, the digital bank has several features designed to promote social causes and organizations for the Black and Latinx community. For every sign-up to the bank, Greenwood will donate the equivalent of five free meals to an organization addressing food insecurity. And every time a customer uses a Greenwood debit card, the bank will make a donation to either the United Negro College Fund, Goodr (an organization that addresses food insecurity) or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In addition, each month the bank will provide a $10,000 grant to a Black or Latinx small business owner that uses the company’s financial services. For Render, the decision to launch a new digital bank alongside Young and Glover was a way to link Atlanta’s well-established, centuries-old Black business community with the technologies that are redefining wealth and creating new opportunities in the twenty-first century. It was also a way to equip a new generation with financial tools that could empower them instead of undermine them. “What I have learned about capitalism is that you’re either going to be a participant in it or a victim of it,” said Render. “The ultimate protest is focusing your dollar like a weapon.”

The post Brand Moves for Friday October 9 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

A “disinfection” cabinet that zaps coronavirus could be this Christmas’s must-have gadget as manufacturers tap into demand for professional levels of hygiene in the home. The UV cleaning cabinet, which resembles a microwave and costs £199, is one of a range of anti-coronavirus appliances being put on the market by the electrical brand Beko. The appliance-maker thinks the metal box, which uses UV light, could become a fixture in hallways. The device can be used to kill bacteria and viruses on the surfaces of personal effects such as keys, mobile phones, bags and toys. The Hygiene Shield range, which also includes a fridge with a disinfection drawer and tumble dryer with a UV setting, was rushed into production after a poll of Beko customers in 31 countries found widespread concerns about domestic hygiene. The range is designed, it said, to provide consumers with “peace of mind that their homes are safe and clean”. Hakan Bulgurlu, the chief executive of Arçelik, the Turkish conglomerate that owns Beko, said the company was fulfilling a “real consumer need” with the products that enabled them to achieve “professional levels of hygiene at home”. “I think good hygiene practice is going to be one of the lasting impacts of coronavirus,” he said, echoing other major businesses such as Unilever which have pointed to a permanent increase in demand for soap and cleaning products supplies. Online electrical goods retailer AO.com said there had been a huge increase in searches for terms such as “anti-bac” and “steam clean” on its website. Sales of steam cleaning appliances have soared this year by 140%, compared with 2019, while demand for washing machines with 90C wash cycles and steam settings is up 87%, AO said.

Entrepreneur and TV star Daymond John, who first made a name for himself as founder and CEO of lifestyle brand Fubu, is turning Oct. 24 into Black Entrepreneurs Day. The livestream event celebrates Black business and will award thousands of dollars to entrepreneurs.

The livestream will begin at 7 p.m. ET on Facebook Watch with Chase for Business as the title sponsor. It will simulcast on more than 20 additional platforms, including TikTok, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube. Black Entrepreneurs Day seeks to provide entrepreneurial guidance and inspiration. In all, $175,000 will be awarded to seven Black entrepreneurs and small-business owners through the NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant. John said there’s a parallel to the ABC competition show Shark Tank on which he has starred as a judge for 11 seasons, but the grant recipients here won’t have to give up a stake of their companies in exchange for funding as they do on the TV show. “They’re going to be able to use this money for this great new idea or to help them stay afloat or to get more inventory to their current business,” he said. According to producer Joe Silberzweig, founder of live event firm Medium Rare, John will work with the NAACP to select these winners, who will appear throughout the broadcast. The grants are funded by Chase, along with The General Insurance, Pepsi, Cisco Webex, Quickbooksand audio and video commenting tool Yappa.

The latest CBI/PwC financial services survey found 74% of UK companies – particularly banks and insurance firms – have been taking stock of their office requirements in the hope of either using the space differently, or reducing it. Around 88% of the 133 financial services firms polled for the survey said the Covid-19 pandemic had resulted in a greater shift towards remote working. Nearly half of those surveyed said that more than 90% of their workers could feasibly do their job without being in the office. At high street lenders such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Metro Bank, branch staff – who are considered essential workers – have continued going into work throughout the crisis, but the vast majority of bank employees have been logging on remotely during the outbreak. Firms like Schroders, the FTSE 100-listed fund manager, have told staff that they will not be required to return to the office full time even after the heath emergency has passed. But some major banks like JP Morgan have raised concerns about the impact of home working, including the lack of mentorship for young staff, and a small drop in productivity on Mondays and Fridays. However, the Wall Street lender is still expecting up to 30% of its nearly 257,000 employees to work remotely in future, at least part of the time. The CBI/PwC report, which polled firms in the first three weeks of September, said that around 71% of firms were now investing in their IT systems to support remote working. However, the survey also showed that City firms are planning to axe more jobs and cut back on non-IT investment amid uncertainty over Covid-19 and Brexit.

Fitness bike brand Peloton is targeting a new market with its latest video spots: normal people. The omnichannel campaign, titled “We All Have Our Reasons,” features real Peloton riders rather than the widely criticized wealthy, thin, white “Peloton wife” character of the brand’s 2019 holiday ad. The video spots’ “real people” are diverse in terms of race, nationality, age, and gender – diversity in advertising is proven to help bottom lines. Peloton’s head of global marketing Dara Treseder said that it’s “absolutely” trying to broaden beyond young, rich consumers. “Reasons” is the company’s first campaign since it paused marketing in May due to massive word-of-mouth marketing benefits at the start of the pandemic. Peloton is spending more on this campaign than any of its previous brand campaigns.

Delivery service DoorDash is giving employers a way to feed their remote employees through a new suite of products called DoorDash for Work. There are four main products, starting with DashPass for Work, where employers can fund employee memberships to DashPass, a program that eliminates delivery fees on orders from thousands of restaurants. In fact, DoorDash says it has already worked with Mt. Sinai to offer free DashPass subscriptions to 42,000 healthcare employees, and that other DashPass for Work customers include Charles Schwab, Hulu and Stanford Research Park. DoorDash for Work also includes the ability for employers to provide credits for meal orders – there are options for day and time restrictions, so employers can be sure they’re paying for food while someone is working. For teams that are working in-person, there’s the ability to combine individual meal orders into a larger group order. And the service also includes employee gift cards (Zoom, for example, is providing these on employee birthdays). DoorDash says it conducted a survey of 1,000 working Americans last month and found that 90% of them said they miss at least one food-related benefit from the office. So DoorDash for Work is designed to help employers continue offering benefits in this area – and also it opens up a new source of revenue for DoorDash.

The post Brand Moves for Thursday October 8 appeared first on brandchannel:.

In early March we began reporting daily on how brands were dealing with Covid-19. But it’s become clear that the current climate is one of near-perpetual disruption, so we decided to keep on telling the stories of inspiring brand leadership and strategy amid the latest crises in an anxious world. Our goal is to provide an up-to-the-minute source of information, inspiration and insight on brand moves as they happen.

The Anheuser-Busch brewing company is using its facilities to produce hand sanitizer, and it has sent more than 6,500 gallons of it to be used at polling places throughout Texas. The Texas Governor‘s office said it received 39 pallets of hand sanitizer from Anheuser-Busch to use at polling locations during early voting and Election Day. “As a proud Texas employer, Anheuser-Busch is committed to uniting our communities, strengthening our democracy and encouraging even greater participation in the political process,” said Anheuser-Busch Chief External Affairs Officer Cesar Vargas. “One part of this commitment is shifting our production capabilities to donate hand sanitizer so that election officials and voters throughout the state and rest of the country can take part in a safe election this fall. We like to say that ‘beer is bipartisan’ and we are proud to step up and serve our communities during this election season.”

Japan is working towards restarting international tourism in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The first stage is under way: opening borders to residents, students and business travellers. They must take a coronavirus test ahead of flying to Japan, and stay in self-isolation for 14 days. Initially tourism is likely to be restricted to visitors from low-risk countries including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam. The postponed Olympic Games are due to begin on 23 July 2021.

UK free-distribution women’s magazine Stylist has been kept off the streets by COVID and the lack of commuters to pick up its print edition. But the weekly is returning to print with the help of home-delivery grocery firm Ocado. Stylist returned to the physical world with a 400,000 print run last week, half distributed by Ocado to customers that requested the title. Their bet is that, at a time when more people are having their groceries delivered than ever, partnering with an online supermarket makes perfect sense. Stylist Group CEO Ella Dolphin said that Ocado has been a “standout winner for customers at this time”. With traditional distribution at travel points restricted, Dolphin said the title needed needed an alternative that delivered scale. “I was very keen to keep that mass distribution and excitement around print rather than reducing the scale of it,” said Dolphin. Following the success of its £21.99 annual digital subscription, Stylist has also introduced its first print subscription at £4 per quarter, signaling the end of its free-distribution model.

The ice cream brand long known as Eskimo Pie will henceforth be called Edy’s Pie in a nod to its brand founder, candy-maker Joseph Edy. It’s also an effort to distance itself from what Elizabell Marquez, head of marketing at parent company Dreyer’s, said was an inappropriate term that did not reflect the brand’s values. According to a statement, the company paused production of the ice cream bar with Eskimo Pie branding three months ago. Edy’s Pie packaging is expected to debut in early 2021. Eskimo Pie comes after recent rebrands at Uncle Ben’s and Cream of Wheat. In fact, multiple brands have followed Aunt Jemima’s lead this year in announcing name and packaging changes.

Facebook has banned all pages and groups on its platform linked to radical far-right movement QAnon, in the social network’s most significant crack down on the conspiracy group to date. The latest update is designed to combat the rapid spread of QAnon messaging across Facebook, given supporters’ ability to swiftly build networks from a single message. Admin profiles who manage the pages and groups taken down for violating Facebook’s policy will also be disabled, the company confirmed. The new policy will be enforced from Wednesday but will “take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks,” the company said. QAnon supporters believe a secret society of paedophiles run by high-profile celebrities and government officials is plotting against US President Donald Trump, who they say is leading a covert crackdown on the group. The FBI categorised QAnon as “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” in a document made public in August last year, warning that such theories have the potential to drive both groups and individual extremists to carry out “criminal or violent acts”. Facebook announced in August it would remove pages, groups and accounts on sister company Instagram when they were found to discuss violence, but the new update will now see pages, groups and associated Instagram accounts removed irrespective of whether they contain violent content.

The UK technology institute founded by inventor and manufacturer Sir James Dyson will soon have the power to award its own degrees – the first of a new wave of alternative education providers. The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, which opened in 2017 on the site of Dyson’s design centre in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, has 150 engineering undergraduates who pay no tuition fees and receive a full-time wage during their four years studying and working alongside Dyson’s staff. The Office for Students, the higher education regulator in England, has said the institute can award degrees in its own name from next year, the first to do so under legislation that created the route in 2017. Dyson said: “To be the first higher education institution to be granted new degree awarding powers is a testament to the hard work of undergraduates and the academic team. It has not been easy.” Dyson is estimated to have spent more than £30m on the institute and its campus, which includes study-bedroom pods, lecture theatres and labs. It claims to attract more applications from qualified school-leavers than many Oxbridge courses, with 14 applying for each place.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is pledging to use its financing weight to push clients to align with the Paris agreement and work toward global net zero-emissions by 2050. The bank said it would invest in technologies that help reduce carbon emissions and will work with clients to cut their own carbon footprints. JPMorgan’s bankers and advisers hold considerable sway in boardrooms around the globe. The bank plans to argue to clients that combating climate change opens the door to more capital from investors and reduces their risk of becoming outdated. Other banks have made various pledges to stop supporting Arctic drilling and coal companies. British banks NatWest Group PLC (the former RBS Group PLC) and Barclays PLC have both committed to using their business to further the Paris agreement, the 2015 deal that called on global governments to curb rising temperatures. Citigroup Inc. earlier this year said it would walk away from clients that aren’t taking climate change seriously.

Shoe brand Cole Haan is pairing with business comms platform Slack to launch a new limited-edition shoe collection. The “Generation Zerøgrand” shoe includes four styles that prominently display the Slack logo. The collection was created in partnership with Slack and designed entirely through communication conducted on its popular business messaging platform, Cole Haan said in a press release. The apparel brand first teased the Slack sneakers on its official Twitter page, telling its followers to “keep your notifications on” for the official launch. According to Cole Haan, the sneakers were inspired by “the pandemic-related rise of remote working” that has caused many businesses to lean heavily on programs like Zoom and Slack to facilitate virtual communication and manage workflows without being together in the office. “The partnership felt like a natural fit for the two innovation brands, particularly given that each stage of Cole Haan’s product development – including the creation of this particular collaboration – happens on Slack,” Cole Haan said.

Private-jet flights are poised to regain their 2019 levels next year as the industry rebounds from a much shallower decline than after the 2008 financial crisis, according to aerospace firm Honeywell International. The drop in takeoffs and landings will ease to only about 15% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and will recover fully by mid-2021, Honeywell said Tuesday in an annual survey of 1,050 private-jet operators. By comparison, flights tumbled 76% in April in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, according to another data provider, Argus Internationa’s TraqPak database. “This definitely is something that shows a robust recovery in a space where we saw significant reductions in flight hours in April and May,” said Shantanu Vaish, director of strategy and industry marketing for Honeywell’s Aerospace unit, which makes jet engines and cockpit controls. The declines earlier this year mirrored the collapse of commercial airline flights as countries locked down to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Now private flying, which for many passengers generates less health anxiety than traveling in a plane full of strangers, has rebounded more quickly despite a severe economic downturn and continued travel restrictions.

US retailers have had a difficult time planning for Halloween in a year filled with more tricks than treats. While some regions are still under lockdowns, others, such as New York City, are opening up and then closing down certain zip codes as danger of a second wave of COVID-19 intensifies. Many in California are advising against door-to-door trick-or-treating in order to limit virus exposure. Brands are struggling to market to customers effectively with the ever-changing situation, which may include fewer costumes and more candy as consumers sit at home. But home improvement retailer Lowe’s said this week it will be offering drive-thru curbside trick-or-treating for two weekends in October at all of its stores. Consumers, who will receive candy and pumpkins at the events, need to book spots ahead of time in a reservation system. A Lowe’s spokeswoman says the company is already seeing “early excitement” from customers ahead of registration, which begins Oct. 10, for the new version of trick-or-treating, which is a first for the chain. The events “are designed with the hope of bringing communities together in a safe way this holiday,” she says, noting that Lowe’s will also sell usual merchandise such as Halloween decorations and a new Universal Studios Monsters collection. Similarly, Target will be giving out surprise treats as well this month. On select days in October, the Minneapolis-based retailer plans to give out “boo bags starter kits” to customers who use its drive-up and order pickup services, a spokesman says. Others, including Lowe’s rival Home Depot, are focusing on digital events for consumers to do at home. Home Depot is offering online do-it-yourself projects like fall kids’ crafts and scarecrow flowerpots.

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