AFAR Conversations
Last night I attended my first AFAR Conversations event held at the Andaz Fifth Avenue hotel, which is part of a series that brings together media, travel industry professionals and marketing execs to explore the influence of travel on culture, style and design.
The panel was moderated by AFAR Media’s Co-founder Joe Diaz and included a diverse and good-humored panel: Fran Della Badia, President of North America Retail for Coach; Designer and Creative Consultant Gordon Thompson; and Matthias Schmid, the VP of US Sales for Emirates Airline.
Staying relevant was a big topic, which of course spans to all industries.
“Consumers want solutions, not just a product,” said Schmid. And you need to experience the lifestyle of your customer to know what those solutions are. Many times that involves traveling to international destinations to see how people are using your product.
When Thompson worked as a designer at Nike, his team studied cheetahs in Africa and butterflies in Paraguay, which led to the development of the Nike Free sneaker.
Thompson believes that travel inspires innovation and created a Nike Design Camp to do just that. He would take his team abroad to give them a fresh perspective, which fueled out-of-the-box creative thinking and greater synergy.
Interestingly enough, the more dependent we become on technology, the more valued the human touch is becoming. Personalization and empathy make experiences stand out, especially as it relates to travel. “I keep going back to the same guesthouse in Kyoto because they’ve learned what I like, not from a form I filled out, but by paying attention,” shared Thompson.
Schmid added, “In an era of mass customization, it’s paramount to recognize our consumers individually, because that is what they respond to.”
“At AFAR we’ve found that people want to touch and own things that artisans have made with their hands,” Diaz chimed in.
Staying nimble and quickly integrating learnings from research and development to a product line is challenge for large companies and Della Badia thinks there should be more room to make mistakes because that’s when some of the greatest innovations and unexpected findings happen.
Once Coach designed an iPhone case that was defective for making calls. They thought it was going to be an absolute bust, but it became a best-selling item among millennials who text more than they talk.
They text and they love pictures. “To get a millennial’s attention it’s all about visual storytelling. They want to watch the backstory unfold,” Thomspon added.
Which makes me wonder if this blog post is irrelevant since 80 million millennials are not likely to read it. You can bet I’ll be paying close attention to the demographic section of my analytics this week.
