The Tiger Economies and the Creative Industries

After changing the topic of my dissertation a couple of times, I think I found one that I will stick to (hopefully): 'The Tiger Economies and the Creative Industries'. Since I'm fascinated by East Asian cultures and countries and have tried to connect most of my research to the creative industries, that topic fits quite well. To make the head of the my programme at college happy as well, it is also a very interesting field regarding economic development.

The Four Tigers is a term used to describe 4 economies in East Asia, which have seen rapid economic growth in the last decades and which have served as role models for other developing economies. The 4 economies are South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The growth in the 60s - 90s was dominantly triggered by export-led manufacturing, very successfully. Furthermore, in all those countries (let's just call Taiwan a country as well..., sorry China!), the government played a very important role and supported the economy heavily with subsidies and development policies.

In recent years another development can be observed. All four Tigers, especially Hong Kong and South Korea, invested significantly in the knowledge based economy, in particular the creative industries. The Hong Kong films became very popular in China and other South East Asian countries and with the 'Korean Wave', we have seen an immense popularity of Korean music, films and TV series in Japan, China and Taiwan.

The Four Tigers could serve again as examples of how they made the next step from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy and to show how important the creative industries are not only for a rich culture, but also for economic growth and development. The cases might inspire governments around the world, in developing and developed economies and hopefully lead to more policies supporting the creative industries.

In my research I will also find out how important the role of the government was and which part it played in the rise of East Asian creativity.

Burberry World Live in Taipei

Burberry exports Britishness into the world. Very suitable to the current weather conditions in London this also consists to let it rain. The latest project from Burberry is "Burberry World Live" and was launched this week in Taipei together with the opening of a brand new store. Burberry World Live will travel around the world with London, Hong Kong and Chicago following this year.

The event is an experience including film, live music, weather (some wind, leaves and as mentioned also rain) and of course fashion, where guests dive into the whole Burberry world. The event in Taipei was filmed and a short movie published on Burberry's website and Facebook page. So everybody can at least a little bit take part of the amazing brand concept Burberry creates. This makes it also an absolutely integrated experience and shows once more how Burberry pulls all the strings in contemporary marketing.

@BurberryPR

I love how my courses at Uni make me writing blog posts. It's not that my next blog series is part of the assignment, but since I'm starting a new very interesting project, I thought why not sharing it on red bulb and on Twitter, which you can follow on @jbabics.

Over the next month I will follow Burberry's PR activity. I'm interested in what the media reports about Burberry, how the brand communicates with the press and how they integrate PR in their whole communication strategy. Since I will follow public relations from Burberry, I call it @BurberryPR in Twitter style.

The most interesting stories, news and findings I will share here on red bulb.

Tate Modern, Culture & Lifestyle

This is my last post about my Tate Modern brand experience journey. I submitted my paper yesterday and although my little research project is therefore finished, I just had to go to Tate Modern again this eve. Exactly, this eve. Tate Modern is open until 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays, that's amazing! And that's actually also a good time to go, because it has much less people.

I promised you a post about Tate Modern's target group. This is very easy: it's the public.
Tate, the mother of Tate Modern has an official mission from the British Government to increase public knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of British, modern and contemporary art and everything they do is done to maximise value for the public.
However, who is exactly this "public"? As I wrote before Tate Modern is always full of tourists, so it can't be only the British tax payer. Tate Modern is free, at least the Collection. So everybody can just walk in, have a look around and leave again. This is pretty unique for a museum of this high calibre, but it's actually necessary, if you offer a place for the public. Not all who want to go to museums are able to go to museums in other countries, where entrance prices are sometimes already a social class divider and a sign for their elitist character. So Tate Modern is just for everybody.


The maintenance of Tate Modern must be quite expensive. Already the insurance charges for the temporary exhibitions must cost a fortune. The Government and also private funders have to provide this sum, so that we, the public can still enjoy Tate Modern, even for free. The fact that this is possible shows the significance of art and museums in our western culture. We grow up with art, it's part of our education. I guess all the school classes here in London visit Tate Modern once in a while or maybe other major museums. I think this is absolutely great and a huge advantage, the paintings have so much to say and we can learn a lot from them (and from the artists of course).


What I love so much about Tate Modern is that they fulfill this mission to increase public knowledge and understanding of art very well and especially also the third point, enjoyment. Tate Modern is not only a very successful brand, but also a very fancy one. Art becomes pleasure in Tate Modern. 
Some people might criticise this a little bit commercialisation of high value culture, but I think that's exactly how it should be. The art in Tate Modern is not only for the elite, it's for the public. The way Tate Modern presents and exhibits the art it's also an enjoyment and in that way they definitely reach their objective: to maximise value for the public.

Tate Modern & The Self

My plan for today’s post was to write about Tate Modern’s target group. The target group is very important for a brand, as it influences almost every decision from communication to products and consumer interaction. I will definitely cover this topic, however, for today I suddenly had the feeling to write about something else.

I walked from Southbank along the Thames to Tate Modern, as I mentioned before one of my favorite walks in London, although I could have sent all the tourists to the moon today. The weather was beautiful and my mind was busy with different thoughts, when it suddenly popped in my mind: what am I doing exactly? Why do I go to Tate Modern on a sunny Saturday afternoon? Why do I go there again and don’t just write another post from home and get the inputs from my memory of other Tate Modern visits?

However, when I entered the building I knew again why. There is just no better place to write about my brand journey than inside Tate Modern itself. This place is such an inspiration. When you enter Tate Modern, you enter a world of its own. I can’t really explain why, but there is a calmness here, which helps me to settle down thoughts and at the same time free my mind. It must have to do with the paintings and all the art here. Museums very often have that impact on me.

Being in Tate Modern is also very inspiring. It makes me question my life, supports my creative thinking, gives me new ideas and actually makes me more self-confident. Most importantly, it makes me feel free. It is probably that in Tate Modern I am part of a world, which is connected to all the artists represented by the paintings. A world with history and so many different ideas. A global world bringing people together from all around the world with a similar purpose.

This museum can give me the feeling that everything is possible and that it is just up to me to grab the opportunities. Only very few places can trigger these emotions in myself.

A brand should aim to do what Tate Modern does to me. A brand should connect with a person, go deep into their feelings and emotions, create a relationship and open a new world. If a brand manages to do that it most probably gets its very desired loyal customers.

Tate Modern - Brand Location

Branding is not just a nice logo and good advertising. The brand reflects the personality of an organization  with everything that is part of it: products, services, employees, history, customers, advertising, packaging,  logo design,... and location. The attention location received as part of the brand image, is a rather new phenomenon and was probably first explored by luxury brands. They found each other all over the world in certain places, streets or avenues. Good examples are the Champs-Élysées in Paris, New Bond Street in London, Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, the Fifth Avenue in New York or The Bund in Shanghai.

However, also technology brands recognized the potential of prominent locations with Apple once more leading this development. Sport brands started to build their own shops, like Nike, Adidas, Puma and are not happy anymore to be simply sold by department stores. Even M&M's has its own store, one that all the tourists find very easily when visiting London with its amazing location at Leicester Square and spread over 4 floors.

In all the countries I have been so far, I always visited a Starbucks. It has somehow changed, since Starbucks opened so many stores, but in the beginning of their launch in countries around the world, they always rented very beautiful buildings at very attractive locations. For me this was part of the Starbucks brand experience. You drank a good coffee, were served by lovely staff and had a very nice painted ceiling or a stunning view out of the window. The quality of the Starbucks locations has decreased dramatically since they started to grow so quickly, which is a pity, but not really part of the topic I want to cover now...

Tate Modern has one of the most beautiful locations in London. The Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron transformed the Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern and the museum receives now 5 million visitors every year. In the same year Foster & Partners built the Millennium Bridge, which now connects St Paul's Cathedral and Tate Modern and is a very beautiful walk with amazing views of the City, Tower Bridge and of course the Thames. Tate Modern can also be approached from both sides along the Thames either from Tower Bridge or from London Eye and Southbank. Two walks I would strongly recommend to everybody visiting London.

The building itself is very impressive and the architects managed to keep the character of the old power station, but make it a place where the paintings and sculptures come into their own. The Turbine Hall was left as a huge hall, which can be used for large installations, maybe also laid out with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds (a project by Ai Weiwei) or it is just taken over by visitors which sit down or walk around and enjoy the architectural masterpiece.

Tate Modern's location has definitely also an impact to make it the world's most visited museum for modern art. It is just such a good experience to come here and after you have been once in Tate Modern you want to come again and again. From every floor you have a stunning view on St Paul's Cathedral, the most beautiful one in the restaurant on the top floor.
The open space makes the art also more accessible for the visitors and walking through the rooms you get the feeling that people start a communication with the pieces exhibited in Tate Modern. I have visited a lot of museums in different cities around the world and Tate Modern is one of the most beautiful one, where the art starts to come alive. My favorite one is still Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, though, with its extension designed by Jean Nouvel.

Boxpark Shoreditch - a Brandpark

Boxpark in Shoreditch opened 3 months ago and it's a very exciting new project. "Boxpark is a retail revolution - the world's first pop-up mall", a statement a copied from their website www.boxpark.co.uk. Boxpark is indeed a very unusual and innovative concept, which I haven't seen anywhere else. Stores moved in containers and will occupy the temporary space for the next 5 years. After that, the area around Shoreditch High Street Station will probably be transformed into office buildings and luxury apartments, as part of "the City's" conquest of Shoreditch and Spitalfields. However, I have never heard of any master plan or project development plan, so that might give Boxpark even a bit more than 5 years...

I visited Boxpark the day before the opening weekend, where most of the stores were already open and finished their last decoration efforts. I checked out most of the stores and asked myself how the concept of the world's first pop-up mall might be financially profitable for the tenants. Boxpark is absolutely cool. It's a mix between independent fashion shops, organic (and also non-organic) food stores and trendy brands like Gola, Vans, Puma, Dockers, Oakley and Nike. However, the space they have in the pop-up mall is very limited. The biggest stores have 3 containers, the smaller ones have only one, where the brands can hardly display any products, otherwise you could not move in there anymore. So I asked myself, how is that possible? The smaller, independent stores are maybe happy with showing a small range of stylish products, but don't the global brands need more space? I always thought in retail you need as much space as possible, since more space means more profit (if the location is right of course). What makes it attractive for Nike to show a few shoes and a few running shirts...?

Yesterday I found out. Nike opened its NIKEiD shop last week and that also opened my eyes. The global brands use Boxpark as a Brandpark. They use the pop-up mall as an opportunity to present and probably also test new trends, products and create their own brand experience worlds out of the containers. Shoreditch has a very high density of innovators and early adopters, so for the Brands this is a perfect opportunity to present themselves to the world's trendsetters and also use it as a brand lab. The NIKEiD shop is an absolutely exciting example. The shop does not have any shoes in there (apart from a few samples), but about 10 Apple computers with TV size screens, comfortable sofas and many design and art books. So what can you do here? You can create your own personalized shoe... The computers allow you to choose a model and then add colors and material the way you would like to have it. The books serve as inspiration. I talked with one of the shop assistants and asked a few critical questions. The system is still rather limited, so you could not create your own patterns or styles. However, the concept will be continuously improved and in the future we might even be able to create our completely individually designed Nike shoe. After you purchased your personalized shoe, it takes up to 4 weeks for delivery. You will receive regular updates via e-mail when it's finished, shipped and due to delivery, so your excitement will even be higher and make your waiting time shorter.
Another cool feature they have in there is one of the world's only two interactive large Nike history touch screens, where you can choose pics and movies, which show you Nike's history and the life of the brand.

After the NIKEiD shop I also visited the "normal" Nike shop, which is on the first floor or let's say in the first container layer. It's also very cool and they had a lot of very new products and styles I haven't seen in other Nike stores. Another shop assistant showed me the new Nike "augmented reality" iPad app, where you can open a shoe box and have a 3D look at the newest model, which was more fancy than useful, but still amazing.

Before I left, I also explored the dancing screen, which recognizes temperature and therefore creates an image of you with green and red bubbles. At the end of your dance you get a code, which allows you to download the movie or share it on Facebook and Twitter. Or share it on your blog...

That's Brand Experience!