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The Trump administration has made clear that it doesnt want shoppers to see how much its new tariffs are costing them, based on its forceful reaction to one report yesterday. The dustup started with a relatively sparse story from Punchbowl News, a D.C.-based news outlet mainly focused on political scoops, which reported that Amazon had planned to show how much a product’s price is derived from tariffs next to its total price in website listings. The Trump administration did not exactly respond to the idea of a price transparency label with an even keel. In a press briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Amazon’s purported design update, which had yet to be confirmed, a hostile and political act.” No matter DOGEs supposed interest in transparency, the administration otherwise seems to find it a hostile idea. Following Trump’s chastisement, Amazon denied the claim, stating that while its low-cost Temu competitor Amazon Haul had considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products, the company never considered listing tariff upcharges on its main site, and that such a plan is not going to happen. By jumping to condemn Amazons potential new feature, the White House as good as broadcasted that its worried about companies exposing how much the presidents tariffs are costing consumers, and its prepared to name and shame them to prevent that from happening. But its heavy-handed reaction also points to how, with just a few design tweaks, private companies could play against the administration’s self-inflicted political weak spot to gain consumer trust and influence the public messaging game on tariffs, if they’re brave enough. (Amazon wasn’t, and Trump praised founder Jeff Bezos as having done the right thing following the company’s statement.) The widespread cost of Trump’s tariffs The presidents tariff policies have produced massive ripple effects across the supply chain for many companies that manufacture overseas, and more can be expected. Already, the 145% duty on Chinese-made goods has caused cargo shipments into the U.S. to plummet by as much as 60% since early April, according to one estimate from the supply chain logistics firm Flexport. Since announcing his sweeping tariff plan in early April, Trump has frequently suspended proposed tariffs and issued exemptions on certain goods following lobbying from tech companies like Apple and blowback from Wall Street, demonstrating that his plan is not exactly going off without a hitchand leaving consumers confused about what’s actually getting more expensive. Retail giants including Adidas, Target, and Walmart have warned that prices could go up and shelves will begin to empty if the tariffs continue. Meanwhile, others that rely heavily or solely on Chinese factories have already bumped up their prices, including Amazon, Shein, and Temu, which all use cheap, Chinese-made goods to fuel their business models. Several upmarket brands, like Labucq, Jolie, and Dieux Skin have likewise announced tariff-based price hikes. The tariffs have proven to be a PR and approval ratings disaster for Trump, who on the campaign trail promised voters hed lower everyday costs but instead is culpable for raising them. According to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, Trump’s approval rating is currently 42%the lowest on record for any newly elected president in more than 50 years. A CBS News/YouGov poll found that 69% of Americans believe Trump is not focusing enough on lowering prices, while 62% believe that he’s spending too much time imposing tariffs. Based on this public reception, it makes sense that Trump’s administration would want tariff-based price increases to remain intangible to American consumers. Amazon backed down, but more brands should show the receipts At the same time, from a consumers perspective, its difficult to keep up with how each company is being hit by the tariffsand what the actual scale of incoming price increases might look like for everyday goods like toilet paper and groceries without direct comparisons at the point of sale. This trade policy decision has had costly consequences, and Amazon’s proposal could have been a simple, user-first solution to show the public the tariff receipts. Major retailers like Target and Walmart could clear up some of the confusion by doing exactly what Amazon has since declined to do: add a label to online listings (and even in-store items) spelling out how much Trumps tariffs have impacted the sale price for consumers. This simple gesture could serve as an effective political tool to shape public perception and shift policy on a key issue. And for brands, it would also communicate to consumers that price transparency matters more than the presidents whims.
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E-Commerce
Barbara Bouza went from architecture to Imagineering and back again. A trained architect who spent nearly 19 years working on building projects for the world’s largest architecture and design firm, Gensler, Bouza made an unconventional career pivot in 2020 when she became president of Walt Disney Imagineering, the famed division of the Disney corporation focused on theme parks, experiences, and future technologies. After four years of navigating pandemic closures, updating theme parks around the world, and debuting new cruise ships, she’s now coming back to her roots in architecture and taking on a new role as executive director of market strategies and growth at the architecture and engineering firm CannonDesign. With this unique background, she has some ideas about how the architecture industry can broaden its approach by creating multifunctional spaces where people can live, work, and play. Her time at Imagineering has shown her that designing places for people requires thinking about the wide range of different users of a spacewhether within the confines of a theme park or in more of a real-world setting like a workplace or an educational facility. But a theme park is also a real place. Going from working on architecture projects for Gensler to theme park projects for Disney was less of a jump than most people would think, Bouza says. “You go out to a job site at a park for an attraction, and it’s very similar. Similar consultants, similar contractors, but not so much steel that is straight. It is all over the place because we’re turning people upside down. But they’re the same ideas around safety and quality,” she adds. “The process is very similar, but with a lot more disciplines integrated.” The approach, though, is much different than the way a traditional architecture firm works. Within Imagineering, Bouza says there were between 100 and 120 different disciplines that might get involved in any given project. She sees the opportunity for an architecture firm like CannonDesign to include more types of expertise on its projects. Hiring Bouza is part of the firm’s strategic long-term vision to diversify the services it offers clients, beyond the few years it takes to design and build a building. “The silo-ization in the profession is a missed opportunity to really address some big problems with our clients,” says Brad Lukanic, CannonDesign’s CEO. He says Bouza will help the firm figure out what new design services it can offer, and help clients to “articulate a very cohesive vision for things that really aren’t known yet because technologies are evolving, and experiences are evolving.” There is some precedent for Bouza’s career shift. In 2023, Bob Weis, Bouza’s predecessor at Imagineering, made a similar jump to architecture, joining Gensler as its global immersive experience design leader. Bouza’s new role won’t be about bringing Imagineering into architecture, but rather exploring the ways that architecture and design services should be changing to meet new client demands. She says that requires thinking more expansively about how a place can serve people and create a venue for new ideas. “Being at Disney was like getting a PhD in this idea that there are other aspects of what we call the built environment,” she says. Pulling on her Imagineering experience of developing a new cruise ship, Wish, and launching World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland, Bouza says she learned a lot about designing for the varied experiences of every participant in a space, from the families on vacation to the performers roaming the theme park to the maintenance crews working behind the scenes. She also embraces the immersive nature of the Disney approach and sees ways that architecture projects can do more to engage their users beyond the basics of the design brief. “[Imagineering] is so story driven. And that’s one area that I really want to see more in architecture,” she says. “I think the storytelling out there can be very strong. I think the execution of the work is strong. But I think where we really need to look is the science behind it, because guest behavior, consumer behavior, is really evolving.” After years building very different kinds of projects, Bouza says she’s happy to be back in the architecture world. “It’s like riding a bike,” she says.
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E-Commerce
When Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton announced in December that he would be leaving the Mercedes team for Ferrari after 246 Grands Prix, 84 victories, and 6 drivers championships in 12 seasons, much of the focus was on Hamilton’s future plans. Just as compelling was the empty seat Hamilton was leaving at Mercedes. His departure triggered an intense internal process for the automakerthe search for a successor. Many of the discussions and debates that resulted in Mercedes choosing young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli played out over messaging app WhatsApp. That process is now the subject of a new one-hour documentary on Netflix called The Seat, dropping on May 5. Directed by Kyle Thrash, and produced by RadicalMedia, its also a WhatsApp commercial. The Meta-owned app is a producer, and created the project with its content partner Modern Arts. WhatsApps global head of marketing, Vivian Odior, says the company decided to create the doc in order to fully show how the app is often part of critical inflection points in its users lives. When it comes to telling those stories, we believe in giving the space to properly unpack the role we play and share the full story of our user base, says Odior. We dont believe we should be limited by ad formats. Storytelling allows us to occupy a unique position in the hearts of users and pushes beyond the functional role we play. This isnt some ad-tiered piece of content. Its a legitimate addition to the streamers F1 library. Many marketers will be shaking with jealousy or excitement, inspired to make their own move into entertainment. But be forewarned, creating content that can go head-to-head with other films and TV is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those searching for a formula. Even WhatsApp knows this is a unique brand opportunity. Make your own luck WhatsApp has long been a brand partner to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team, and last year Modern Arts created a short film on Hamilton called Push Push. It chronicled the ups and downs of his racing career, as well as his personal struggles with dyslexia and bullying, woven into a conversation he has with a group of teens today about their own lives. That helped build the relationship and trust with Mercedes to make The Seat possible. Modern Arts has a track record of telling compelling stories around the platform, like its award-winning, 26-minute doc We Are Ayenda, about WhatsApps role in helping the Afghanistan Womens Youth National Football Team escape the Taliban. Zac Ryder, the agency’s cofounder and co-chief creative officer, says that made it a lot easier to start figuring out a story to be told around privacy with the Mercedes team. It just so happens that not only is WhatsApp a sponsor of the team, but the entire Mercedes team literally runs on WhatsApp, Ryder says. You very rarely ever send an email. It’s all done on WhatsApp. They have hundreds of WhatsApp groups, and that’s how their entire team is organized, from little details around traveling to big things like engineering and car designs. It’s all shared across WhatsApp. In theory, this sounds like a formula for the greatest product demo video ever made. But Formula 1 teams are known to be about as forthcoming with secrets as the Pentagon. Ryder says Mercedes saw the value in giving the film access to its internal process, with the goal of helping F1 fans fall in love with Antonelli, a relatively unknown 18-year-old driver. For WhatsApp, the goal was to tell a privacy story by showing how well it functions in high-stakes situations. Our job was to figure out how those two things can coexist to make something that was going to be compelling, Ryder says. No one formula Its a unique situation for a brand to have its product at the center of a major sports story. Ryder says the strategy quickly became to make the project revolve around trust. The Mercedes team was trusting its F1 drivers seat to Antonelli, but in the process it was also showing its trust in WhatsApp as a communications platform. In a typical commercial edit, marketers will obsess over how many times the product is mentioned, or the product appears, or the logo is flashed. Modern Arts CEO Brooke Stites says the film is not about that because the brand and its product are so intertwined with the story itself. As a marketing investment, Stites says the film cost about as much as it would to make and buy ad time for a 60-second commercial. Here, the entire budget went into the production because being on Netflix means there isnt the need to pay for advertising space on TV and online. It’s a totally different model, says Stites. It’s not cheap, but it’s what you’re going to spend on a 60-second spot that you then have to spend 10 times more to buy places that force people to watch it. Everyone who watches F1 content on Netflix is going to get served our film. The Seat is not a paid advertising arrangement with Netflix; it was acquired by the streamer in the same way other film and television content is acquired. Other major streamers were vying for the film, but Netflix’s connection to the long-running docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive made it the ideal home. For some time brands and ad agencies have been putting make a film for Netflix in their marketing briefs, but the reality is, its not that simple. Stites says there are some critical ingredients a project needs in order to get anywhere near Netflix or any other top-tier streamer. You have to have an amazing story and quality of craft, she says. All these streamers are looking at it and asking, Is this something that’s adding value to my audience? Is this something that my viewers are going to actually want to engage with? That was a big part of the F1 piece. For other brands interested in this type of storytelling, Stites has a piece of advice: Tell a compelling story that involves your brand, dont just tell your brand story. Every brand wants to tap into culture. To tell stories people really want to hear, you need to find the stories in culture that authentically include your brand instead of trying to force-feed your brand into culture. We’re not telling a story about WhatsApp. It’s not about the brand, says Stites. Stories involving brands already exist in culture that are really actually very interesting, and people are willing and wanting to engage with them. Tell a story that people are going to care about, versus starting from a place of Le’s tell a brand story.
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E-Commerce
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