Over 40% of Millennials will gift digitally this Christmas, reveals new research

New research from the UK Gift Card & Voucher Association (UKGCVA) has shown that Millennials are pioneering the idea of ‘digital gifting’ this Christmas, with over 40% of Millennials planning to gift digitally through gift cards and vouchers this Christmas.

Londoners are the most tech-savvy gifters according to the research, with over a third (35%) intending to gift digital gift cards and vouchers this year.

The research, conducted by Verdict Retail, found that Millennials are the age group most likely to gift digitally this festive season, with less than a third (29%) of Generation X and even fewer Baby Boomers (17%) stating that they plan to do so.

The Christmas spirit also encourages consumers to gift digitally, with over two thirds (68%) stating they are most likely to purchase a digital gift card or voucher for someone during this period.

Londoners are the most tech-savvy gift buyers according to the research, with over a third (35%) of consumers in the capital planning to join in and gift digitally this festive season.

Gail Cohen, Director General of the UKGCVA, comments: “As Millennials are the most likely to purchase digital gift cards and vouchers during the festive season, retailers and other issuers of these products should look to targeting this sub-group with their gift card marketing strategies this Christmas.
Our research also found that Millennials are the most likely to purchase digital gift cards and vouchers full stop. As such, retailers need to be aware of this pattern when developing their marketing strategies, not only at Christmas, but year-round.”

Presents for Self and Others, from the V&A Collection at Heal’s

While looking for 2017 calendars to gift, I'm glad to find now available at Heal's Christmas Market at their Tottenham Court Road, London flagship store is a selection of wonderful goodies - an edited pick of V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum) products on offer - including not only calendars but also notecards, note books, diaries, interesting children’s books, tote bags and an array of iconic prints.  My favourite is a William Morris colouring book.  All available until Christmas eve.

Brands use Xmas season to better connect with customers

Throughout this festive shopping period, businesses need to deliver a marketing strategy which delivers a personalised brand experience, according to Massimo Fubini CEO and founder of Contactlab (1) .

He said brands can build effective and profitable seasonal campaigns which showcase the brands' reputation and simplify the shopping experience.

Massimo comments: “Brands prepare for Christmas, well before the consumer. To get a head start, marketers need to position their brand’s presence well in advance of the shopping season. Brands need a comprehensive omni-channel and personalised strategy to win the hearts of customers. Digital marketing channels add another layer of emotion to campaigns which helps to deepen their customer relationship.”

Massimo continues: “For brands the festive season gives them with the opportunity to better connect with customers. By integrating the insights gathered by consumer shopping behaviour into brands’ marketing strategies, retailers are able to drive customers to convert their activity into sales. Brands are under immense pressure to stand out against their competitors and so capturing shopper’s attention is key to driving significant revenue.”

(1) Contactlab is a digital engagement solution partner combining its owned enabling PaaS technology with industry focused expertise. Contactlab enables brands to plan, build and monitor effective digital contact plans to drive growth. Brands can use Contactlab solutions to build personalized and cross-channel digital messages, shaped around people behaviors and product lifecycle to expand and deepen the retail experience.

UK companies will spend an estimated £5.6bn on marketing in the run-up to Christmas

After Black Friday, it's Cyber Monday, and like you, my inbox is clogged up with numerous invitations to shop and part with my hard-earned money ...once more. It's not unusual to receive extra discounts on top of discounts.

The Advertising Association have forecasted that UK companies will spend an estimated £5.6bn on marketing in the run-up to Christmas which is £300m more than in 2015.

Buster the Boxer in John Lewis 2016 Christmas Ad.

To drive revenue during this festive period, retailers invest a lot of resource, time and money on their lavish marketing campaigns to attract shoppers and raise their presence within the market.  Many brands such as John Lewis, Coca Cola and Burberry are using emotion to develop strong ties with customers.

As the countdown for Christmas begins, retailers opt to create personalised marketing strategies to help drive customer loyalty and retention, as customers develop strong connections and feelings towards a brand.

Customers will choose different channels to engage with brands and now expect a seamless integration across channels as part of their customer journey.

Tis the season to shop and spend

Did you enjoy the Black Friday sales?
Did you shop from the comfort of your home or you opted to physically visit the stores?

According to specialists' reports, physical retail traffic referred to as footfall was surprisingly strong while online sales did not grow as much as expected.

Footfall tracking specialist Springboard reported that overall footfall rose 2% on Black Friday (25th November) but fell 0.8% on Saturday.  While high streets and retail parks' traffic were up, shopping malls turned in the worst performance.

Springboard also quoted data from PCA Predict that online transactions rose only 6.7% on Friday and 1.8% on Saturday, defying preditions of 25% increase.

UK's Black Friday evolves as majority of sales move online

Slow fashion label A-MM-E by Emma Kempton is one of the British-made brands on the online store set up by
Best of Britannia, the consumer event platform of British brands.
The BOB online store will launch on November 24th to coincide with Black Friday weekend in the UK.

Experts predict Black Friday this year in the UK will be another shopping bonanza, and that £1.1bn spent last year on the day to be surpassed. Emerging key trends point to evolving consumers behaviour with  15 billion online searches a month regarding Black Friday. 

Online spending on and around Black Friday in the UK this year (that's November 24th, the day after the US celebrates Thanksgiving) will hit an estimated £6.77bn, according to e-tailer body IMRG and SimilarWeb. And around 51% of that spend will be via mobile devices as m-commerce continues to grow fast.  But insights-driven advertising technology company Captify predict the £1.1 bn spent last year on Black Friday is set to be surpassed.

Justin Opie, managing director at IMRG also said the Black Friday period is evolving but despite retailers focusing on week-long bargains, IMRG believes as much as £1.27bn will be spent on the day itself, up 16% year-on-year. And around £3.45bn of the total spend will go through smartphones and tablets.

Genevieve Sweeney lunxury knitwear for men and women is one of British labels on the Best of Britannia online shop. 

Dom Joseph CEO and Co-Founder of Captify, an insights-driven advertising technology company, also predicts the £1.1bn spent last year on Black Friday is to be surpassed.

He said, “In the six years since its introduction into the UK, Black Friday is rightly recognised as the best day of the year to get a good deal on a huge variety of products.”

“We are seeing two key trends emerge this year, firstly, more and more retailers, both online and offline, have offered discounts well ahead of Black Friday. Amazon launched its ‘35 days of Black Friday’ , while UK companies, such as Argos and Tesco, have also offered deals ahead of the day, in order to capture as many consumers as possible. Retailers know the heightened expectations that consumers have for Black Friday, which is why we’ve seen such growth in discounts before the event itself.”

“Secondly, people are now monitoring the prices of products they want to buy, months in advance of Black Friday, and researching information as early as August. Not only this, based on the analysis of 15 billion online searches, there was actually an 11% jump last month of UK consumers researching product prices related to Black Friday, compared to last year."

“Consumers will always vote with their wallets, and if Black Friday didn’t offer huge price discounts on products that consumers valued and wanted, it wouldn’t be nearly as successful as it is and will continue to be.”

London's Design Museum re-opens November 24.

London's much loved  Design Museum will re-open November 24 at its new location in upmarket Kensington, in the former Commonwealth Institute building - after 27 years in a former warehouse in Shad Thames across the river.

With the promise of three times more space than its previous venue, the Design Museum's new home is billed to have a superslick interior, designed by John Pawson, and houses three exhibition spaces, a library and archive, a restaurant and café, learning spaces and a designers-in-residence studio.   Plus an impressive "hyperbolic paraboloid" roof.

No doubt it will prove to be London's newest swanky destination - not just for our cultural enrichment, but for shopping as well with two shops filled with trendy lifestyle products.

Of course the Design Museum no longer has the view of the historic Tower Bridge.  But the new location is a stone's throw from trendy Holland Park and close to the heart of Kensington’s cultural zone that includes the Victoria & Albert Museum and Science Museum.

The permanent collection in the Design Museum is free but periodical exhibitions cost £14.
There is a public programme of talks and classes monthly and design workshops to nurture young talents.  Can't wait to get involved.

Design Museum reopens Thursday November 24 at 224-238 Kensington High Street, London. 

Photos - Design Museum's own.

Winners of the 2016 Hand & Lock Prize for Embroidery announced.

The 2016 Hand & Lock Prize for Embroidery once again illustrated that intricate surface fabric texture adds invaluable value to the garments and products they adorn.

Annalisa Middleton
Winner of the Gold & Silver Wyre Drawer Award and the Fashion Open Category 1st Prize
Model: Antonina Kozerovskaya Photographer: Jutta Klee

This year's event, held at the historic Bishopsgate Institute in London on the 3rd of November, was billed by the organisers as being ever more dynamic, providing entrants with the opportunity to explore their creativity and showcase their talents in a variety of ways.

The Annual Hand & Lock Prize for Embroidery (organised by well-established Hand & Lock London which has been producing some of the finest embroidery since 1767) was established to encourage the use of hand embroidery and seeks to discover emerging embroidery talent.

 Jin Kim Fashion Student Category 1st Prize
Model: Louise Laag  
Photographer: Jutta Klee

This year the Wilcom Institutional Prize was awarded to The Royal College of Arts - the erll-known London University with the most entrants into the Prize.  
The Gold & Silver Wyre Drawer Award went to Annalisa Middleton, who was also the winner of the Fashion Open Category Prize.
In the Fashion Student Category, the winner was Jin Kim.
First prize in the Textile Art Open Category was won by Sally Wilson and the top winner of the Textile Art Student Prize went to Devi Vallabhaneni

Embroidery by Sally Wilson
Textile Art Open Category 1st Prize
Photographer: Elena Molina

In total there were 24 finalists who presented the most creative interpretation and exceptional execution of the brief given.  The final prizes were decided by judges as well as public vote combined.

Congratulations therefore are in order to all 2016 winners for their amazing creativity.

Wilcom Institutional Prize:
The Royal College of Arts
The Gold & Silver Wyre Drawer Award:
Annalisa Middleton
Fashion Open Category Prize Winners
1st prize: Annalisa Middleton
2nd prize: Elena Savelyeva
3rd prize: Charlotte Appleby
Fashion Student Category Prize Winners
1st prize: Jin Kim
2nd prize: Ryan Gambel
3rd prize: William Lathrop
Textile Art Open Category Prize winners
1st prize: Sally Wilson
2nd prize: Emma Cassi
3rd prize: Eranga Bandaranayake
Textile Art Student Prize Winners
1st prize: Devi Vallabhaneni
2nd prize: Suzanne Treacy
3rd prize: Sarah Tickner

Cat scratch furniture has gone state of the art!

Design-conscious cat owners and their treasured pets are in for a treat.

British company that specialises in unique cat scratch furniture - 3 Fat Cats, owned by Kim Manners - has just launched a new collection of ten new items for your treasured pets to enjoy.  They are bound to make a statement for those feline friends.  To read the rest of the article, click HERE.

The Roman Emperor Chaise Longue from 3 Fat Cats.
Size: 74 cm (L) x 30 cm (W) x 37 cm (H)

China goes on shopping frenzy on Singles Day.

Perhaps one can deduce that shopping is the best cure for a lonely heart, or a great distraction from the world's developing problems.

Yesterday November 11th is Singles Day in China and the world's second largest economy was on an online spending frenzy.  By day's end, record sales (still to be verified) were reportedly broken.

The country's e-commerce giant Alibaba was reporting US$5 bn of shopping sales in the first hour of Singles Day, with total sales expected to top US$20 billion this year, overshadowing America's equialents of Cyber Monday and Black Friday - the Monday and Friday after Thanksgivin (November 24).

Chinese market - a force to be reckoned with.
Photo: ISPO fair in China.

Singles Day was invented in 1993 by students in Nanjing, the ancient capital, who wanted to celebrate their singleness, and the date 11/11 was chosen because the number one stands for the solitary single.

Every year, thus on this particular day, millions of Chinese go shopping and Chinese companies have turned it into the biggest online shopping day in the world. Alibaba has approximately 440 million online customers.

Singles Day revenue nearly tripled from 2013 to 2015 to the tune of US$14.3 bn grossed on the Alibaba’s shopping sites, Tmall and Taobao; recording, approximately US$357 million were profit.

Alibaba company founder Jack Ma drummed up the enormous business by making Singles Day into a gala event onn November 10  in Shenzhen, the cosmopolitan city across from Hong Kong in Guangdong province.  There was a four-hour show broadcast on national television studded with countless stars, including star couple Victoria and David Beckham, Hollywood star Scarlet Johansson and LA Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant as guests. Pop star Katy Perry was billed as a star attractions but she pulled out at the last minute due to a "family emergency".  Mr. Ma himself even performed a magic act.

Italian fabric mill won prestigious award with a "Sparkling" denim collection

Italian manufacturer ITV Denim has won the prestigious Global Denim Awards 2016 for the second time thanks to its collaboration with Dutch designer Anbasja Blanken, who surprised the panel with a literally “sparkling” collection.  By treating denim from a semi-couture perspective, this collection addresses women directly, communicating strength, elegance and beauty, according to the company's press release.  While the title was awarded to the winning company and Anbasja Blanken received 10,000 euro.

ITV Denim collaorated with Dutch designer Anbasja Blanken to produce the winning collection.

The creative concept was developed on the basis of innovative experimentation on the yarn, aimed at achieving an actual “glow in the dark” effect.   This idea derives from the designer’s intent to recreate the fluorescence and bright light that many marine species are able to emit in the depths of the sea world, where the absence of light forms a stimulus for transformation.

The collection highlighted all the artisan skills of ITV Denim, featuring coral appliques, pearls, floral embroideries and luminescent woven fabrics, incorporating also the use of laser cutting and recycled fabrics.

This was the third edition of the Global Denim Awards which took place in Amsterdam on October 26 participated by 11 denim manufacturing companies in collaboration with as many designers, before an audience of 600 professionals from the denim international scene and a panel made up of denim experts and designers in The Netherlands.   A total of 11 Capsule Collections with five total looks were presented, showcasing special fabric treatments and washings.

All photos by Team Peter Stinter.

A red-carpet parade of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home’s pooches along with stars and celebrities.

Need a break from all the Brexit and US Presidential talk in the media, these lovely pictures can offer you some welcome relief.

British actor Guy Henry and an admirer.

London's famous animal rescue - Battersea Dogs & Cats Home - once again wowed its supporters and animal lovers last week with the return of its star-studded Collars & Coats Gala Ball at the iconic Battersea Evolution in south London.

TV presenter known for his animal and nature world credentials
goes eye to eye with a man's best friend.

Celebrating its eighth successful year, the high-profile annual charity extravaganza saw a host of UK and international stars take to the red carpet to raise vital funds for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home’s work in rescuing and re-homing abandoned dogs.

Pas de deux!
BBC's Strictly-Come-Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood with friend.

London fashion guru Hilary Alexander
and
hairstylist to celebrities
Charles Worthington
with one of the red carpet dogs.

This year’s star line-up, from the world of TV, music, film, sport and fashion, included: Battersea Ambassadors Dame Jacqueline Wilson and David Gandy, and friends of the Home, including Strictly-Come-Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, TV Dr Christian Jessen, as well as actor Guy Henry, Danielle Bux, fashion guru Hilary Alexander, hairstylist supremo Charles Worthington, comedian Harry Hill and Leah Weller,  and the iconic music group Sister Sledge. Guests and stars were welcomed by the popular ‘Battersea Doggie Guard Of Honour’ – a red-carpet parade of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home’s pooches.

Comedian Harry Hill with Sisters Sledge group members (Debbie, Kim and Joni) and pooches.

After an opening number by Britain’s Got Talent gymnastics troupe Spellbound, Battersea ambassadors and supporters united on stage to highlight the work and achievements of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Other highlights of this year’s event included a spectacular performance by headline act Sisters Sledge who brought their legendary R’n’B and disco hits to the dance floor.

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home Ambassador Dame Jacqueline Wilson  with a friend.

Claire Horton, Battersea’s Chief Executive said last year over 8,000 dogs and cats needed Battersea’s care and attention to help find them the best possible new homes.

Fashion model David Gandy and pooch.

It costs Battersea over £10m to care for its dogs and cats every year, and with no government funding, the Collars & Coats Gala Ball is all about helping to increase awareness of the important work the charity does each and every day of the year to offer a second chance in life to thousands of animals.

Since it was founded, Battersea which was established in 1860, has rescued, reunited and rehomed over 3.1 million dogs and cats.  Battersea cares for an average of 300 dogs and 220 cats across its three centres at any one time.

For further information on Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and to pledge donations, please visit www.battersea.org.uk
or call +44-(0)207 627 7883.

Real Art in Print and images of London used as statement art.

Love London?  Images of key architecture and aspects of the capital are great for making show-stopping statements and stimulate lively discussion.

Britain's Crowning Glory.
This magnificent vintage poster design from Printism shows London at its best as the sun streams across the city on a lovely fine afternoon.  Displaying an abundance of detail, the poster depicts an usual angle of view designed to take in a range of famous city features including the London Eye, Houses of Parliament and Battesea Power Station as well as Hungerford and Westminster Bridges. An iconic double-decker bus can also be seen traversing Waterloo Bridge in the foreground. 

Just launched by Printism is this vintage style London poster shown above, available as print only, framed print or stretched canvas in a huge range of sizes, right up to an impressive height of over two metres – perfect for creating that wow factor or statement wall in the home, office or shop front.  Whether you're 'born and bred' British, a visitor from abroad wanting a spectacular souvenir of a short or long stay, or an expatriate missing home, this design, "Britain's crowning glory", captures the spirit of London.

Printism from Australia produces vintage travel posters and advertising posters from the 1930s, 1940s and beyond, and delivers worldwide.

 The London Mono Collection by Katie Cardew

Meanwhile, British illustrator Katie Cardew  has got a new monochrome collection of iconic London buildings, available framed or unframed available on her web-shop,  along with her other prints and cards in a range of subjects, including maps and animals.  Katie is happy to do commission work as well.

Print made to resemble a classic London Underground ticket from Of Life & Lemons.

Howabout this lovely print above, made to look like a classic London Underground ticket, featuring the quote 'When man is tired of London, man is tired of life'. Instantly recognisable as a London Underground ticket, this print makes a perfect gift for anyone who loves London and is a guaranteed talking point! The print is available in A4, A3, A2 and A1 sizes.  Available from Of Life & Lemons 

is also a series of witty poster prints, tea towels and tote bags inspired by everyday humour, incorporating quotes and sayings to bring fun artworks to life. The range is entirely made in the UK.

Digital print of the famous Tower Bridge over the river Thames, London, by Tabitha Mary.

And British artist Tabitha Mary who is inspired by old railway posters, has made a series of prints featuring world famous iconic city images such as the Tower Bridge of London shown above.  

The artwork are now available as digital prints and signed Giclee prints both with an option of framing, in A4 up to A1 sizes, all made in the UK too.  Tabitha Mary also produces greeting cards and tea towels.