Posts from — October 2014

When fashion becomes cyclical, Ikea could be the company that could come in and break the mould

Stockholm and Wellington, October 28 (JY&A Media) Swedish author and business thinker Stefan Engeseth predicts that Ikea’s next move will be into the world of fashion.
   Mr Engeseth says that Ikea’s expertise lends itself easily to the world of apparel. ‘Fashion is an expression of how to package and sell design,’ he says.
   He believes that fashion is in a repetitive cycle, stuck in history and needing renewal.
   Ikea could offer both complete apparel items and composite parts that customers could assemble themselves, says Mr Engeseth. The parts could be “tailored” at home in inventive ways without the need for complex sewing.
   ‘Emotionally, this connects people to how life was in the beginning,’ he says. ‘Customers can personalize and “hack” the designs.’
   Jack Yan, publisher of the fashion magazine Lucire, and a branding expert in his own right, says Mr Engeseth’s ideas have a great deal of merit.
   ‘This taps in to its existing fan base, and just as importantly, Ikea can make full use of its channels, outmanœuvring many existing fashion labels,’ says Mr Yan. ‘Ikea has an international retail base and it has distribution down to a fine art.’
   For completed clothing, Mr Engeseth says that Ikea could offer Unisex dressing, without the divisions of male and female, but as an ‘Ikea member’.
   He sees Ikea clothing as being high-tech and low-cost, harder-wearing than the apparel found in mass-market retailers.
   ‘We’re already seeing some shoppers go to outdoor and living stores to buy longer-lasting clothing. Ikea already sells reusable Kr 4 bags that are good and cheap; their clothes could be equally practical, as strong as work clothes,’ he says.
   ‘You could even extend this hard-wearing philosophy into wedding gowns—after all, there are already some people opting to get married in Ikea stores.’
   Mr Engeseth says Ikea could offer the clothing range to its fans first, so they have a “uniform”, much like football teams.
   ‘There are 57 million Ikea “family members” already, so let them be the only ones who can buy the clothes first. This would be the longest catwalk ever.’
   He goes further, saying that those wearing Ikea clothing could qualify for greater discounts at the point of sale. ‘Not only will this build their tribe, it will “dress it up” to become a worldwide community.’
   Fans who have furnished their homes could host ‘Ikea days’, where dressed-up fans could invite their friends to their homes, which become pop-up fan showrooms. ‘That could give Ikea millions of stores, and greater exposure to how homes can be designed. That would bring in sales and the company could treble its profits,’ he says.
Images

Ikea sewing machine
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Stefan Engeseth
www.detectivemarketing.com
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Photographer credit: Thomas Svensson
About Stefan Engeseth, CEO of Detective Marketing
Author, consultant, speaker and guest professor, Stefan Engeseth’s ideas range from innovative and future-oriented to bordering on far-fetched. Yet, they all build on the universal truth that without innovation and visions, companies will not grow in today’s highly competitive business world. The question is, how far are you prepared to go?
   Over the years, Stefan Engeseth has worked as a consultant with internationally companies and Fortune 500 corporations. Often he is described as on of the world’s leading experts and speakers in his fields (well he like to say its only common sense).
   His lectures have become extremely popular because they are stimulating yet easy to take in and use. He has held over 500 lectures and workshops internationally at corporations and academic institutions. He has also taken part in the Öresund Consulate’s reference group on the Öresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark one of the largest projects of its kind in Europe. He write articles for international business magazines.
About Jack Yan
Jack Yan founded Jack Yan & Associates (http://jya.net). Among his company’s interests are business consulting, software and media, including the fashion magazine brand Lucire. He has authored or contributed to numerous books, including Beyond Branding, Typography and Branding and Nation Branding: Country Concepts and Cases. He ran for Mayor of Wellington in 2010 and 2013. His personal site is at http://jackyan.com.
Contacts
Stefan Engeseth, CEO
Detective Marketing
T 46 (0)704 44-33-54
E stefan.e@detectivemarketing.com
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213, F 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
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Wellington, October 17 (JY&A Media) Autocade (http://autocade.net), the New Zealand-based car cyclopædia, has reached its five millionth page view, and now has data on 2,777 model lines.
   The website has become an useful resource for car buffs online, and its creator Jack Yan believes it will become even more important as long-running annuals such as the German Auto Katalog come to an end.
   ‘I was shocked to find that Auto Katalog was finishing up after 57 years, and the publishers claimed that information about new cars could be better found online,’ he says. ‘I don’t agree, as there are few sites that catalogue all models for a year—but I’d like to think that we come close to providing the data that car enthusiasts seek.’
   Autocade actually prides itself on not being comprehensive about specifications, but to give a brief summary and limited technical data about each model line. ‘It’s all people generally need at a glance,’ says Mr Yan, ‘and the annuals like Auto Katalog or the French Toutes les voitures du monde have adopted such an approach in their main pages.’
   Despite having 2,777 models, Mr Yan admits there are gaps that he and his fellow contributors in the UK have not plugged, as Autocade is a work in progress. However, many landmark models made since 1970 are included.
   Among those contributors is Classic Car Weekly editor-in-chief Keith Adams, who had helped Mr Yan add some important models.
   Autocade is one of the few sites to provide English-language information on certain historical models, and keeps an eye on the latest offerings from China, the world’s most competitive car market.
   For a website that started off as a hobby, he’s happy to know that others are finding it a valuable resource.
   ‘I now come across people on car groups who don’t know me, but know Autocade, which isn’t bad for something that has not been promoted widely.’ He says Wikipedia also links to some of its pages—a fact he’s particularly proud of, since factual errors on the famous , user-driven online encyclopædia were one of the reasons Autocade was started.
   Mr Yan says Autocade has also become popular because of its geographic neutrality. While Wikipedia car entries tend to be written from a US point of view, Autocade adopts the perspective of each model’s country of origin.
   ‘We’re not a sales’ guide, and those are the sites that should rightly have a geographical bias. We’re also not a technical guide, and there are some excellent websites such as Carfolio that have that covered. We’re simply a quick, accurate reference which netizens know they can trust,’ he says.
   He plans to include more US models, which have taken more time to add given the American preference for citing an engine’s capacity in cubic inches or litres, but not in cubic centimetres.
   Founded in 2008, Autocade only reached its first million views after three years. It has taken another three years to quintuple its page views. The website has had over 19,000 edits, and has approximately 3,251 content pages.
   Its most popular model page changes over time. Currently, it’s a page about the latest Ford Fiesta, with the Nissan Sunny (B14), Nissan Bluebird (910), Toyota Corolla (E100) and Toyota Corolla (E120) next. The oldest recorded image on the site is that of a Renault Mégane II.
Images

Autocade website cover (full length), October 17, 2014
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Autocade model page on the Mercedes-Benz C-Klasse (W204), October 17, 2014
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Images can also be downloaded at http://jyanet.com/press/photo.htm.
About JY&A Media
JY&A Media, part of Jack Yan & Associates, publishes and licenses magazines, in print and on the web, and produces other interactive content. Best known among its titles is Lucire, the fashion magazine which launched online in 1997 and spawned international print editions in 2004. An internet pioneer, it has been publishing and creating online titles since the early 1990s. More on the company can be found at http://jyanet.com/media.
Notes to editors
Autocade is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.
Contacts
Jack Yan, Publisher
Autocade
T 64 4 387-3213, F 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
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