Daily LInks
1. Can Coach Get Shoppers to Buy Bags Made from Waste Scraps? This week, the company introduced Coachtopia, a line that offers apparel and accessories made primarily with waste leather sourced from India and Vietnam or partly recycled materials like cotton, resin or polyester. – Read More on the New York Times
2. AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google: “Whether or not the video was generated using artificial intelligence does not impact our legal responsibility to provide a pathway for rightsholders to remove content that allegedly infringes their copyrighted expression.” – Read More on the Verge
3. Amazon Announces Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange to Help Eliminate Counterfeits Across the Retail Industry: ACX allows participating stores to share information about confirmed counterfeiters who attempted to use their services to try to sell counterfeit products. – Read More from Amazon
4. Large, creative AI models will transform lives and labor markets: The contemporary explosion of the capabilities of ai software began in the early 2010s, when a software technique called “deep learning” became popular. – Read More on the Economist
5. How Generative AI Could Disrupt Creative Work: Here are non-exclusive scenarios for this disruption of content creation: 1) people use AI to augment their work, leading to greater productivity, 2) generative AI creates a flood of cheap content that drives out human creatives, and 3) human-made creative work demands a premium. – Read More on HBR
6. Italy’s Prada to invest 60 mln euros to help boost production capacity: Prada, in common with other luxury groups, is investing to enhance its production capacity and strengthen its grip on the supply chain. – Read More on Reuters
1. Secondhand Fashion Has a Looming PFAS Problem: There is a loophole for the continued sale and circulation of existing PFAS-made products in secondhand markets, at a time when buying used is only getting more popular. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Lidl wins trademark lawsuit against Tesco over discount scheme logo: Lidl sued Tesco in 2020 shortly after Tesco adopted a yellow circle against a blue background to promote its “Clubcard Prices” discount scheme. – Read More on Reuters
3. Lawmakers Look for Tough Implementation of Forced Labor Law Targeting China: The hearing followed U.S. Customs reporting it has stopped nearly $1.1B in goods with possible links to Xinjiang, home to China’s Uyghur people and other minority groups, under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. – Read More on the WSJ
4. RELATED READ: As Uyghur Forced Labor Law Takes Effect, What is the Impact for Brands? From a purely-cotton-perspective, the potential impact of law is striking. The U.S. imported about $9 billion worth of cotton goods from in 2020. – Read More on TFL
5. Reporting Cyberattacks Will Soon Be Mandatory: While the details vary, these requirements are intended to increase the government’s visibility regarding the scope, scale, and intensity of malicious cyber activity in their countries. – Read More on HBR
6. Zalando to Add ChatGPT-Powered Fashion Assistant to Online Platform: By leveraging AI technologies to provide personalized product recommendations, virtual try-ons, chatbots for customer service & predictive analytics for inventory management, merchants can create personalized shopping experiences, increase customer purchase intent and minimize the risk of returns. – Read More on PYMNTS
1. Fast Fashion Could Be New Front in U.S.-China Tussle. Why Scrutiny of Shein, Temu Could Intensify. Fast fashion could be another flashpoint in the worsening U.S.-China battle as the popularity of China’s Shein, one of the world’s largest online retailers, and newcomer Temu draw increased scrutiny in the U.S. – Read More on Barron’s
2. New U.S. Employment Regulations That Companies Should Prepare for Now: In 2023, company leaders will have to address new regulations and laws in three areas — noncompete clauses, pay transparency, and human capital disclosures — that have far-reaching implications that company leaders may not have fully grasped. – Read More on HBR
3. Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Chanel report combined $3B in sales last year in Korea: In a separate regulatory filing by Hermès Korea, Louis Vuitton Korea, and Chanel Korea, the three brands reported a combined revenue of 3.93 trillion won ($3 billion) last year, a 22 percent increase on year. – Read More on JoongAng Daily
4. Coach CEO Todd Kahn the latest global luxury chief to visit ‘growth engine’ China post Covid-19: The CEOs of luxury brands have been making a beeline for mainland China, one of their most important markets, after the country ended its strict zero-Covid policy and reopened borders earlier this year. – Read More on SCMP
5. How Luxury Brands Are Courting the New Chinese Consumer as Shopping Tourism Resumes: While the uber-rich were among the first out the gate when China’s border reopened, early indications show they continued to purchase luxury goods in China, probably to maintain their VIP status at stores. – Read More on Alizila
6. Shaq has finally been served in FTX shareholders’ lawsuit: O’Neal is among the celebrity endorsers — including NFL star Tom Brady and NBA star Stephen Curry — caught up in the class-action suit brought against FTX and accused of defrauding investors by promoting a “fraudulent scheme.” – Read More on MarketWatch
1. China’s reopening sees Gen Z ready to splurge: China’s next generation has “real high consumption power,” she says. “They spend more, they borrow more, and they spend their future income, which is not something that older generations ever imagined doing.” – Read More on Fortune
2. QR-style “2D barcodes” will revolutionize retail as we know it: Scanning them may tell us the field where something was grown, the factory where a garment was sewn, the sustainability practices of the company that made it — or the washing instructions. – Read More on Axios
3. SEC charges crypto asset trading platform Bittrex and its former CEO for operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency: Since at least 2014, Bittrex has held itself out as a platform that facilitated buying and selling of crypto assets that the SEC’s complaint alleges were offered and sold as securities. – Read More on SEC.gov
4. Retail sales fall more than expected in March; 4 new bankruptcies: March marked the second-straight month that US consumers spent less at retailers than predicted, though the decline followed a stronger-than-expected start to the year. – Read More on S&P Global
5. Exor eyes further healthcare investment for expansion: After completing the sale of PartnerRE, Exor has around 6.5B euros in cash available for investments, including 5B euros for acquisitions. It has already said its M&A activity would mainly focus on healthcare, luxury & tech businesses. – Read More on Reuters
6. Top-tier luxury brands & celebrities will create their own digital platforms and control their destinies directly: “We believe that while the current digital platforms will continue to operate, new private platforms that are co-owned and controlled by the top creators such as top tier luxury brands and A-list celebrities will emerge.” – Read More on GLP
1. The World Is Volatile but Luxury Brands Look Serene: People who spent up to €1k on designer goods in 2019 slashed their budgets in half in 2022. Meanwhile, spending at the top is booming. A wealthy shopper who shelled out around €50k in designer shops in 2019 spent €135k in 2022. – Read More on the WSJ
2. Luxury watchmakers are adapting to attract tech-savvy Gen Zs and millennials: From virtual try-on Cartier timepieces on Snapchat and selfie-inspired Hermès designs to bitcoin sales and the Apple Watch. – Read More on SCMP
3. Enforcing patents against foreign infringers of patented processes: This little-used statute allows patentees to target foreign producers, downstream importers and sellers, and others that benefit from products made from patented processes. – Read More on Reuters
4. How Timberland, Vans, VF Corp. are making sure their cotton isn’t “greenwashed.” With support for VF Corp., the Smallholder Farmers Alliance worked with Terra Genesis and the Data Economics Company to create a farm data tracking service to verify regenerative cotton crops. – Read More on CNBC
5. Nordstrom Walks Back on Luxury and Leans Into Deep Discounts: The move is an interesting one as the retailer is known for its high-end products and customer service, which were bolstered by its investments in tools and technologies like virtual style boards and online styling appointments. – Read More on PYMNTS
6. ICYMI: Who Owns SpongeBob? AI Shakes Hollywood’s Creative Foundation. Fast-evolving generative AI tools have thrown a wrench into the system by harnessing and transforming a digital universe that often includes copyrighted work. – Read More on the WSJ
1. Gen Z ‘buying luxury on average at 15 years old,’ Rakuten Rewards President says: “The thing about Gen Z is that they are starting to buy luxury significantly earlier than the generations before them. Gen Z starts buying luxury on average at 15 years old. If you look at Gen X and Gen Y, ages 22-25 was the first time that they sort of entered the luxury market.” – Read More on Yahoo
2. Shaq can’t be served electronically in FTX class-action lawsuit, judge rules: O’Neal is the only defendant in the class-action lawsuit who has not been served, attorneys alleged in a motion requesting permission to serve the “Inside the NBA” analyst electronically. – Read More on CBS
3. Consumer discretionary stays in sector-risk spotlight: On private equity firm TPG Inc.’s latest earnings call, CEO Jon Winkelried described “strong demand” for consumer sector businesses serving affluent consumers but “more of an issue from inflation and a pullback in demand” at the lower end. – Read More on S&P Global
4. Retail Partnerships: Checking on Peloton and Adidas, TikTok and Shopify: During Target’s Q4 earnings call, executives said sales from Ulta Beauty at Target had increased by over four times compared to the previous year. In addition, Target sold more than 170 million Starbucks beverages in 2021 alone. – Read More on PYMNTS
5. RELATED READ: As Brands, Retailers Think Post-Pandemic, Big Names in Beauty Tie-Up With Retail Chains. Looking beyond the potential easing of exclusivity restrictions that may have previously existed between Sephora and JCP, these new tie-ups with mass-market retailers present some additional – and interesting – contract considerations of their own. – Read More on TFL
6. Luxury shares boost Europe’s STOXX 600, French stocks hit new record high: European shares climbed on Thursday on a boost from luxury stocks after LVMH posted upbeat first-quarter sales, while hopes of a pause in the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes after signs of cooling U.S. inflation also aided sentiment. – Read More on Reuters
1. China’s luxury market is starting to make a comeback, per BoA: “Luxury consumption will recover as Covid subsides, mall traffic improves, and consumer sentiment rebounds. We expect to see 2021 sales levels sometime between the first and second half of 2023.” – Read More on Business Insider
2. Major retail players are walking back their metaverse strategies: “One of the biggest challenges was really figuring out the right [key performance indicators] and also just figuring out if there weren’t even implications for many brands when it came to their physical product.” – Read More on Modern Retail
3. Gucci’s latest retail concept is for VIPS only: The brand’s VIP clientele can skip the plebeian store experience altogether and instead book an appointment for Gucci Salon, where the entire space will be merchandised specifically for the individual. – Read More on Fashionista
4. Luxury brands refocusing on China: Interest in eco-conscious lifestyles and business practices has grown in China since 2020, when President Xi Jinping at the United Nations General Assembly announced plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. – Read More on Nikkei
5. Rolex the Trademark Watchdog: “Corporations deal with trademark violations swiftly—even when they are innocuous.” – Read More on the WSJ
6. What are the legal considerations of AI in the trademark licensing industry? One of the ways generative AI can be used is in the development of images of proposed new licensed products based on generative AI system inputs of trademarks, style rules and guidelines, and the desired categories and products. – Read More on The Drum
1. The $500 billion beauty industry’s ‘green’ ambitions are falling short: Companies often use marketing language like “clean beauty” to make it seem like their products are natural, for example, when they may not actually be organic, sustainable or ethically made. – Read More on CNN
2. Joint ventures, IP and the siren song of joint ownership: The importance of intellectual property protection is heightened, and the consequences of failures in this regard magnified, in the context of external growth strategies. – Read More on Reuters
3. For Apple, India Is the Next China: India and China are quite similar in their demographics and even in their potential buying power, at least in large cities—and that India can show large numbers for Apple with some effort. – Read More on the WSJ
4. How Jordan launched nerdy Nike into the stratosphere: The shoes are so ubiquitous in US pop culture that Jordans could be placed in a bracket alongside American design classics such as the Model T Ford. – Read More on the Guardian
5. RELATED READ: Nike is One of the Most Valuable Brands in the World, Making its Logos Some of the Most Valuable, Too. The swoosh logo, along with Nike’s trademark-protected name, are two of the most important assets of the Nike brand, which has a market cap of almost $200 billion. – Read More on TFL
6. Barry Diller Thinks Publishers Should Sue Over Generative AI: Media outlets should take a stand and say, “you cannot scrape our content,” the mogul said at the Semafor Media Summit on Monday night. – Read More on THR
1. Metaverse Mania Cools for Many, but Not for Marketers: Many marketers build their metaverse campaigns largely to raise awareness or improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Few, if any, currently make a profit from the sale of virtual goods, and they will find greater short-term value in using such campaigns to collect data on consumers. – Read More on the WSJ
2. Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem: To protect themselves from these risks, companies that use generative AI need to ensure that they are in compliance with the law and take steps to mitigate potential risks, such as ensuring they use training data free from unlicensed content and developing ways to show provenance of generated content. – Read More on HBR
3. While no one would mistake “Harry Potter by Balenciaga” for real footage—except, perhaps, as a real fashion-advertising campaign—another A.I.-generated image – one of the Pope in a puffer – recently made news headlines because so many thought it was real. – Read More on the New Yorker
4. Gucci Is Now at a Critical Juncture. Here’s What Luxury Brands Can Learn: While previous generations of luxury clients were easier to convince, Gen Zers are the toughest target group to reach. They trust people more than brands, and whey are very cognizant of their own personal values. – Read More on Jing
Indigenous groups in NZ, US fear colonization as AI learns their languages: “If Indigenous peoples don’t have sovereignty of their own data, they will simply be re-colonized in this information society.” – Read More on Reuters
5. TikTok Ban Threat Scares Off US Merchants: U.S. merchants are both more interested in expanding their brick-and-mortar operations and concerned that the government could ban TikTok, and with it, the platform’s burgeoning TikTok Shop feature. – Read More on PYMNTS
6. Little activity for big globally announced M&A deals in Q1 2023: The first quarter finished with three pending globally announced M&A deals, each with a value of at least $10 billion, after two such transactions were announced in March. – Read More on S&P Global
1. Wanted: people who can learn to make €22,000 handbags. After years of rapid growth, driven by voracious demand from Chinese consumers, Europe’s luxury industry is facing acute hiring pressures for roles spanning everything from manufacturing to retail and management. – Read More on the FT
2. Hermes Boosts Kelly Bag Output With New Normandy Facility: Hermes inaugurated a leather-goods manufacturing facility in Normandy as the luxury brand seeks to meet rising demand for Kelly and Constance handbags. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Model accuses former Harvey Weinstein associate of rape in lawsuit: A former model has filed a lawsuit claiming a one-time executive at movie studio Miramax raped her after luring her to a hotel with the promise of a meeting with the company’s then-Chief Executive Harvey Weinstein. – Read More on Reuters
4. Luxury Goods Account for 20% of Items Sold in 2022 by Crypto-Enabled Merchants: According to data compiled by BitPay, almost 20% of items purchased last year with crypto were luxury goods. This includes gold, jewelry, watches, exotic cars, boats, real estate, yachts, and handbags. – Read More on CryptoPotato
5. Uniqlo’s Parent Company Bets Big on Tiny RFID Chips: Newer and cheaper RFID chips, reader hardware, and software are enabling retailers to implement the tech at lower cost and with more precision. The cost of RFID tags has fallen from as high as 60 cents a tag a few decades ago to about 4 cents a tag. – Read More on the WSJ
6. Chipotle and Sweetgreen’s short-lived beef over a chicken burrito bowl gets resolved: The salad chain has decided to rename its new chipotle chicken menu item, following its fellow fast casual restaurant’s legal challenge over the previously named “Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl.” – Read More on NPR