While LVMH isn’t universally adored, it is broadly respected. Efforts by the group’s brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior to become more culturally relevant, particularly among young consumers, hardly hurt: Today, for every social media post and protest placard denouncing the mega-rich, there are just as many venerating their lifestyle and offering tips for how to attain it. Plenty of French people are proud that Europe’s biggest company, and the world’s richest person, are French.
Should the winds of policy ever really swing against rising inequality, LVMH will, of course, be a prime target no matter how many times they’ve opened their ateliers. But the days feel like a distant memory when, in 2011, a leading French newspaper put Arnault on its cover with the phrase “Casse toi, riche con” (politely translated as “Get lost, rich jerk”) or when François Ruffin made a national hit with his 2015 documentary “Merci, Patron!” (“Thank, Boss!”) — a political satire that featured hidden-camera footage of LVMH fixers attempting to buy off a disgruntled former worker and pressuring left-wing activists.
https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/luxury/how-vulnerable-is-lvmh/?utm_source=newsletter_professional_thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=This_Week_In_Fashion_140423&utm_term=NOQSPKAL6RAPTLIYH32735FBG4&utm_content=top_story_title
Tag Archives: protest
Cultural Dimensions and Possible Futures
There is a distinction between uncertainty and ambiguity. We live in ambiguous times, not uncertain times. There is relevant information available for us to better understand the possible future ahead. The key to robust foresight is the ability to effectively combine distinct analysis tools to clarify the details of social change.
Central to the toolkit I teach to students and use with clients is a method of applied semiotics called Culture Mapping. Culture Mapping allows us to analyze language as patterns of social change. It provides a matrix to measure the way language migrates in meaning as it is used to express our affirmation or dissent from established societal codes.
Other tools are useful in providing additional context to establish hypotheses for analysis. For example, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions allows us to establish benchmarks of distinct contextual meaning from county to country. This is particularly useful when determining how social language might affirm or deviate from norms in a country.
The foundation of these cultural dimensions is very useful for discourse analysis. The key is to see how the emerging language is deviating from certain norms. The signifiers of these deviations provide taxonomies that indicate the dynamics of change within that country. Evaluation of the distinction between probable and possible futures is determined by that taxonomy more than any other factor.
In the examples, here, I propose how EV adoption might differ in China vs. the USA. The language in the commercials provides examples of linguistic differences that confirm the hypothesis established by the cultural dimensions. How EV adoption evolves in each country will reflect the expressed synergy of dissonance in each cultural power system. How well each country trusts or mistrusts the social order they are in.
USA: https://lnkd.in/dH-kc3kK
China: https://lnkd.in/dvzdXwe7
How South Korea emerged as the center of the beauty industry is another interesting case study of cultural dimensions related to the semiotics of everyday life. Beauty in South Korea has become an expression of the tension of cultural dimensions. The innovation in the category has a lot to do with the dynamics of rapid socio-economic growth, rigid competitiveness, perfection, and an emerging desire to break away from all that and be relaxed and comfortable in one’s own decisions.
#designthinking#foresight#culturaldifferences#culturemapping#electriccars#beauty#southkorea#china#usa#trendforecasting#trendanalysis
Spoof billboard ads take aim at BMW and Toyota over ‘going green’ claims
Satirising the manufacturers’ advertising messages, the billboards highlighted what activists describe as the misleading adverts and aggressive lobbying tactics used by Toyota and BMW.
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/spoof-billboard-ads-take-aim-at-bmw-and-toyota-over-going-green-claims
How Do You Protest in the Face of Censorship? An Empty Sign
In China, Russia and the United Kingdom, unmarked sheets of white paper have become a potent symbol of defiance.
Commentators were quick to interpret the meaning of the “white-paper protests.” A blank sign is both a symbol and a tactic. It is a passive-aggressive protest against censorship, a sarcastic performance of compliance that signals defiance. Its power rests in a shared understanding, by both the public and the authorities, of the unwritten message; it rests also in the awareness that to say anything at all is to run afoul of a government that brooks no opposition, suppressing even the suggestion of an intention to speak.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/magazine/white-paper-protests-censorship.html
As colleges go remote, students revolt against the state of higher ed
‘The Strike Wave Is in Full Swing’: Amazon, Whole Foods Workers Walk Off Job to Protest Unjust and Unsafe Labor Practices (rebel archetype triggered/broken story)
Occupy Wall Street Spreads Worldwide
The Secret Origins of the The Tea Party
Meet the Chinese crowdsourcers fighting coronavirus censorship
Linda spends a few hours a day systematically collecting both official releases and personal accounts about the virus from social media networks like Weibo, WeChat, and Douban. She then translates or subtitles into English and posts on Imgur, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. Though Linda says she’s “quite an unqualified social media specialist,” some of her translations have received over 100,000 views.
Analyzing Trends with Tim Stock 