Adrenaline junkies: Emma Booty on coffee and cars

Emma Booty is the Creative Director of Conran Studio, our product and brand design team, and resident brand-building expert.

Last month, she spoke at the Interior Motives China conference in Beijing – a major gathering for the Chinese domestic car design industry.

Cutting through the petrol fumes with typical panache, Emma regaled a 350-strong audience with a story about coffee.

Bear with her…

“…un piccolo momento di piacere” – in drab English, a small moment of pleasure.

As designers, we’re interested in transforming items of necessity into such moments.

But how?

Britons, on average, spend £3 a day on takeaway coffee.

£3 a day makes a £5 billion business, and a greater household expense than the gas bill.

Until 1994, the coffee shop market was relatively immature – the baristas wore baseball caps, and served lacklustre pints of weak, sweet, American-style coffee. Did you know that the French call American coffee jus des chausetttes – literally, ‘sock juice’?

Then something changed. There was an infusion of Antipodean personality into the British (and especially the London) coffee scene. An infusion of social ease. The emphasis was no longer on the utility of a caffeine fix, but the luxury of a moment of pleasure.

Coffee shops started to say something about us: bright, confident, sexy, energetic. The market diversified – not just Italian-American, but Australian, British and Scandinavian. There was a new confidence in national personality.

With it came a natural increase in quality.

The American stalwarts took note of this shift – and tried to inject a little personality of their own.

What does this mean for the Chinese car market?

“…un piccolo momento di piacere” – a move away from necessity.

Cars are more than appliances, more than status symbols. They represent a way of living.

As the Chinese car market matures, cars will evolve from necessity to lifestyle choice.

How will China influence the rest of the world?

By infusing design with Chinese personality – with themes of economy, family values and respect.

Just as Australian social ease was an authentic fit for coffee shop culture, so these Chinese values fit plumb into the new, leaner automotive industry.

Conran Columns: Booty on Brands

Every month our resident brains behind the brands Emma Booty, Head of Branding at Studio Conran, shares her thoughts and observations about the world, and how it is branded.

Brand experience and paying for lunch

Lunchtime rituals have always fascinated me. The dash from the desk has been the one constant of my working life. Soho sandwich queue days were essentially window shopping sprees in disguise, Clerkenwell was ‘provincial fayre’ and pre-pay day chips, Milan’s gastronomie conversations commenced at 11, reaching work-defying frenzy by 12.15, Tokyo  provided water-cooler warning words of global womanhood: ‘rice crackers make you fat’.

Here too at Shad Thames we are in prime location for daily feasting: Pont de la Tour’s boutique sandwiches and the next door Deli cries of ‘un altro panino signora!’ are my two current favourites. So the only way to avoid the drudge of calorie limitation is to exercise in fury: morning hors-d’oeuvres is Gymbox and a one-hour spin-circuit class with an angry ex-marine.

Gymbox breaks the mould of smug, guilt-inducing, right-on fitness clubs with their 10 metre lap pools and carpet tiles. The brand is cheeky, brash and, well, kind of annoying. The underground industrial spaces have been transformed into dramatic feuding arenas. Designed by Ben Kelly they’re reminiscent of the Haçienda-days: the columns are wrapped in black and yellow stripes, railway sleepers divide the space and an enormous boxing ring takes centre stage. Not MTV, but Rocky movies projected on the concrete walls and live DJs. This brand celebrates our vanity, modern guilt is eschewed for a cuff round the ear. And I’m now Facebook friends with Millar-the-Pillar. Even on the most vicious of early mornings it can’t help but raise a wry smile.

Gymbox is a fine example of a brand connecting successfully with its customers. A great idea that holds its shape and integrity through all points of touch. Changing room mirror vinyls remind you how sexy you look, timetables tell of Stiletto Workout classes and Jamaican street dance. The hazard colour palette and the ‘Load your guns and tighten your buns’ are a morning call to action that puts me in credit at least one cappuccino and a cream-filled brioche.

On a more beguiling note I’m off to see the flock of zebra finches at their current residency at the Barbican – winged and jamming with electric guitars and amps.

http://www.barbican.org.uk/thecurve/blog/index.html