A Movable Feast

By Nina Elder

What’s Happening

• Problem: In New York, consumers often grab lunch from a street cart, then have to figure out how to eat the meal sans table and chairs. Solution: the Hydrantable and the Lunch Ledge.

• The two inventions, created by grad student Ali Pulver, maximize the city’s urban environment. The Hydrantable is a small round tabletop that fits snugly atop a fire hydrant. Want a smaller solution? Try the Lunch Ledge, a piece of lightweight metal with heavy-duty magnets attached. Find a metal post to create an instant lunchroom.

• Both gadgets are part of Pulver’s graduate thesis and are still in the prototype stage (and very well might be illegal in New York). Consumers can follow the progress of the inventions on Pulver’s blog, PopUpLunch.

What This Means to Business

• Urban living can seem overwhelming and impersonal. Handy gadgets that help make the city more livable appeal to consumers.

• Many consumers are working longer hours these days. Lunch is often the only break they get all day, so maximizing that time out (and making it easier and more comfortable) is key.

• For urban foodies all over the country, food carts are the cuisine du jour. Fun gadgets that go along with the cart culture have a built-in, enthusiastic audience and the potential to catch on quickly.

Target Helps Holiday Shoppers Stay Organized

By Nissa Hanna

What’s Happening

• Who couldn’t use a holiday season manager to stay on top of the all the tasks? Target is stepping in with “Christmas at Target,” an effort that offers online and on-the-go mobile features to help shoppers strategize gift giving and entertaining.

• “Smart-Start Checklists” offer plan-ahead advice for last-minute soirées, Christmas brunch, gift wrapping, merry movies and music, holiday travel, and sustainable celebrations.

• “The Merry Planner” helps consumers with the seasonal countdown. To-do alerts (“get a jump on Christmas cards” and “Print Christmas dinner checklist”) help shoppers stay organized and on time.

• “Perfect Gift Pairings” showcases hot present ideas coupled with select products that fit best-supporting roles.

What This Means to Business

• Shoppers who are juggling a variety of responsibilities during the hectic holiday season could use a helping hand. Retailers have an opportunity to position themselves as partners and resources by coming up with creative and useful planning tools.

• Chaos isn’t confined to the wintertime holidays. Explore other celebratory events (birthdays, Mother’s Day, Independence Day) that also require a high level of organization.

Millennials Market Themselves to Marketers

By Cree McCree

What’s Happening

• What do Millennials want? Ask them. An online forum written by Millennials for companies that want to woo them, The Next Great Generation offers a peer perspective on everything from personal branding to Ford’s demo-targeted Fiesta Movement.

• Some posts parse specific brands like Hulu (love it, but not enough to pay for content). Others pose big questions like “What does a brand have to do to connect?” and throw them open to group discussion by 18-to-25-year-olds.

• Though the site’s still in beta, commentary is consistently sharp. Here’s Brian on branding: “Target is a good example of a monolith brand becoming a person—a real boy!”

What This Means to Business

• No one understands consumer culture better than Millennials, who know when they’re being targeted and want to work the game to their advantage. The Next Great Generation is a must-bookmark site for companies looking to connect.

• Marketing isn’t everything. Posters credit Apple’s success less to its clever ad campaigns than to the excellence of its products, while the now-deceased Sharper Image is faulted for “creepy in-store atmosphere.”

Drinks and Decor: Turning Booze into Art

By Nina Elder

What’s Happening

• BevShots transform drops of cocktails, beer, and wine into pieces of contemporary art.

• To make the boozy graphics, beverages are first crystallized on a lab slide. The slide is put under a microscope, infused with polarized light, and then photographed. The resulting images have a colorful, kaleidoscope look.

• Consumers can choose from nearly 30 different beverage-tinged pieces, including Dry Martini, German Pilsner, and Champagne.

What This Means to Business

• If food is art, why shouldn’t delicious things inspire decorative items? And art that feels personalized—or at least expresses unique aspects of the owner’s identity—clicks with consumers.

• Consumers have a very personal connection to their favorite food—and drinks. Why not extend that passion to areas other than the kitchen?

Climate Changing Rooms

By Nissa Hanna

What’s Happening

• Canadian customers at Mark’s Edmonton, Canada, store don’t have to wonder how well the winter wear holds up in cold climates. The retailer has created a custom walk-in freezer so shoppers can test drive jackets, hats, gloves, and long underwear.

• Mark’s climate changing room is set to a frosty –5 degrees, but brave souls can turn it down to an unthinkably cold –40 degrees.

• If that’s not convincing enough, the room also has fans that kick in the wind-chill factor.

• The Edmonton store is a testing ground for the retailer, who might roll the chilly changing room concept out to its other stores.

What This Means to Business

• How well does outerwear hold up to the elements? Consumers don’t want to find out the answer is “not very well” while on a secluded camping trip or in the middle of a snow storm. A retailer that provides realistic testing conditions establishes itself as a place where consumers can feel confident about the durability, quality, and integrity of their purchases.