Our third instalment of ?Trends watcher?, where brand makeovers, timelessness, futurism and recycling all come under the spotlight.

Packaging: a makeover or the quest for eternal youth

The Coca Cola group has been pretty busy lately. Now they’ve given their flagship product a new look (see Trends watcher n°2), it’s Fanta’s turn to get a new visual identity and packaging concept, along with a whole new design. No more spiral effects – it’s time for vibrant images to come to the forefront of this new look. The logo has also changed: there’s a whole new logo block, and the font is more “pop?.
Basically, the brand has definitely become more modern, although you might wonder how long the new style will stay fresh.


Products and sales outlets: chasing after timelessness

With consumers needing more and more variety, brands are on the lookout for ephemereal concepts and limited editions.

In this area, Nike is without a doubt the most industrious. Every year, they have been bringing out an impressive number of limited editions. Produced in-house or in collaboration with renowned designers, they can entice consumers who are being bombarded with new products.
But these days, just offering limited collections is not enough. So Nike is coming up with whole concepts, like 1924, the collection designed by the crème-de-la-crème of French graphic designers and on sale this summer in a rather original temporary outlet: a barge on the Seine.

This passion for collaboration is not restricted to artists – it’s spreading to include “competitors?. This can be seen with the luxury sector, where big names like Vuitton and Hermès are working with more “modest? brands that are less mainstream. So, we see Hermès commissioning a bag by Issey Miyake and Louis Vuitton working with Rey Kawakubo from Comme des Garçons, who is designing a very limited edition bag. But above and beyond the collections, there’s the whole retail concept (a temporary mini-store in the Omotesando district in Tokyo) that gives the whole thing an extra spark.
To make a mark, brands will have to make more of an event out of their limited editions. It’s not so much the product that is the issue, it’s what you do with it.


Retail: the shop of the future by METRO


Two major marketing trends, the personal touch and customer loyalty, are really making their mark, especially in the area of mass consumption. The food giant, Metro Group, has come up with a video of the supermarket of tomorrow, illustrating how the one-to-one approach can now be extended to a wider audience.

This "Future Store Initiative" incorporates a range of new tools to personalise the shopping experience: customer recognition, personalised prices according to loyalty and interactive terminals throughout the store are just some of the ideas that you’ll see in the videos below.

Culture: nothing is really new, everything is recycled

The event sums up the spirit of the man. The ambitious 'Picasso et les maîtres' exhibition provides the perspective you need to understand the art of this 20th century genius by comparing the innovative painter with his elders.

Whether it’s Cézanne, Manet, Goya or anyone else, Picasso always claimed he had plagiarised their works. An honesty which negates the need for any unfounded comparison, so that we can analyse his transposition, mimicry, misappropriation and distortion. This artistic cannibalism lets us see the original works in a new light, and illustrates the influence that Picasso has had on modern and contemporary design.
So, as well as paying homage to the artist, this exhibition gives us the unimaginable opportunity to admire a large number of works by the Masters, all under one roof.

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais
3, av. du Général Eisenhower Square Perrin
75008 Paris
From 6th October 2008 until 2nd February 2009.