Intro

The Collective by Lewis Silkin recently hosted TCLS LIVE, at The Hoxton in Holborn. The event presented an opportunity for top luxury, lifestyle, and brand-led businesses to come together, exchange ideas and discuss current strategies, opportunities and challenges faced in 2023. We hope that those who attended left with plenty of inspiration and new perspectives!

For those who missed the event, we have summarised the key takeaways from our 5 marvellous guest speakers in this short read, namely:

• Daniel Hulme, CEO, Satalia
• Farzana Baduel, CEO, Curzon PR
• Philippa Wagner, Creative Strategist and Founder, PwC
• James Davies, Future of Work Hub, Lewis Silkin
• Harry Jameson, Founder, PILLAR Wellbeing

Culture of Care

Philippa Wagner, creative strategist, and founder of PwC shared her thoughts on cultural shifts that are tracking across the market and how these are impacting consumer demand.

A report from 2021 found that 75% of people between the ages of 16-34 in the UK agreed that the climate emergency is a direct result of capitalism and because of this, 67% mentioned that they’d like to live under a socialist economic system, but many recognised that this doesn’t always work. However, what we are seeing is a shift in mindset, moving away from an individual mindset-based society to a common collective one; the coming together of businesses and individuals and collaborating in new ways to create benefits for society as a whole, focussing on long-term values and delivering on the four principles of people, planet, prosperity and principles of governance.

Philippa discussed one particular example of this, being an increase in community owned models. Defining the notion of communalism, Philippa talked about community owned hotel Manor DAO, which is using the power of Web3 and blockchain to crowd fund and bring the community together to create a decentralised autonomous organisation. Members purchase an NFT artwork which in turn gives them access to the community, including access to the property and the ability to make decisions about what will happen in the design and development of the hotel.

Future of Work – Eight Drivers of Change

James Davies, a founding partner of the Employment team at Lewis Silkin, shared insight from his recent report - Eight Drivers of Change, in which he considers how emerging trends are evolving to shape the world of work and what this will mean for the future (a copy of the full report can be found here).

James gave an overview of some of the key takeaways of the report, and in particular the impact of differing generational attitudes and values, highlighting studies that have shown a real divergence in attitudes of millennials and Gen Z compared with older generations and how employers will need to recognise and adapt to these differences when building their workforces.

In particular, employees of today are looking for:

• purpose in their work - personal and organisational purpose that coincides with their own values;
• reward - this has to be transparent and consistent;
• engagement - employers need to display effective communication;
• education - employees are actively looking for effective training and development (the UK spends on average half of the EU average on training and developing their people);
• flexibility - Covid has meant this is a deciding factor for many employees;
• autonomy - people not only want flexibility but also control over how they exercise their flexibility; and
• collegiality - employees are more likely to stay at a workplace if they are connected within the workforce and feel a sense of belonging.

The Impact of AI

For this session, we were joined by Daniel Hulme, one of the world’s leading experts on AI and emerging technologies, to discuss the future challenges and opportunities for AI in an everchanging and fast paced environment.

Daniel highlighted some of the exciting applications for AI and how it can enhance our lives in many beneficial ‘adaptive’ ways:

• it can aid in the automation of mundane tasks, allowing individuals to utilise their skillsets more efficiently;
• it has revolutionised content generation with applications such as ChatGPT and Dalle.e being used to augment human creativity by translating natural language to art generation; and
• it can extract complex insights from data science and make complex decisions based on this, by analysing data in ways the human brain might not be able to.

However, despite the obvious advances, technology is having a somewhat detrimental impact on society. A few concerns revolve around no longer distinguishing what’s true from what isn’t due to misinformation and the surge of bots; economic singularity, which is where technology will essentially replace human jobs, leading to mass technological unemployment (which the economy is not equipped for); social singularity, where debt is cured; and technological singularity, where we build a brain smarter than us, and ‘superintelligence’ becomes a reality.

In summary, the bounds of AI seem infinite, but there needs to be a strong purpose and collective enterprise to address this. Is AI really as terrifying as some claim it to be, and will it suddenly eradicate the need for humans and take over human life as we know it? Or will it become a form of intelligence beyond the capabilities of a physical human brain, enhancing our everyday experiences? You decide.

Horizon Scanning

Farzana Baduel gave us some wonderful insight into the world of Public Relations (“PR”), introducing the notion of ‘horizon scanning’ to enable brands to monitor for reputational vulnerabilities and act fast to remedy risk where a crisis has ensued. As a PR expert, Farzana has worked across government, corporate, consumer and cultural issues.

Love it or hate it, PR is a powerful tool to manage the dissemination of information to the public and the media, especially in the multipolar times we’re currently in as organisations have to navigate economic and political turbulence in a world of polycrisis. One must look at what’s happening within the political, social, technological, legal and environmental climate to assess how to approach PR.

People often wonder what the difference between marketing and PR is. Marketing focusses on the customer, whereas PR considers the stakeholder, such as the employee, the government, etc. Stakeholders outside of the customer now have a voice, and external voices outside of a brand are often trusted more about what is being said about the company, than the company itself. Reviews are highly influential, both positive and especially negative. Tell me you haven’t browsed aimlessly at a Yelp or Amazon review – I’ll wait. The same ideology applies for employees and the supply chain – they’ll be honest.

Horizon scanning is to be aware of sentiments and ensure an approach is authentic and aligned with the brand, while trying to mitigate risks and threats as effectively as possible. Crises erupt left, right and centre however, and it’s impossible to predict all kinds of risks. Preparation is always key though.

Wellness/Pillar Wellbeing

Harry Jameson, CEO and Co-Founder of Pillar Wellbeing, discussed the gap in the global market for a holistic approach to preventative health and wellness.

He commented that the two key drivers of wellness are longevity and optimal daily performance, and that both of these drivers have gained prominence in consumer consciousness following the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, he identified that there has recently been an acceleration in the consumption of “recovery”, as consumers become more and more interested in services and products related to nutritional and sporting recovery.

Both longevity and optimal daily performance are ripe for disruption by the tech sector (in particular, AI) and the real estate sector. In fact, hotels are increasingly focussing on wellness and their offerings related to nutrition, movement, and recovery. This in turn is driving value in real estate. Harry used Soho House’s wellbeing offerings as an example of using wellness as a great anchor to drive revenue through a membership model.

Conclusion

Our fantastic speakers provided invaluable insights on the future of luxury and lifestyle. Many of the topics covered by our speakers are explored in much further detail within The Collective’s 2023 Report, which can be found here.

Want to join The Collective, and contribute to the debate?

Email us at: The.Collective@lewissilkin.com