WFH – All By Myself Playlist
Isolation, isolation, isolation, isolation, isolation.
A great playlist for a self-quarantine-work-from-home status. Take a melancholy stroll through a self-reflective journey of sound. Sorry for the Green Day song. But even the worst bands can have a moment of inspiration.
Sweden Unlimited Featured in PSFK
Digital experience designer Leja Kress of Sweden Unlimited explains her team’s approach to creating the Watchbox experience—a platform for reselling high-quality watches.
Sweden was recently featured in PSFK’s Expert Insight on How To Design A Resale Marketplace For The Luxury Consumers
Read the full article here.
The worldwide annual watch market is valued at around €50 billion, and a wave of new online marketplaces has rushed in to meet the demand. Key among these is Watchbox, a luxury brand that focuses on reselling high-quality watches that is capitalizing on both an increased interest in luxury goods and secondhand shopping. But even great ideas and platforms need the right user experience.
Sweden Unlimited is a creative agency that designs e-commerce platforms for luxury, fashion and lifestyle brands, and their work has propelled Watchbox—which stresses “personal commerce” instead of classic e-commerce—to a new level of success. Working in tandem, the two implemented live chat support and more personalized experiences to remove the hesitancy that comes with online shopping and resale in particular, especially for luxury items.
PSFK sat down with Leja Kress, CEO and founding partner of Sweden Unlimited, to glean insights from her work with Watchbox on designing an e-commerce experience for the emerging luxury resale market with millennial consumer needs in mind:
PSFK: Could you explain the Watchbox concept and what Sweden Unlimited set out to help them accomplish in redesigning their site?
Leja: Watchbox is a platform for buying, selling and trading pre-owned luxury watches. They are like a marketplace in some ways because customers can buy, sell, or do a combination of both through a trade. But the main difference is that Watchbox owns every piece of inventory on the platform and are responsible for the authentication, verification and proper functioning of every watch they sell.
Our agency recently partnered with Watchbox on a rebrand and website redesign as they upgraded their technology by re-platforming to Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
In terms of UX, what objectives did you have to consider that would be different from a classic retail brief?
Marketplaces can still feel somewhat dubious, so a key objective was to create a strong sense of trust with the UI and UX of the platform. We wanted to create a reliable and trusted brand that conveyed luxury, legitimacy and authority. Having so many different user journeys to consider was definitely a challenge—there are customers that simply want to shop, some that want to sell, some to trade, and many to simply be educated.
The details that are stored about each watch are extremely complex, so there’s a ton of information to display and ways to sort and filter on the site which makes the platform really unique. Showing a lot of information about an item while still conveying a sense of luxury is a tall order, but I think we were able to achieve it.
When we first met with the team, we were surprised to learn how much they really wanted to encourage customers to interact with the people behind the platform, and not simply transact on the site. Watchbox’s CMO, David Kaplan, explained to us that as opposed to an “e-commerce” platform, they call their business “personal commerce” because it is technology-driven to educate the customer, but everyone has access to their traders to help execute what can become a complicated transaction.
How does the consumer-end experience manifest? Does it rely on capabilities like chat assistance, or social media integrations?
Live chat is a great engagement mechanism for them. The same traders that can provide a quote on the phone operate the live chat, so the customer gets the same level of expertise, and even service from his or her own personal client advisor. Even though Watchbox is a technology platform, there is a huge emphasis on the human element. They are very interested in forming relationships with their customers, as they fully understand that a personal interaction adds so much to any luxury buying experience.
Social media is a big driver for them as well. They’re the largest YouTube player in the industry, and Instagram is growing quickly behind it. YouTube and Instagram help to establish or reinforce that trust and credibility in a world where we will not meet most of the people that are spending $10K+ to purchase a luxury watch.
There seems to be a growing list of “middle-tail” retail networks now. What do you think is driving this?
We can see with The RealReal’s recent successful IPOs, luxury resale is growing like crazy. There’s been a democratization of luxury and I think that people, particularly millennials, are drawn to luxury products but don’t feel the need to buy them directly from the retailers themselves. Buying pre-owned or even renting these items allows them to adhere to their values of sustainability. In addition, if you’re going to buy pre-owned luxury items, it’s great having a middle man to do the authenticating for you. Buying luxury on eBay or other open marketplaces has always been incredibly risky.
Why does “middle-tail” retail work for high end products?
I think it works really well for high-end, luxury products. For Watchbox in particular, the fact that the pre-owned watches are not only authenticated but then put through the company’s authorized service center, which has access to parts from all of the largest watch brands, and then resold only when it’s been serviced, helps to eliminate any hesitation one might have to buying such a high ticket item online.
Sweden Unlimited Featured in The Dieline
The Dieline recently ran a feature with Sweden CEO Leja Kress titled “Sweden Unlimited: Women Disrupting the Digital World.”
Have you ever used the Wayback Machine? This handy little tool has served as a way to document the pages of the internet since 1996. You type in a URL, select a date, and get to witness the website in its old form, even all the way back to when the internet was just gaining steam.“If you look at old sites it’s amazing that people were even able to use them,” said Leja Kress. She would know—Leja co-founded design studio Sweden Unlimited in the early days of the web when people thought automatic animations were cool and Flash was the future. And that’s not to say her studio, which began in 1999 alongside her sister Alex and husband Richard Agerbeek, was immune to the common mistakes designers made. But they’ve learned from them, grown with them, and transformed into a powerhouse of a female-driven studio which has worked with fashion brands like Chanel, Marc Jacobs, and Kate Spade.
THE ADVENT OF THE INTERNET
Leja, Alex, and Richard didn’t intend to start their own studio: instead, it formed out of a desire to put their various skills in the arts (including photography and modeling) to use in an innovative way.The World Wide Web arrived in the early 90s, and they began to see “a lot of really ugly websites going up.” Richard decided to get Photoshop and Leja taught herself how to code with daily tutorials, and from there, Sweden Unlimited was born. It proved to be a new kind of creative path that really hadn’t existed before.“There was something nice about teaching ourselves and deciding we weren’t going to do graphic design layouts at a magazine,” Leja explained. “We were able to pick and choose the clients we were interested in, and pick and choose the aesthetic.”Leja and the team have witnessed firsthand how the internet has changed in the past two decades. They also remember many things which many people wish to forget.“We never talked about the user back then,” mentioned Leja. The work was brand-focused, not user-focused. “Sites used to look like it was just a designer going crazy.“We had success in early days because we were able to do whatever the client wanted,” she admitted. “We have done many stupid ideas because it was at the whim of the creative person paying us.”Today, she’s happy to report there’s far more empathy for people visiting a site. A big part of Sweden Unlimited’s job is balancing a brand’s expression of itself and its creativity with how the experience will feel for someone typing in the URL.One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is a brand’s desire to make sure the site expresses who they are. “The way they do it has changed,” Leja added, “but it’s still the ultimate goal.”
Read the full article here.
Sweden Unlimited Featured in AdWeek
It’s quite the family affair at the New York digital agency Sweden Unlimited. Established in 2001 by twin sisters Alex and Leja Kress (chief client officer and CEO, respectively) and Leja’s husband, CCO Richard Agerbeek, the shop started out designing websites for brands during the first internet boom to make the “ugly internet beautiful.”
At the time, the trio was playing in an electro-pop band called Sweden. “When we started our little agency, we didn’t really have a name, so we said, ‘We’re Sweden Unlimited, we’ll do everything and anything’ … we never changed it,” Leja Kress said.
To master “everything and anything,” they had to pick skills up on the fly, like coding. Early on, Sweden Unlimited fashioned websites for rising brands at the time, including designer Alexander Wang, eventually snagging projects for Kate Spade and Michael Kors. It’s grown new business organically ever since.
Today, Sweden Unlimited—with a primarily female staff of 20—offers services like brand strategy and video, social media and editorial content creation, along with design. Most of the shop’s work is clean and simple, but Leja Kress noted what’s unique about Sweden Unlimited is “we don’t try to insert ourselves into the final work … it should feel exactly like the brand we’re working with.”
Full article can be found here.
Creating Content That Reflects Your Brand
by Richard Agerbeek, Chief Creative Officer
When people think about design, they almost always think about the visual. But brands, like people, also have a personality and a story to tell. They also have relationships. And, as with people, the quality of those relationships depends on how dependable, likable and trustworthy they are–how much they are willing to give rather than simply what they want to get or sell.
In the digital space, these messages are conveyed through editorial that is designed to engage clients where they are and to reinforce a brand’s unique identity so as to establish and nurture a healthy long-term relationship that benefits all involved.
Define your audience.
If you work with a brand today, you are already aware that customers are not only people who buy your goods or services—they are your champions and your advocates. Thanks to social media we often call them “followers” but they’re more than that. They are the reason that any brand exists.
So when we say brands need to be better storytellers, what we’re really saying is that brands need to show their dependability, likeability, and trustworthiness over time in order to be desirable. We call it taking an editorial approach to brand communication, and it’s a key ingredient in some of the most successful brand strategies.
At a time when everyone is continuously staying connected through our mobile and stationary devices, people are also reading, consuming, and sharing the content they connect with more than ever before. So, part of this process is determining who your audience is, which new audiences you want to reach, and designing an editorial plan that speaks to them effectively.
Brands are in the mind of the consumer.
You have control over the messaging you send out, but it’s more difficult to influence what consumers actually feel about your brand. That’s because while products exist in the real world, brands exist in the mind of the consumer.
There are many factors that help create a brand. But at the end of the day, what really influences how people think of your brand is when they use your product or service. i.e., staying in a W Hotel, watching a NOWNESS video, or wearing a Lou & Grey sweater. Fortunately, that feeling can be influenced by the content your brands produces, the context in which it is presented and the lifestyle or story it conveys.
This is especially true for fashion where you are not just selling sweaters; you are selling the lifestyle around the sweater. Likewise, for luxury, you are selling a product and how it makes you feel because it’s not luxury unless it makes you feel luxurious.
Your content must reflect that.
Have something to say.
Successful editorial design draws in readers and engages their hearts and minds. The desired outcome should be that the reader wants to spread the word, not simply buy something.
That’s not to say that brands shouldn’t introduce e-commerce into content such as a fashion editorial that lets users tap to learn more about each product and then find out where or how to purchase — but it has to be in a user-centric way. The reason is as practical as it is philosophical: Brands that only use communication to peddle their wares will exhaust the attention spans and goodwill of their audiences and ultimately fail. Conversely, content that entertains and informs guides brand aficionados on an engaging journey that ideally ends in a sale.
Meet your readers where they are.
In the ideal scenario, content strategy—the plan for publishing across digital platforms over time—precedes design. As publications have done for years, brands need to determine their voice, what sorts of content they want to produce, who they want to reach, what those readers’ needs are and how to develop an editorial calendar that reflects all of that.
They also have to consider where their readers are when they are accessing their information. The growth of mobile has forever changed reader behaviors. And now that more websites are taking a responsive design approach, the organization of information, copywriting, and image assets must consider the mobile user first, while also factoring in the desktop user’s more robust content consumption expectations and how that content will render when shared on Twitter or Facebook.
Don’t be a stranger.
Publishing on a reliable schedule and in an authentic voice is essential to building trust and loyalty. Smart brand publishers already know that social media is always on, and that meeting their customers where they are shows that they’re listening and not just broadcasting an agenda. Publishing frequency depends greatly on resources and ability to create original, meaningful content on an ongoing basis. Whether once a day or once weekly, what matters is consistency. A reader that subscribes to Vogue doesn’t want to wonder when the next issue is coming, nor does she want to have to wait four weeks to be informed about what’s happening in the world of fashion. The more brands communicate on a steady basis, the more likely they are to build a following for their content.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Not every brand should launch a blog filled with long-form articles. Maybe a Tumblr or Pinterest approach is better, or perhaps video conveys your brand’s philosophy more appropriately. Just like people, brands have a unique personality that needs to be conveyed through the type and tone of content, frequency of publishing and engagement platform. By embracing and celebrating that uniqueness through considered editorial design, brands can create and nurture ongoing relationships with their clients that survive longer than a single transaction.
Glossy Awards Winner! Best Campaign By A Beauty Brand
In spring 2016, Marc Jacobs launched the “Daisy Daze” campaign and took to the streets of New York in a branded Uber. Daisy Daze, which leveraged design, strategy, marketing and content creation, recently earned the digital agency behind the awareness-generating effort, Sweden Unlimited, the “Best Campaign by a Beauty Brand” trophy at the Glossy Awards June 15.
“Today, when a clever tweet or a social media misfire can make or break a brand, it’s both challenging and terrifying to create an activation that delivers a sense of surprise,” said Leja Kress, CEO and co-founder of Sweden Unlimited, New York. “But without the unexpected, it’s difficult to be heard.
“In that kind of environment an out of home experience, done right, can really move the needle because it has the potential to deliver a brand to consumers in a totally unique way—like an Uber full of daisies—and that gets noticed,” she said.