Will mobile games ever be fashionable?

With technology seemingly dominating nearly every industry in today’s society, it may not come as a huge surprise that Giorgio Armani is the latest top fashion designer to embrace the phenomenon that is the multi-media device – mobile phones to you and I. The news from Milan Fashion Week is that Giorgio Armani has just announced a new mobile phone along with some other equally sleek and sexy-looking electronic devices. It’s a credit-card sized device with a touch-sensitive screen, 3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth. It even boasts a haptic user interface. Armani has joined forces with Samsung on this new venture, perhaps in response to LG Prada or even the iPhone.

Keeping on the Italian fashion and mobile theme, there’s a new mobile game that’s just been launched by Milan’s Bocconi University. It’s a free mobile game that’s called Fashion Empire which gives the gamer a virtual year to take charge of a fashion business. You will be able to do everything from choosing the shop location, overseeing the design and distributing your own clothing lines. If you’re fashion savvy, you even get rewarded with a range of fashionistas visiting your store.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this game is received as fashion isn’t always a mobile game developers most obvious choice of industry. Do mobile phone games and fashion work together? Speaking from a girl’s perspective, the appeal of fashion phones such as the LG Prada is certainly there. And industry feedback tells us that there is the interest. But we can’t forget the Motorola D&G Razr that got some poor press due to it being labeled as tacky. There’s also the argument that, once you get past the sleek design and impressive style of these phones, girls – like anyone else – actually go for functionality over fashion when making their purchasing decision.

But perhaps interactive games like Fashion Empire are the way forward to enhancing this cross-industry convergence. Being able to shop virtually and manage your own fashion empire in the palm of your hand will certainly appeal to certain markets. The extent is yet to be seen. One thing for sure is that mobile is everywhere and games are beginning to emulate every aspect of our reality. And what guy is not going to support these kinds of games if it gets him out of hours being dragged around the shops on a Saturday…

What is beauty?

A simple question, but hard to find an answer to…

Is it about accepting imperfections and enhancing your best bits? Or is it about striving for perfection and hiding all signs of aging?

Personally, I would argue it is the former; but then I would say that because I am originally from Belgium and research has found that the natural look is popular in Europe, with the exception of the UK.

Women in northern Europe are less anxious about their looks and spend less on beauty products than their counterparts in Italy and Spain. However, UK is not following this trend; 59% of women in the UK feel under increasing pressure to look more attractive.

Why this difference? According to Isabella Lepri, an anthropologist from the London School of Economics, the celebrity culture is to blame. I think she may be right. In Belgium, there are no tabloids or celebrity magazines; there is just not a market for such press. Belgian girls are not that bothered about celebrities and therefore they don’t aspire to look like one. Of course, they want to look good – who doesn’t? – but they prefer understated beauty.

It is these observations that make me think celebrity culture is one of the reasons why women in the UK feel more pressure to look good and this is not likely to change overnight. With women spending more on beauty products each year, it is no surprise the UK beauty industry is considered a key market in Europe, worth more than £1bn a year. Looking like a celebrity does not come cheap…

Softly softly catchee consumer...

Advertising’s a funny thing isn’t it? A bit like shouting something out at a party: get it right and everyone laughs with you, or at least tries to remember what you said to pass it on to a friend. Get it wrong and… well, you’d better hope that not that many people were listening.

The problem is the turn around time. No doubt that when the creative team behind Northern Rock’s latest ad came up with it they were pretty chuffed. ‘playtime is over’ it announces, loud and proud across two pages in Esquire magazine (amongst others) this month, with various Newcastle-based sporting heroes staring out of the page. Unfortunately, within days of the magazine going on sale events have given the advert a radically alternative interpretation and now it will have to sit there, visible to anyone who reads the magazine for the next month or so.

That’s the danger with advertising; it’s a juggernaut. The time taken between concept and release leaves it wide open to the various cruelties of fate. Don’t get me wrong - adverts are often fantastic, hitting their mark exactly. I don’t need to give examples - we all have our personal favourites, but ultimately there is an element of luck in hoping that between commissioning, producing and placing the work, no potholes appear in the road. Equally the result of the process can be very hit or miss with some great ideas meeting stony silence while other infinitely less deserving pieces become inexplicable hits – like Barry Scott.

In many ways PR is everything that ad land is not: Immediate, super-targeted and above all, when done right, invisible. Hot topics can be picked up and run with almost instantly; messages can be weaved into stories within hours; the effect is far more powerful than any advertisement because done right consumers don’t even know that it is happening. It’s the drip-drip-drip of the brand message as it makes its way into their consciousness.

Of course things can go wrong, but unlike advertising the cause of this is usually traceable and, crucially, fixable. The best thing about journalists? They are the charcoal filter through which a brand’s story has to pass before it makes it out there. If a story doesn’t make it through it’s no bad thing. If anything you’ve been done a favour: instead you get to go back to it, refine it and resubmit it when it’s ready. Imagine if you could do that with an ad...