Easter as an important holiday for many is the result of many different cultures and religions. The history of the Easter basket has a similar lineage. Some of the origins are from ancient pagan customs, some stem from a Judeo Christian background. For many kids, it is about Easter eggs.
Vernal or spring equinox was special time to ancient cultures. It is a time when day and night are equal time. This was a signal that the long winter was finally over and that spring a time of renewal and rebirth. Cultures from the Middle East such as the Hebrews, Arabs, Babylonians, and Assyrians had special traditions such as bringing the first seedling of the new crop to the temples to be blessed. This was in the hope that God would be happy and bless their crops that year. For Christians, you must give up something and fast until after Easter.
Consumers are not cutting back to save money on their chocolate Easter eggs. Many candy stores report business is booming this Easter season. Many consumers admitted with the tough economy everyone is cutting back on spending, but not on chocolate or candy. This is a good example of how "affordable luxury" is a bright spot and smart marketers understand how to leverage this opportunity to get close to consumers. To sustain themselves, luxury goods will be hard pressed to come up with innovative ideas to maintain their presence by providing little treats that people can afford to buy until the economy turns itself around. The key is to maintain emotional connections and not become relevant. It is easy to be irrelevant for many high priced brands. Consumer feel abandoned by luxury brands when they feel they cannot afford them anymore. This is tricky for marketers as they try to uphold their brand image and at the same time cannot afford to disassociate themselves with their customers.
The art of creating or maintaining emotional relationships with brands/objects is not something you can do effectively with advertising if you can do that at all, doesn’t matter how many millions you spend and what you throw into the media mix. Now this guy gets it. William Warren, who runs a furniture and product design consultancy in the UK and also a Senior Lecturer at London Met University. He initiated a project to further explore ideas of built-in sentimentality within our possessions. The aim is to make stronger emotional relationships with our belongings and encourage life-long use.
I really like the idea of life-long use as opposed to our use-and-discard economy which creates a lot of sustainability challenge. He designed some shelves that are available in oak veneered plywood built-to-order to whatever customer’s measurements. They are intended to be used throughout life as storage for personal belongings. The best part is, upon death, the shelves can be easily dismantled and rebuilt as a coffin. A clever idea indeed.
