Peep Insights: An Interview With Marco Bevolo On The Future Of High End

Since the coining of the term masstige, a combination of the words mass and prestige, we have seen luxury for the masses range from Louis Vuitton handbags to a Starbucks Frappuccino. In this fast-changing aspirational society, the definition of luxury is constantly evolving and taking new forms. To get a peep inside the future of high-end, we spoke with Marco Bevolo, a Director at Philips Design, who was a pioneer in the creation of CultureScan, an ongoing trend forecasting research project investigating cultures, aesthetics and design at the regional and global level. He serves on a number of extra-curricular advisory boards in art foundations and non-profits, and is also a co-author of the upcoming book “Platinum by Design” (provisional title) which provides an insightful look into the future of High End and is set for publishing by Wharton School Publishing this year.

The book focuses on the intersection of social trends, designer visions and an in-depth understanding of human behaviors. Its unique future insights are validated by over seventy interviews with key opinion leaders and experts including: Markus Langes Swarovski, Member of the Board, Swarovski (Wattens, Austria); Scott Williams, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Morgans Hotel Group; Nick Compton, Features Editor, Wallpaper Magazine; Roland Heiler, Director of Design, Porsche Design (Austria), among others. We are very grateful to Marco Bevolo for shedding light on five luxury related questions.

1) What do you consider to be the future of high-end and how do you see its evolution?

There are several directions, and they will all overlap more or less, depending on the particular region or even country. Two key directions are sustainability and limited editions. Sustainability, sustainability, sustainability: as Lexus has been teaching to the world, here lies the greatest opportunity to do well by doing good.

Limited editions, special editions, items for collections: from Muji to vintage couture, the world of art sampling and collecting will be a reference, as the artifact will become a centre of emotional focus.

2) Which categories will be most impacted by the evolution of high end?

High End will be pervasive, some of the most relevant categories will be: wellness, well being and physical balance, down to preventive healthcare solutions; urban development and city design: think of the re-qualification of advanced economy countries and of BRIC new cities; interior design, even more than it is nowadays - you can bet 2009 Salone del Mobile in Milan will beat the 2008 visitors’ record.

3) How will this impact global capitals and other cities?

We see cities as crucial to the High End and its evolution in the near future, as they will be the engine and the core engine of future lifestyles. In the particular area of urban futures, our book leveraged precious sources, from Hakuhodo’s Global Habit survey on more than 30 cities worldwide, and the consumption dynamics there, to the Philips Design future research project, featuring contributors like Richard Rogers, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi, and more. Key cities in the adoption of High End solutions will be the leading metropoleis in the world, from Tokyo to Sao Paulo, from Shanghai to the New European capitals. Also very important to the definition of future High End, new “cultural capitals”, like Miami, Basel or Turin. Here, the new will emerge from the combination of strong regional traditions with new stimuli: just think of Turin and its Slow Food movement, or Miami/Basel and its consolidated role in the whole DesignArt movement.

4) What are some product examples that illustrate the direction of high end?

I would suggest two examples. The first is the “Active Crystals” line by Philips Swarovski, with its heart-shaped USB key: a true re-discovery of the more anthropological meaning of the word: “memory”. Secondly, the “mother of all High End”, the FIAT 500 - the Italian maker’s come back, and a serious challenge to the Mini’s of this segment.

Both products are the expression of authentic emotions, highly curated aesthetics and new ways to apply technology for people. And all of them combine mass appeal with beauty, and high margins with great distribution.

5) What have you personally found most inspiring about this research?

The opportunity to meet and engage in deep conversations with the likes of Markus Langes-Swarovski, Concetta Lanciaux, Mark Dunhill and the more than seventy experts who contributed to the project proved a unique chance to discover the world of luxury and High End, first hand. Secondly, the opportunity to work with our research partners and co-authors, to create new synergies between journalistic interviewing and statistic analysis, in one continuum. To elaborate, the qualitative incorporated a journalistic tone of discussion, though the questionnaires were unified and calibrated as for every Deplhi future study. In continuity, future projections were extracted with the statistic methodology of RDE (Rule Developing Experimentation), with more than 500 qualified respondents. We believe we built a methodological system for future studies that offers the highest degree of dialog between qualitative and quantitative research, but I must let the results speak to that. All in all, a huge project that was indeed worth the high effort required.

Philips Design

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