Finance & Money

Damien Hirst, the highest paid living artist and most provocative of the YBAs, is becoming a free agent. The art world’s answer to Reggie Jackson says he will sell his latest body of work at auction, circumventing de rigueur gallery sales. “The world is changing,” said Hirst, and as always, he’s ahead of the curve.

Hirst is a rare breed–both artist and salesman. This isn’t the first time he’s stunned the art world with his business savvy (and his dead animals). Back in November of 2003, the artist bought back 12 of his seminal pieces from benefactor Charles Saatchi for $15 million. By owning his key early work, Hirst sought to control his own market, deciding which pieces to hold on to or place in museums or collections. Were these works to be sold en masse, as Saatchi is known to do, the value of his works could have taken a substantial hit. This past February, Hirst also opened a store on High Street called Other Criteria, designed to “democratize” art–or at least commoditize it.

His former rep Larry Gagosian isn’t showing any outward ire. He has already said he’ll attend the Sotheby’s auction in September, paddle in hand. Hirst is hoping to set some new sales records at the two-day affair, titled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever,” where enough art to constitute two gallery shows will be on the block. The pièce de résistance will be a bull submerged in formaldehyde—head crowned by a solid gold disc, hooves and horns cast in gold—inside a gold-plated stainless steel and glass box. The work, called “The Golden Calf,” is expected to fetch at least £12 million.

[via Slam X Hype]

The recent summer surge in gas prices has finally trickled down to American teenagers. The tradition of aimlessly cruising on summer nights appears to be a rapidly disappearing ritual. This distinctly American practice was best captured in the 1970s hit, “American Graffiti.” With the downturn of summer employment opportunities and the upswing of gasoline prices, parents and teens alike are looking for alternatives to driving.

A recent article from the New York Times reports:

Perhaps the summer’s most visible change is occurring in the downtown strips of small towns where, for decades, cruising on Friday and Saturday nights has been a teenage rite of passage. It is a peculiarly American phenomenon — driving around in a big loop, listening to music, waving at one another and wasting gasoline.

“We’re not cruising around anymore, with gas costing $4.50 a gallon,” said Ewelina Smosna, a recent graduate of Taft High School in Chicago, as she hung out the other night at the Streets of Woodfield, an outdoor mall in Schaumburg. “We just park the car and walk around.”

NYT: As Gas Prices Rise, Teenagers’ Cruising Declines

A French court has ordered online auction house eBay to pay LVMH damages for assisting in the sale of knock offs - while a ruling on a complaint by Tiffany in the US is expected soon. The Financial Times reports:

In spite of Ebay’s claims to have cracked down, in some markets the sale of large numbers of counterfeit luxury goods continues unabated.

After a long-running feud with some of the world’s most famous luxury brands, the moment of truth for Ebay may finally have arrived.

A French court yesterday handed down the most significant judgment to date, ordering Ebay to pay nearly €40m ($63m) to LVMH.

Meanwhile, a judge in the US is due to rule at any time on a similar case brought by Tiffany. “This gives Ebay significantly more incentive to adjust its business model to make it less advantageous for counterfeiters,” said Geoffrey Potter, a US legal expert on counterfeiting issues.

Together, those cases represent the biggest attack on Ebay’s way of doing business in the company’s 13-year history.

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Moment of truth for Ebay on fake luxury goods

Observations from a conversation with a Saturn car sales guy from Chicago at an airport bar in Newark:

So you buy your large ’safe’ tank of an SUV a few years back when gas was $2 a gallon and enjoy the open road. Then gas doubles in price and keeps going up. So you want to get a smaller version - maybe not go back to a car but a medium size Saturn SUV because it’s got better mileage - but you can’t buy it because you haven’t the cash because no one wants to buy your old SUV….

Trusting your “gut instinct” when making decisions is a time tested method of creative types and business people alike. Sometimes logic has to be thrown to the wind and you need to go with the option that just feels right. This  tactic is being expanded upon, as major companies are now turning to the services of professional “intuitors”, commonly known as psychics.

Newsweek points us to the story of Laura Day, who’s paid $10k a month as a psychic consultant:

When Seagate Technology, the $11 billion-a-year maker of hard drives for the Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox, went searching for a consultant to run one of its management workshops in the fall of 2006, it bypassed the usual list of Silicon Valley gurus. Instead, Seagate’s executive director of software engineering, Gabriel Lawson, invited Laura Day—a stylish New Yorker with no tech experience—to train his Colorado-based team. “She was amazing,” Lawson tells NEWSWEEK, recalling Day’s quick insights into the poor coordination between the company’s research and marketing teams. “Anybody who can afford her will get 100 times their money’s worth.” What exactly is Day’s expertise? While she likes to downplay it as mere “intuition,” her clients prefer another explanation: she’s a psychic.

[via The Huffington Post]

Looking up as you stagger from the Old Town bar in New York, you can see the messaging that the Capital One management must use to train their sales staff. Words stuck to the window say:

Let’s pin them down and close the sale

Don’t you just love being a consumer.

Our recent trip to Europe kept us asking our local friends, “Do you mind if we borrow some cash, they won’t take our credit card.” It wasn’t currency exchange uncertainty that made retailers refuse us in Germany and the UK - it was our lack of chip’n'pin technology.

Europe seems to be scared about being ripped off and if you go with an old fashioned credit card (i.e. US) then you’re increasingly likely to be refused. Our plastic was refused at a grocers in Victoria Station in London, a supermarket in Hamburg and a pizza restaurant in Munich.

While still popular, Mattel-owned American Girl Dolls were in their prime about a decade or two ago and elementary-aged girls across America clamored for clothing and accessories for the dolls – as well as matching items for themselves. Today’s girls have the same interests in dolls, only the clothing and dolls they’re buying never leave the internet. Forbes reports that while teen-geared stores have experienced lagging sales for the past couple seasons, sales at StarDoll, the online doll community, is booming.

YPulse says:

It is fascinating to me that teens (and parents, who most likely man the money) are willing to fork over a few dollars here and there for virtual clothes, yet they are spending less and less on actual wearable threads. What kind of satisfaction does purchasing online fashion for dolls bring?

Because Stardoll users are mostly tweens and a handful of teens, I think young, wallet-friendly stores like H&M, Forever 21, and even Old Navy would be able to build a new audience and get in-store exposure through the website.

…If these stores could set up direct links that enable users to buy clothes for their Stardolls’ wardrobes and their own closets in one click, it would be incredibly interesting to see what kind of affect this would have on profits.

Forbes: How Technology Can Save Retailers

[via Ypulse]

The New York Times says a mosquito net charity seems to have connected with people in way the cooler charities could only dream of. The charity raises money for a new type of net that kills or repels mosquitoes for three to five years. The NY Times says:

Unusual allies, like the Methodist and Lutheran Churches, the National Basketball Association and the United Nations Foundation, are stoking the passion for nets that prevent malaria. The annual “American Idol Gives Back” fund-raising television special has donated about $6 million a year for two years. The music channel VH1 made a fund-raising video featuring a pesky man in a mosquito suit. It is an appeal that clearly resonates with young people.

…Naomi Levine, an expert on philanthropy at New York University, said young people “more than ever want to do something. You won’t find them giving money to research,” she added. “It’s too far off. But a net is something you can hold in your hand. And any time young people get interested in any form of philanthropy, it’s a good thing.”

A $10 Mosquito Net Is Making Charity Cool - NYTimes.com
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