About Howard Saunders

The Retail Futurist, otherwise known as Howard Saunders, is a writer and speaker whose job it is to see beyond retail’s currently choppy waters. Howard spent the first twenty five years of his career at some of London’s most renowned retail design agencies, including Fitch & Company, where he created concepts, strategies and identities for dozens of British high street brands. In 2003 he founded trend-hunting agency, Echochamber, inspiring his clients with new and innovative store designs from across the globe. Howard relocated to New York in 2012 where the energetic regeneration of Brooklyn inspired his book, Brooklynization, published in 2017. His newfound role as champion for retail’s future in our town and city centres gave rise to the title The Retail Futurist. Howard has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs and podcasts for BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, the British Retail Consortium, Sky News Australia and TVNZ, New Zealand. His talks are hi-energy, jargon-free journeys that explore the exciting, if not terrifying, retail landscape that lies ahead. When not in retail mode, Howard has recorded, literally, thousands of digital music masterpieces, most of which remain, thankfully, unheard.

THE REVELATION

True story. While on my ‘tapas tour’ of Andalusia last summer I wandered into a church in the heart of Seville. It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy church in that it didn’t appear in the tourist guides or anything, but the doors were open and it certainly looked gloriously alluring.

The place was empty so I settled on a pew right at the front in order to take in the ridiculously Baroque splendour of the golden arches, (very much not McDonald’s) the intricate frescoes, elaborate carvings and pale marble statues. Talk about immersive, I was utterly dumbstruck by the overwhelming, majestic symmetry of it all. That’s when it happened.

Maybe I’m a late developer, but in an instant everything became crystal clear: I saw the locals from 1460 or 1580 or whenever bent low in prayer, barefoot with ragged clothes wrapped around themselves respectfully. I saw the priest in his gleaming white robes wielding a golden staff. I could hear the Latin incantations as they reverberated off the holy relics amid the cries of babies and the barking coughs of the sick and elderly. Eventually, the bone shaking crescendo from the gilded organ pipes brought the spectacle to a climax as the humble congregation fumbled in sackcloth purses to pay their dues. And as they shuffled off to their damp, draughty mud-brick dwellings they knew that god would take care of them, both in this life and the next. After a show like that, who could doubt it?

But this was not the revelation. My revelation was that this is precisely what we’re witnessing today. Our high priests may not dress in robes or wear the Mitre, or mutter their warnings in classical tongues, but the message is exactly the same: “follow us and you will be saved. Give us just a little more of your earnings and we will make things right. Can you not see? We are the great and the good. We are here to help you. Do not be distracted by our possessions or our wealth. We have the ear of God. We know what is best for you. Do the right thing. It’s for the greater good.”

Don’t get me wrong. Those chisel featured priests may not have been the life of the party but they weren’t evil. They believed they were saving our souls and controlling our aspirations for the greater good. You can’t have poor people running around doing their own thing for god’s sake! Today’s high priests are no different. They wield their power because, like the golden staff, they hold it. It’s one of our inherent failings: give a man the power to decide who should be allowed to drink lemonade and he will use it.

We instinctively know this and yet still we remain silent. They threaten to take our boilers, our gas hobs and our log burners and we do little but shrug. They tell us to travel less, drink less and not to enjoy ourselves too much. They tell us we have too many possessions, to lower our aspirations and to cut our cloth accordingly…while they drive us relentlessly to the cliff edge of eternal debt. They tell us our long held values are irrelevant, our families outdated, our logic skewed and our anger misplaced. They tell us to shower less, turn down the thermostat, switch the tap off whilst brushing our teeth and not to forget to wash our yoghurt pots before they’re carted to landfill. Banqueting billionaires beg us to eat fake meat as they gorge themselves on bloody venison. Inveterate corruptocrats lecture us on the importance of kindness and charity whilst lining their pockets with our taxes. The elites lie to us about absolutely everything because they do not trust us with the truth and silence those that dare question their narrative. They crow about how much they help us and censor how much they hurt us. But in spite of all this, I do not blame the ‘nanny state’, for like our Sevillian priests they believe they act for a higher authority. No, we are to blame for deriving comfort from our own infantilisation. Shame on us.

Yes, this blog may be nothing but a personal rant about the state we’re currently in but I’m convinced things have shifted dramatically post Covid. The mainstream narrative is crumbling and you can smell it on the streets; in bars, pubs and coffee shops, on the bus, anywhere that people gather the conversation quickly turns to the visceral distrust of all the bigs: big state, big pharma, big finance, big science, big government and big media. 

Yesterday’s churches have, of course, been usurped by contemporary colossal structures. Today’s banks and insurance companies reach much further to the heavens, to make you feel even smaller than that old lady from Seville back in 1620. But just like the church the job of big finance is not to make you richer…just happier with your lot. Stay down there they say. Oh, and we’re increasing your premium to help gold plate the clock in our lobby. I do hope you do the right thing. Your custom is important to us.

Perhaps because we’re distracted or guilty or both we’ve allowed the elite class to convince us that the future will be a place of penitence, sacrifice and contrition. These prohibition fanatics have sold us what is clearly a religious doctrine, but one that has, most disturbingly, completely captivated our children. But if we have even the tiniest fragment of optimism left within us we must know that the future can never be about diminishment.

The next time you spot the levies on your gas bill know that you are just another poor churchgoer rummaging for coppers to pay for extra gilding. Never let the diminishers diminish you for they do not have your best interests at heart. So, hang on tight to your boiler and stand firm against your gas hob. 

Preferably with a big fat Cuban cigar clenched between your teeth.

Join me on X  @retailfuturist  for cherry picked proof that we’re all going mental.

  Howard Saunders   Mar 19, 2024   Future   0 Comment   Read More

PUPPY LOVE

Most trends born in California become diluted by the time they arrive on our damp and cynical shores: yoga, veganism, vegetable smoothies, poke, Botox and fillers, tooth whitening therapy, therapy, the whole athleisure-wear thing, boho-chic, hyper-gluteal augmentation, even the opioid crisis…all fade a little on their long journey across the Atlantic in order, perhaps, to acclimatise to life beneath our sullen skies. But there’s one trend that has surely been amplified en route from La La Land: canophilia, aka our obsession with dogs.

Unlike the Americans, we Brits have loved our pet dogs for over six millennia as dog culture really kicked off in 4000BC, just at the end of the stone age. So essentially, our relationship with our favourite pet rolled along perfectly happily for six thousand years…until something shifted post Covid. A cultural blip in the matrix perhaps, but today it’s impossible to go to a shop, a bar or a restaurant without a dog sniffing at your ankles.

Restaurants desperate for trade have caved. Perhaps in the name of inclusivity they hang ‘dog friendly’ signs in the window above a shiny bowl as if allowing dogs is the magic bullet they need to get back to profit. A couple of years ago I guess it looked kinda cute, but frankly it’s hard to walk down a local high street now without accidentally booting a tin bowl along the kerb. These are the places I vow never to visit, and I’m sure I can’t be alone.

Q. How does your dog smell? A. Terrible.

The age old joke wasn’t wrong. Owners who exclaim ‘My dog does not smell!’ have been inoculated with doggy stench daily over many years having never left Rover’s side. They even allow him to sleep on their bed for god’s sake. Polite customers, meanwhile, pretend it’s absolutely normal for a bear of a beast to be slumped beneath the next table even when the whiff of wet fur wafts across their creme brûlée. And if you feel an exploratory tongue douse the back of your hand at the bar you can be damn sure that it’s recently been intimate with a dog’s rear end, if not another’s then its own. Peculiarly, for a nation addicted to hand sanitiser we remain stumm. Non dog owners are mute onlookers as they watch their favourite places become, literally, dogged by mollycoddled mutts.

Cultures twist and turn but ultimately they settle by consensus. That’s why we don’t see ‘no bicycles’ signs outside bars and pubs. Culture has deemed it inappropriate to lean your muddy mountain bike alongside your table, so there’s no need to ban it. But since the ‘blip’ we must now endure legions of snapping, snarling, sneezing, yapping, gnashing, drooling, farting hounds in every establishment. And bikes don’t do any of that. Meanwhile, in crazy California where all this began, dogs are banned from restaurants and even stores that sell packaged food.

Hyper-anthropomorphism is hard to say, but nonetheless very real. Today’s dog lovers talk to their pets in cartoon baby voices, celebrate their birthdays (the day they arrived) buy them Puppucinos from Starbucks, doggy ice creams at the seaside, create Instagram pages for them, tie bibs around their necks at mealtimes and push them in doggy strollers when the poor darlings can’t keep up with the pace around Waitrose. They take up seats in restaurants, bars, buses and trains as if we must all accept that the ironically named ‘Charlie’ with the flappy tongue is simply one of us. It’s gone too far.

Clearly these beloved animals are the children we never had. It’s a dog’s job to be the child that never grows up and tells you to f*** off, basically. But they’re also living, breathing status symbols. In the countryside it’s not unusual for a family to rock up at the pub, fully Huntered and Barboured, accompanied by a brace of pony sized brutes as if to flaunt the fact that they can afford to buy steak every day of the week. They may as well drive their Range Rover into the bar. It would be less of a nuisance.

Back in the pre-gastro days it was heartwarming to see a local farmer nestled by the fire, his loyal Collie alert to any unusual comings or goings. But recently dog culture has morphed into an obsessive cult; a perverse display of narcissism that says ‘sod you, these are my true friends’. On a serious note, I believe it plays perfectly into the current phase of self loathing mankind is going through. We may love our kith and kin, but we despise humanity for everything that’s gone wrong on planet Earth. After all, no dog ever started a war.

We all know that teenage stabbings have become so commonplace the press is no longer interested. But leave a pooch in a car without the window ajar for more than fifteen minutes and you’ll be on the front of the Daily Mail beneath the word ‘MONSTER’ the next morning. Seriously, our priorities are way out of kilter.

I may not be a dog lover, but I’m no hater. I can more than appreciate the majesty of an Irish Setter bounding along a deserted beach in pursuit of a far flung stick of driftwood. I can even see it in slow motion as it shakes itself dry, water droplets glistening in the late afternoon sunshine. I simply ask that you don’t bring it sweating and panting into the pub to do that. That’s my point. Dog lovers, please spare a thought for those of us who don’t love your dog, but can definitely smell it. And restaurateurs, please be brave enough to say that your dog days are over.

Bone appetit!

Join me on X  @retailfuturist  for cherry picked proof that we’re all going crazy.

ps. Big thanks to Bing/Dall-E for all the imagery

  Howard Saunders   Feb 14, 2024   culture, Food, gourmet, pizza, Retail, Uncategorized   0 Comment   Read More

NECK ON THE LINE TIME

2023 will be remembered for the year everyone went on strike. Doctors, nurses, Tube drivers, train drivers, firemen and teachers all colluded to ensure that absolutely nothing of any significance happened. Even Hollywood shut down. Were it not for the entertainment provided by Philip Schofield, Huw Edwards, Nicola Sturgeon and Matt Hancock our mental health would certainly have tipped us into an existential crisis. The only truly historic moments of 2023 were that loooong coronation and the fact that The Beatles capped off their unsurpassable legacy with the dreariest single ever released.

So, let me put my neck on the line and make some pertinent prognostications for the coming year.

Are Friends Electric?

Despite what we’ve been told will happen, despite a virtual consensus that electric vehicles are our prescribed future, there’s a nagging voice inside the majority of us questioning whether it’s the future we want. We may express our concerns as ‘range anxiety’ initial cost or the eco-truth about cobalt and lithium mining, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s something else entirely. I think that an average family living in a semi in Bolton or Bournemouth cannot work out for the life of them how to run a cable from their bay window to their EV in the street, assuming they can get a parking spot directly outside. All the political willpower, eco-propaganda, hefty discounts and draconian penalties for non-compliant manufacturers are utterly futile unless they can bridge that little gap from the window to the car. End of.

And if you’re looking for an amazing new year’s bargain you can pick up a two year old, £130k Porsche Taycan, for just over £50k. Yes, it’s the resale value of an electric car that will kill it for the average driver.

Chickens. Home. Roost.

For the last three years London’s cluster of glass and steel stalagmites, once the towering engine rooms of the economy brimming with the brightest young minds, has become a kind of spookily illuminated graveyard to WFH. Turns out those brilliant young minds, given the choice, prefer to watch Countdown in their stained pyjamas than go back to the commute. But thankfully the tide is turning. Plummeting productivity has seen employers nudge, bribe and very occasionally even tell their workers to come back to the office…only when they’re ready, of course. We’re currently witnessing the WFH craze collapse like a chocolate fireguard. Even Zoom founder Eric Yuan, who personally made billions out of WFH, recently admitted that remote working has some serious issues. He said  it leaves his team unable to build trust or a sense of team spirit. “Trust is a foundation for everything,” Yuan said. “Without trust, we will be slow.” Holy sheesh.

GO WILD

Have you noticed how much easier it is not to do stuff? Not washing up, for instance, not making the bed or not cleaning the windows. Well, this is a trend that’s caught on so fast that councils up and down the country no longer trim verges or cut the grass, but instead erect little wooden signs with pictures of bees on them. It’s so cute. This is clearly a trend that began during lockdown when unkempt-chic became the new formal. Things accelerated quickly when the Chelsea Flower Show celebrated not doing stuff with a garden that looked like a disused allotment, complete with a ramshackle shed and stagnant pool. Art.

Ironically, of course, not doing stuff in this instance involved dozens of diesel fuelled journeys delivering weeds, flotsam, jetsam and a multitude of both dying and dead grasses. You don’t need a degree in psychology to realise that this is all part of our self-loathing phase, brought to you by the ‘planet would be much better off without us on it’ brigade. Anyway, my point is, as WFH becomes ever more embarrassing and millions of workers are forced to find their trousers once again, unkempt-chic will be replaced by sharp suits, ironed shirts and manicured gardens. You’ll see.

US of A

2024 is a massive year for the US with its hyper-tribal, globally scrutinised upcoming election. It should be a lot of fun this time as it arrives amid an unprecedented maelstrom of indictments, trials and corruption allegations along with a big fat dollop of full blown dementia. But here’s the thing. This super heavyweight rematch, this global tug of war that the entire planet is fixated on will come to nothing as neither Biden nor Trump will make it. My prediction is that a nifty manoeuvre, a Democrat sleight of hand worthy of David Copperfield, (had to get his name in somewhere) will unveil an oven-ready Gavin Newsom or similar. By the way, I still haven’t given up on my 2015 prediction that the first female president of the United States will be Michelle Obama…so I’ll just leave that hanging there for the time being.

ESG

A handful of years ago the ESG bandwagon seemed like a pretty good bet. Big corporations could use it as a beautiful smokescreen: virtue signalling on the global stage at the same time as trying to get us to buy more of whatever it is they’re selling. Big companies simply love regulation as it keeps their nimble competitors busy with paperwork and unable to innovate. And you don’t have to be Joe Rogan to know that Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street, the brainchildren of ESG, pretty much run the world, so it’s a forgone conclusion right? Well no. The only thing bigger than these three multi trillion dollar behemoths is (drumroll)…the market.  That’s right, things are starting to turn. The debanking scandal has played a critical role here by revealing how much the elites genuinely hate us. Their over paid, sycophantic smiles have gently dimmed now that we know they truly believe their views are of a higher status than ours. So, as 2024 progresses expect to watch ESG gently crumble like RAAC concrete during little Johnny’s morning assembly.

A Bug’s Life

In 2012 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established a company dedicated to promoting the inclusion of bugs in our diet. A year later, completely coincidentally, the UN announced that all of us little people should be eating mealworm burgers and locust patties in order to save the planet. So over the last decade, with the help of their media allies, the elites have been drip feeding us good news bug stories in order to soften us up for their evil masterplan. Every daytime TV show in the US at some point featured a Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Justin Timberlake alongside a fat celebrity chef grinning inanely as they pretended to enjoy food made from grasshoppers and cricket flour. It’s all good fun, of course, sharing bug kebabs with James Corden, but it’s pretty obvious what’s happening here: giggling celebs are the carrot whilst ‘Beef causes Cancer’ headlines are the stick. Thankfully, it hasn’t worked.

Meanwhile Beyond Meat and its kin had a bloody good bash at convincing us to switch to their meat taste-a-likes. Super powered by some world class PR it looked like things were turning their way for a while. However, once the virtue hunters began to properly scrutinise their byzantine processes and unpronounceable ingredients it became clear that these new foods slotted more neatly into the hyper processed category than anything virtuous. Ouch. The sweet sound of backfire resounded right across the planet. Almost overnight, locally grown meat has been reborn as a simple, healthy, untainted alternative to the freakish new fangled alchemy being forced down our throats. So 2024, I suggest, is the year we can finally put this matter to bed.

SUPERBOTS!

We all pretty much get what a bot is now. It’s the thing that sends you that annoying text asking how amazing the service was. But in the year since the launch of ChatGPT these bots have become super-charged with an intelligence much greater than yours. In the first half of 2023 we watched open mouthed as AI spat out research documents, proposals, scripts and essays that read like a real grown up wrote them, one that went to a proper university! While we were still agog with amazement, dizzy with excitement at all the things we could get it to do, along came the doom-mongers to poop in the middle of the party. The end of the world was nigh yet again: they warned us of tipping points, singularity and showed us clips from Terminator 2. It was all very disconcerting.

The good news is the world is still here but perhaps unsurprisingly AI seems unwilling to do all the mundane jobs like we were promised. So instead of working 24/7 in an Amazon warehouse, running governments or big corporations like Barclays or PWC, AI has decided to focus his genius on art, illustration and animation. And some talent it is too. He can turn his hand to anything from classical Renaissance frescos through to cutting edge graphic novels. He can emulate any artist you care to name and even reproduce other iconic works in their style…in seconds. Very soon he’ll be able to instantly produce short movies featuring characters you describe to him, using your dialogue.

Judging by his swift ChatGPT responses he’s certainly well read and incredibly knowledgeable, even if his writing style makes annual reports sound almost perky in comparison. But art is definitely his specialist subject and if you’re not harnessing or at least exploring his talent you really are missing out. This is seriously significant for 2024. The imagery that decorates and dresses our world, the visuals that entertain us on hoardings, bus sides and shelters, product packaging, magazine covers, instagram ads, film trailers, book covers, video clips, illustrations, diagrams, shop signage, carrier bags…all of it sits in wait, whether it knows it or not, for an AI makeover. This almighty creative resource is about to be unleashed on us. Welcome to 2024.

Join me on X  @retailfuturist  for random retail-ish ramblings

  Howard Saunders   Jan 11, 2024   Uncategorized   0 Comment   Read More