Monthly Bites

In case you missed it, here is a roundup of our most popular content over the past month.

Insight: 20 questions about all things ESG

We played twenty questions with Mark Schumacher, Saffron’s Associate Strategy Director. From ESG best practices to top tips, Mark gives his perspective on Environmental, Social and Governance for brand managers in this interview.

Read the full interview here

Insight: Employee Value Proposition

Luz Erhardt, Chief Client Officer at Saffron, shares the importance of modifying the way brands evaluate and reward the performance of their people in the wake of the pandemic. 

Watch the full video here:

Recommendation of the month: The World According to Colour: A Cultural History

Saffron Strategist, Efekan Dundar, recommends this read. He says it’s a "wonderfully written odyssey through our human infatuation with colours - and how their influence has spanned continents and cultures to inspire our collective imaginations."

Get the book here

Podcast: Creating portfolios

In this episode, we learn some best practices in portfolio creation from one of our Saffron strategists, Julián Valenzuela. Listen to the episode to get his practical tips on how to grab reader's attention and effectively guide them to discovering what makes you unique.

Listen to the full episode here

Event: Architecture and the metaverse 

Saffron took part in an event co-organised by Vitra and Cosentino in collaboration with the Design Institute of Spain.

Saffron’s Chief Strategy Officer, Fernando Ortiz Ehmann, headed to Barcelona to participate in an open talk to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the metaverse offers in the field of design and architecture.

In other news:

Industry: What does deceptive design mean for brands and the design industry at large?

Deceptive design practices are tricks used in websites and apps that make the user do things that they didn't mean to do, such as buying items or signing up for something.

One of our new Saffron strategists, Julian Valenzuela, states, “Design, when it is impactful, is all about creating habits. The question is whether those habits are positive or negative and wondering who is really benefiting from the project. Consequently, when do we, as designers - if ever - reach a point where we have the chance to choose? When does a designer achieve sufficient status to stand up, challenge the system, and confront unethical decisions? What we need to break from Dark Patterns is to raise awareness of the problem and share the knowledge learned.”

Read the full article here

Industry: How can brands leverage the metaverse to interact with customers?

The Vienna Tourist Board sent an avatar of Freud to Decentraland. Anyone who participates in a conversation with the psycho-analyst gets a chance to win a trip to the City of Vienna. 

Saffron’s Chief Growth Officer Ben Knapp states, “Brands can see the metaverse as an opportunity to discover and define how they want to interact with different audiences. Brand experiences with a creative ethos can be endlessly relevant in exciting new ways. Hence why brand owners can try out different forms of expressing what their brand stands for in different metaverses and learn from how audiences react and interact.”

Find out more about the project here

Thoughts or questions? Leave a comment below or get in touch at [email protected]