INDUSTRY RELATED: MIAMI DESIGN WEEK REVIEW

We skipped Art Basel/Design Miami... let's talk about it

and

Dec 06, 2024

Industry Related is a weekly newsletter to unmask and straight-talk brand comms, from a multi-national, award-winning team that's worked with Airbnb, Diageo, The Eames Institute, Kartell, Harry's, and Savile Row, to name just a few.

Amy reporting here this morning - notably (for this post) from London where it’s a beautifully sunny 51F/10C, and I’m WFB (working from bed) which is my version of WFH since my London flat is above the shop, quite literally.

WE SKIPPED MIAMI…. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT

For the first time in ages, we, as an agency, decided to skip DesignMiami/Art Basel - the event itself and everything surrounding it. We’ve been going continually for longer than I personally care to remember. That includes the 2020 and 2021 pandemic editions, when it, in fact, did still take place because, well, Florida. I’m someone who absolutely craves sun in the winter months and, design fairs aside, December is really a lovely time to be in Miami.

Actual footage of A-K founders spotted on the beach in Miami in years past (c/o Reno 911)

As you will see in our soon-to-be-published Prepper’s Guide to Milan, we start planning at LEAST six months before these “tentpole design events”. For Miami, it is around June when we start the hunt for partnerships and spaces for our clients. What’s new, who’s doing exciting work, what would stand out? It’s also around the time we book our hotel rooms. But we didn’t. What we did do was start asking around… what was the pulse on it? The response was tepid at best - and there was SO much more excitement about the Paris edition (which to be fair is rather typical for the shiny new events) that it wasn’t until after it closed that people even began to discuss Miami at all. By then, we had made the decision to sit it out.

I’m not going to lie to you, we really didn’t push it for clients either. One, because we were feeling OVER IT and we’re usually the ones coming through with ideas for activations so, no idea = no activation. However, more importantly, we’re an agency that takes ROI seriously and it is becoming harder and harder to justify the massive expense it takes to get a bonafide return on that particular investment for brands.

Here are a few of our theories as to why we’re off it (for the moment):

F*cking Traffic
You think I’m kidding. Surely, this can’t be the reason you wouldn’t attend or recommend to clients, you’re saying to yourself. (I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.) Here’s why: it used to be that one could easily bounce from one event to the next and hit up at least five in an evening, plus a dinner, and end the night at Twist. In the last few years, however, something has changed, and the traffic has become BEYOND mental. It takes 45 minutes to get a car (if it doesn’t cancel) and then a good 45 minutes to get anywhere - even if you haven’t left South Beach. What that translates into is that when people get somewhere, they tend to stay there. So getting a considered crowd of select guests to a particular client’s event can be a tall order, even if the quality of content is stellar.
It’s so bad that last year we initiated a partnership between Diageo Luxury and Barton & Gray for tastings on two gorgeous Hinckleys that brought people from The Standard to a marina where they could hop off the boat and into a car and be in the Design District within minutes. Needless to say, it was a hit.
Go Big or Go Home
It seems every inch of Miami is covered with some sort of brand activation - from the parking lots to the hotel loos. So standing out is a tall order - and one that usually involves a lot of cash. Not just to engage a compelling designer, nail the perfect venue (new! unexpected! worth the hellscape of traffic to get there!), and perfect the guest experience - brands also need to drop some serious dollars on chefs, DJs, and for those so inclined… #influencers 🙄
Plenty of Fish in the Sea of Art/Design Fairs
These days, we’re swinging towards authentic human connection as our brand builder. (Reference our Alpha Kilo methodology - The Architecture of Connectivity if you want a deep dive on our philosophy). With there being a glut of art and design fairs these days - there’s a new one every week it seems - we’re being more selective and leaning towards those that are smaller, more curated, and allow for that nice and sticky storytelling. We haven’t given up on Milan Design Week just yet, but Copenhagen is a tempting alternative. And when it comes to the US, we’re leaning WAY more LA Frieze Week than Miami Art Basel.

One thing that could draw us back to Miami next year is that we are big fans of the new owners - Jesse and the Basic.Space team. They are big thinkers, have their finger on the cultural pulse, and understand that great partnerships require creative storytelling. They’re only about a year in, but if anyone can bring the excitement back, it will be them. In the meantime, we will be supporting them in LA and Paris - and in our general blah blah blah (such as this post).

OPINIONS FROM AFAR

From afar, it’s always hard to judge the impact of any one installation, but we will anyway! We know from all the years in attendance that Instagram is only one lens of Miami (design week, shall we call it?) - and the reality of an installation’s resonance on the ground could very well be a different story. Case in point: Alcova. This hyper-cool Milan Design Week transplant eats up the Instagram feed, but the jury is out if anyone actually sells anything IRL. Maybe they’re all too young/new/fresh to care. 🤷🏼‍♀️ It did bring together some exciting designers in a beautiful locale - so really, what more could we ask for? And quite frankly, since we are reporting from afar, I’d say they get 4/5 stars as at a minimum they cornered the content seekers. (One could also argue that there are more people chasing content in Miami than are actually in the market to buy anything, but that’s another story).

Another brand that seemed to be on every feed and round-up was Jaguar - fresh off its vvvv controversial rebrand that everyone and their cat had an opinion on. Say what you will, EVERYONE seems to be talking about it, so, from our brand comms seat, that’s a win in and of itself. Following on from dropping the new brand direction, this week in Miami they did the ~~gender~~ reveal of the new car. Say what you will about the new brand direction and general aesthetic of the car, they seemed, at least in Miami, to bridge the gap between design and culture (aka attracting the celebrities that flock to South Beach for the little art show that happens alongside). Chance the Rapper, a design fan in his own right, stepping out of the new model seemed to bring the design squarely into the spotlight. Furthermore, those colours were totally WTF… UNTILLLLL you picture those cars on the road in Miami and then it was like OHHHHH, I get it. That Barbie pink hits as well in Miami as a drag show at Twist. (IYKYK).

OPINIONS FROM THE GROUND

As always, don’t just take it from us. Our substack Godfather, David Michon, was on the ground in Miami and we HIGHLY recommend reading his For.Scale round-ups, HERE, and HERE. He also gave us an inside take on his own highs and lows of the week:

PROs

Variety is the spice of Fair life, unless that variety is “quality”. And, handing it to DM/, the quality is tight. And upper. Our personal BEST IN SHOW was the woody-patchwork stuff by Lewis Kemmenoe, because we were already big fans. And interesting to note that this was work for FENDI and, so often design snobs quietly poo-poo fashion brands trying to “colonize” the décorsphere, even if then they go on to applaud them in print (because: advertisers). (The exception is usually Loewe, at Salone least, which people do seem to love). But, you know what, FENDI was it. So sue us!

CONs

One question that must be asked is: “Where were the Kids?”

If you would hope Basic.Space could deliver one thing to DM/, it is a next generation of décorhead attendees. At least over the course of the four hours we spent at its opening day, it did not. ’Twas very Establishment Collector in energy. Many, many surgically tightened faces. A ‘good thing’ for galleries, but also here’s the con: We perceive, in the general sense, a rather thrilling, overdue, and substantial shift in “the Design world”. Because the really interesting people paying attention to design are young and they have new values. Such as: genuine irreverence (not what people write about as “Irreverent”, which is like, really always super NOT irreverent); a return of irony, of which there was absolutely NONE at Design Miami (that we could spot; Playful, yes! Irony, no.); a willingness to be impolite (which art fairs do well, and design fairs seemingly cannot). So, FOUR out of FIVE stars. Great, but also, we hoped to attend and feel OLD. We want a fair like that to make us feel like we’ve got work to do to keep up. But instead it was a lot of head-nodding, like “Yep, yep… ok, yep. It’s all what I expected.”

In summary, while we may not have attended, we’ve still got our eye on it. We imagine the best moments came at small impromptu dinners or on dancefloors as they have done in years past - and we’re ALWAYS here for that.

We’d love to hear from you - did you go? did you love it? hate it? Do you care?

Industry Related