A New Start

Economist, FT: Faber-Castell pencils

Faber-Castell

The future of the pencil

An eight-generation family firm shows how innovation need never stop

Sep 16th 2010 | Nuremberg

A wonderful tool with many uses

ULYSSES GRANT, an American general, jotted down battle plans with one. Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian chancellor, used his to tamp down the tobacco in his pipe. Vincent van Gogh used one to “draw a woman sewing” and found they “produce a marvellous black and are very agreeable to work with.”

Craftsmen have made pencils in Stein, near Nuremberg, for nearly four centuries. Faber-Castell, the world’s biggest branded pencil manufacturer, has done so since 1761. Its task is daunting: to improve a product that pencil-lovers insist has been perfect for well over a century. Among these is Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, a dapper former investment banker and the eighth member of his family to run the firm. “At my home I have a Faber-Castell pencil I bought from an antique dealer that must be from 1890 or 1895,” he says. “It writes perfectly, even after all these years. That’s the fantastic thing with a pencil.”

Many people thought that pencils would become obsolete in the computer age, yet sales continue to grow. Perhaps 15 billion-20 billion are made each year, roughly half of them in China. Faber-Castell produces about 2.2 billion. They are cheap, sturdy and popular in schools, especially in poor countries. As countries grow richer, children’s pencil cases grow fatter, though only up to a point. Sales of pencils in most European countries are growing only slowly, if at all.

Faber-Castell, however, has kept growing despite the recession. In its past financial year sales increased by almost 6%. The firm does well in emerging markets with vast numbers of bright-eyed schoolchildren. It is also grabbing market share in the rich world by making its pencils better. This is nothing new for Faber-Castell. Lothar von Faber, the great-grandson of the company’s founder, took over in 1839 and invented the hexagonal pencil. By cutting the edges off a cylindrical one, he stopped it from rolling off a table.

Faber-Castell’s second big innovation was stolen. In 1875 America’s Supreme Court ruled that Faber was entitled to put rubber erasers onto the back of its pencils, although another inventor had already patented the idea. The court felt that the idea was too obvious to patent.

Since then, years of research have gone into making leads firmer and finding the type of wood that best protects them from breaking when dropped. But for scribblers, three ideas stand out. First, Faber-Castell started using water-based, environmentally friendly paints in the 1990s. Teachers and parents, who used to worry that children would swallow toxins while chewing their pencils, would have preferred plain wooden ones. But children love bright colours. So Count Faber-Castell reworked his entire process to accommodate new paints without harmful chemicals. Teachers in Europe now urge parents to buy them by name.

The count’s second innovation was to introduce an ergonomic triangular shape that is popular with children. His third was to add rubbery dots that keep the pencils from slipping out of sweaty little hands.

As for the future, Count Faber-Castell still sees scope for further refinement. Pencils could perhaps be made tougher, or easier on the eye. But the basic design—graphite encased in wood—is unlikely to change much in the next ten to 15 years, he says. Asked about the next 100, he laughs. That may be for another generation to decide.

Business

Latest chapter written on pencils

By Paul Tyrrell

Published: August 26 2010 23:42 | Last updated: August 26 2010 23:42

Pencil push: Feber-Castell’s base in Stein, Germany

On a cloudless summer day in Stein, Germany, the headquarters of Faber-Castell, the world’s biggest pencil manufacturer, is baking in the 30˚C heat. Yet in one building in particular, the air is even hotter. Here, thousands of triangular pencils are having a special finish applied: rows of tiny dots designed to improve grip.

The dots feel like rubber, but they are actually a water-based paint. “At first we couldn’t get the paint to stick to the surface of the pencils reliably,” says our guide, “but through trial and error we solved this problem by raising the temperature of the production line.”

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Launched in 2000, the innovation scooped four international design awards in its first year.

It is an encouraging tale for any manufacturer: even if your product is ubiquitous, and has not changed much in centuries, it can still be improved.

Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, the eighth member of his family to run the company, has a long history of innovations to live up to. Founded in 1761 by Kaspar Faber, a cabinet-maker who made pencils on the side, the aim was to create the first “quality pencil” in Germany.

Faber’s descendants improved the production process – for example, by milling graphite more finely than rivals, to create leads that were highly resistant to breakage. And they diversified into all sorts of other products, such as coloured pencils for artists, and cosmetic products, such as eye liner.

Count Anton-Wolfgang initiated a key process innovation in the 1980s when he bought about 10,000 hectares of savannah in south-east Brazil and sowed it with fast-growing Caribbean pine trees. This enabled the company to become self-sufficient in timber.

The company produces about 2bn pencils a year at 15 facilities worldwide.

The difficult question for Count Anton-Wolfgang is: what next? “There’s not much room for big leaps of innovation in our industry any more,” he admits, though “the design of the pencil can still be optimised.”

The company stimulates incremental innovation by giving regional managers the freedom to respond to specific local demands and cultural preferences, and by listening to focus groups – the R&D team meets groups of artists twice a year, for example, to assess how its range of art pencils might be improved. “We give people in different regions the space to think about subjects that would never occur to us at the HQ in Stein,” he says.

However, it’s the “new luxury” phenomenon that has proven a more significant source of growth for Faber-Castell in recent years. As US consultants Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske pointed out in their 2003 book Trading Up, consumers are now willing to pay a premium for things that are “demonstrably superior and pleasingly different”.

Coffee chain Starbucks proved the point by turning coffee-drinking into a gourmet experience for many consumers. Callaway, the golf equipment maker, found that by styling its equipment so that players “feel rich”, as well as concentrating on technical superiority, it could charge 13 times more than the average for a set of clubs.

Count Anton-Wolfgang’s equivalent initiative is the Graf von Faber-Castell range of luxury writing instruments. Launched in 1996, its flagship product, the “Perfect Pencil”, has a barrel made of Californian cedar, replaceable erasers, a sharpener integrated into the platinum-plated cap and a price tag in the UK of £185 ($250 in the US). The range has grown in popularity, and in Europe, it now accounts for a “double-digit percentage” of the company’s turnover, and has concessions at several big department stores – the latest, at London’s Fortnum & Mason, opened in July.

Faber-Castell has always made a point of distinguishing its premium status. In 1855, its then-owner, Lothar von Faber, wrote to his mother that he was the only pencil maker who recognised the “value of tradition”. However, cautions Count Anton-Wolfgang, clever marketing is never enough: “A unique past will only help your brand if you have credible performance today.”

 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

Today: A Tale of Three Asian Cities

A tale of three Asian cities

by Simon Tay

05:55 AM Sep 17, 2010

A recent six day-trip spanning Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok left me pondering what makes a city a livable place? What makes a city buzz and people want to live there?

First, public transport is a critical issue.

A good public transport system has a tangible economic value - it helps make movement and interaction easier. There is also a social benefit in allowing different sectors and strata of society to mingle and access the city. Environmentally, public transport also trumps private vehicles that all too often clog up streets and highways across Asia.

For me, the speed and ease of getting to and from the airport often offers an initial assessment of the city's public transport system.

By this measure, Hong Kong is far ahead. Its airport train is so efficient and comfortable that even a highly paid banker I met on the plane uses it regularly, rather than taking the office limo.

Getting around Hong Kong island reinforces this impression. Taxis remain available at all times of day and night, at a reasonable price and in whatever weather.

In Central, if you decide to walk, connecting bridges and walkways allow for a quite seamlessly stroll from one building to another.

Bangkok is not in the same league but has shown marked progress. A train service has recently started, connecting the distant Suvarnabhumi Airport to the city. There are long flights up and down, which are not easy with luggage. But the journey from the airport takes just over an hour to downtown Siam Square.

Against the backdrop of Bangkok's notorious traffic jams, pedestrians using public transport are reaching their destinations quicker. Walkways link overhead SkyTrain platforms, creating a network of aerial corridors above the streets and crowded pavements, teaming with people walking in and out of buildings from deluxe Central department store at Chidlom to the sprawling MBK shopping mall.

Shanghai is perhaps the most spectacular of these three Asian cities but too many developments, especially in Pudong, aim for the sky and fail to connect to the street or to one another.

The one-off maglev train from the airport is faster than a Ferrari but does not connect well to the rest of the public transport system. Nor does it run at night. It is iconic but not in the best sense of that word.

What was iconic was the Bund, especially after a strong wind had blown away the smog. Shanghainese and visitors alike were out and about. Roof top bars and restaurants were abuzz. People sat and talked, admiring the lights that artfully showcased and contrasted the rich architectural heritage along the Puxi side against the brash skyscrapers lit up with neon advertisements across the river.

Hong Kong's harbour may be almost as beautiful, but pollution has become an everyday nuisance in the city, obscuring the view even from the tallest towers in Central. As Hong Kong competes against many Chinese cities for economic advantage and other cities across Asia for talent, a strategy to bring back blue skies could bolster the city's competitiveness.

Today, quality of life is a major pull factor and not just for Asian mega-cities.

Many Asian cities have passed the 3 million resident mark and face similar challenges. Each is likely to have its own approach, different policy solutions and adopt different technologies. But all are trying to deliver amenities that make life better not just for the elite but also the masses. Each is also likely to pay more attention to the environment and pollution these days than a decade ago.

And even as they continue to struggle, many have set the right direction and are reporting progress.

Many whom I met in the three cities praised Singapore as a forerunner of a livable city commending the island's clean air and clean streets. I nod and smile at such compliments.

Some have read of our newer challenges with overcrowded trains and downtown streets. One observer recounted his surprise at how traffic in our city had become worse. I nod and frown.

I did not admit that when I landed at Changi, it did not even occur to me to take the train into the city as I did in Hong Kong and Bangkok.

That Saturday, the taxi queue stretched maybe 60 people long. So I splurged on a limo taxi to save time.

Our city is, by several measures, still ahead. But others are trying to catch up.

They do not imitate but offer, in their own way, their own mix of attributes that make for a livable Asian city. This is a competition in which all can win.



The writer is chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and is facilitating an international experts group on Livable Cities convened by Philips.

Economist: Japanese cartoons

Japanese cartoons

The professor to the rescue

A cartoon strip takes on the repatriation of treasures from the British Museum

Aug 26th 2010 | tokyo

“THE Stonehenge megaliths have been stolen!?” So exclaims Professor Munakata at the outset of a rollicking adventure set at the British Museum, in the form of a manga, or Japanese cartoon. Over the past five months, readers of Big Comic, a Japanese fortnightly magazine, have followed the exploits of the fictitious ethnographer as he gets embroiled in a bizarre plot to force the repatriation of the museum’s prized objects.

The strip, called “The Case Records of Professor Munakata”, was introduced 15 years ago by Yukinobu Hoshino, one of Japan’s most notable manga artists. Portly, bald and impeccably dressed with cap, cape and cane, the professor is Japan’s anti-Indiana Jones. He does not invite danger but bumbles into it. The strip does not follow any set formula but takes on serious issues.

In previous escapades the professor barely survived after uncovering an ancient burial ground in Japan’s hinterland. He also risked his life leading an archaeological survey of an island between Japan and Korea that both countries claim. The current saga, which reached its tumultuous conclusion on August 25th, marks the first time that the brave hero (and his 56-year-old creator too) has paid a visit to the West.

In Japan manga is a mainstream medium, with sales of magazines and books amounting to around $5 billion a year. Though many are juvenile, violent or pornographic, others are intricate narratives skilfully illustrated and meant to educate as much as to entertain. They are increasingly popular abroad and starting to make their way into museum exhibitions—though in Japan itself they are still given short shrift as an art form.

Mr Hoshino trained in classical Japanese painting, but abandoned it for his love of manga (which means “pictures run amok”). He has produced works on history and folklore as well as science fiction. Like his medium, his method combines the old and the new: he draws with a traditional Japanese brush dipped in ink, but adds occasional colour on a Mac.

In the current adventure Professor Munakata is the first to realise that the stolen megaliths are pawns for the return of the British Museum’s controversial treasures, such as the Elgin marbles which Greece has long been demanding. He uncovers a French plot to infiltrate the museum and snatch the Rosetta Stone (the ancient artefact that provides the key to Egyptian hieroglyphs) in order to return it not to Egypt but to France, which first discovered and translated it. Eventually, it is Professor Munakata’s “reverse pyramid” strategy that prevents the megaliths from being dumped atop the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral from a blimp.

The immaculately drawn images and historical accuracy permit the artist to move into the realm of the improbable. “I engage with historical themes or folklore with a totally open mind and try to invent new theories,” explains Mr Hoshino. Along the way, he exposes readers to early British civilisation, Egyptian pyramids, ancient Assyria and the Kingdom of Benin in the 13th century.

How the latest strip came to be produced is almost as unlikely as the good professor’s exploits. Last November the British Museum organised an exhibition of Mr Hoshino’s work and a curator, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, lobbied the artist to produce a manga about the museum. After two five-day visits, during which he took masses of photographs, the story emerged. “His works examine the interplay of humans, objects and places—people’s attachment to spaces,” says Ms Rousmaniere, who is the model for Chris, the museum curator who helps the professor.

Normally manga appears in a series of nine episodes. Mr Hoshino was so enamoured with the adventures at the museum that he broke the rules and drew ten, which will be published as a book by Shogakukan in October. Mr Hoshino now plans to give the professor a well-earned rest, and return to science fiction for a bit. But first the museum had to be saved. After rescuing St Paul’s from the Stonehenge megaliths, the professor and Chris raced back. The crushing of the cathedral was, after all, no more than a distraction, a dastardly plot to get at the Rosetta Stone.

The first two episodes of “Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure”, in Japanese, are on display at the British Museum until October 23rd. The complete series will be published in English by the British Museum Press in March 2011. 

 

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Business Week: HSN's Fashionista

Features May 21, 2010, 11:00AM EST text size: TT

HSN's Fashionista

How CEO Mindy Grossman has taken HSN from ThighMasters and elastic-waist pants to Serena Williams and top designers

By Susan Berfield

It's 30 minutes to airtime, and Serena Williams—muscled, styled, economical in her movements—sits on a leather couch admiring her navy blue quilted flats. "These are incredibly comfortable shoes," she says. This is not the casual remark of a celebrity killing time in the green room. This is Serena Williams-as-saleswoman, practicing her pitch. Over the next 24 hours, Williams will be live on HSN (HSNI)—the television shopping service formerly known as the Home Shopping Network—for a total of eight hours, hawking pieces from her clothing and jewelry collection to women across America—some 15,000 bracelets, 4,000 flats, 1,900 pairs of jeans, plus sweaters, dresses, T-shirts, and handbags. Every minute she is on air will be measured in dollars, every hour will be scripted, product by product, to build momentum. When it's over, Williams is expected to have sold all of it. On HSN, celebrities have to produce.

The fact that Williams is here at all, linking her reputation to an outlet once known for pushing Suzanne Somers' ThighMaster, shows how far HSN Chief Executive Officer Mindy Grossman has taken the company. When Grossman was recruited for the job in 2006 by Barry Diller, chief executive of HSN's then-corporate parent IAC/InterActiveCorp, she told Diller that she would accept only if he gave her the freedom to turn the place upside down. She had an impressive background, which included nine years at Polo Ralph Lauren (RL), where she launched the Chaps and Polo Jeans lines, and six years at Nike (NKE), where she built up the women's apparel business. She wanted to transform HSN by making it more modern and tasteful: Maybe it would never be hip, it certainly wouldn't try to be edgy, but it could at least be relevant. "I got excited about what it could be, not what it was," she says during an interview at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. "There was not a lot of pride in the culture, and that was shocking to me, especially given where I had come from."

HSN and its ubiquitous low-fi cable channel had become a symbol of American consumption gone terribly wrong. The clothes were uninspired; the beauty products didn't live up to their claims; the gadgets arrived broken. It was a second-rate version of its main competitor, QVC. "I knew we had to move quickly," says Grossman, "on the things we needed to stop doing."

Within her first year at the company, she dumped about a dozen brands she had never heard of. Gone were the pants with elastic waists and anything that viewers could easily find elsewhere. Then she set out to create a studio environment that wouldn't scare off the designers she hoped to feature. For that she turned to Andrew Sheldon, a British television executive. He streamlined the sets, cleaned up the green rooms, hired full-time makeup artists and hair stylists, and modulated the hosts' presentations. "Before, there was a lot of finger pointing. They spoke too quickly and too loudly," he says. "Selling doesn't mean you have to shout 'Buy it! Buy it!' "

HSN is still only a fraction the size of QVC, which had $7.4 billion in 2009 revenue. (John Malone's Liberty Media Interactive (LINTA), which owns QVC, also owns one-third of HSN; under the terms of a standstill agreement that expires in August, it will have the right to buy more, or all, of the company.) But HSN is now a credible competitor, and just as important, it has achieved a measure of cultural status. "I've never tried to motivate my staff by saying we're going to be bigger than someone else," Grossman says. "I'm more a Mac than a PC."

Even during the depths of the recession, when many retailers' sales fell dramatically, HSN's grew, rising 3 percent in both 2008 and 2009. In the first three months of 2010, sales increased 9 percent, to $519 million, compared with 2009, and HSN shipped nearly 10 million items to customers. HSN's corporate parent, HSNi, which includes the shopping network and Web site as well as a separate catalog division, is a $2.8 billion business. Its stock has more than doubled in value since it was spun off from Diller's IAC (IACI) in August 2008, just before the retail economy collapsed.

Grossman, 52, is sleek and stylish, and she likes to pile on the necklaces and bracelets when she dresses. If women ask her for advice about accessories, she always says: "more." She calls HSN customers, herself included, "professional shoppers." More than 80 percent of them are women, and most are over 35 and comfortably middle class. Beyond that, what they seem to have in common is a desire to be soothed by the promise that what they buy will make them feel better: It's the psychology of acquisition at its most simple. HSN broadcasts live, 24 hours a day, 364 days a year (it goes dark on Christmas) to 93 million homes. Some 5 million people make at least one purchase every year; the best customers make six or seven more.

In order to attract more power shoppers, Grossman set out to persuade a whole new type of designer to create collections for HSN. Among those who have happily, if nervously, appeared on the network as a result of Grossman's coaxing are Naeem Khan, who designed the silver sequined gown Michelle Obama wore to the President's first state dinner, and Badgley Mischka, who dressed Helen Mirren in gray silk and organza for this year's Academy Awards. Grossman promised to protect them and their brands from ridicule and to present their clothes in sophisticated settings as she exposed them to an audience far greater than they could otherwise reach. She also charmed them. "It was the force of Mindy's personality and the changing economics that persuaded designers to work with HSN," says Christopher Marangi, a media analyst at Gamco Investors. "Her impact can't be underestimated."

Ever since Isaac Mizrahi signed on with Target (TGT) in 2003, all manner of luxury designers have collaborated with chains that cater to the masses. None of these partnerships compel the designers to engage so directly in the fundamental give and take of commerce as HSN does. "If they don't want to go on air, then they don't want to work with us—they're not passionate," Grossman says. "The whole idea is to bring more than just a product. It's to bring a voice. Their personality has to show through. I keep telling people that it's a trunk show in 93 million homes."

To court the fashion set, Grossman and Lynne Ronon, her head of merchandising, had to do some selling of their own. "I knew they would be concerned about their image," says Ronon, who was previously an executive at Burberry (BURBY) and Saks (SKS). At the beginning, meetings with potential designers were like job interviews for the HSN executives. Now, one recession and several well-publicized sold-out shows later, the power has shifted. "We say no more than we say yes," Ronon says.

Grossman asked Khan, whose sequined gowns can sell for $10,000, to create an exclusive collection for HSN in 2009. Khan then asked for the blessings of the heads of Saks and Bergdorf Goodman. "Luxury was in the doldrums," Khan says. "We were all asking: 'How do we keep our business going?' They need me as much as I need them. So they said, 'Fabulous. Just get a different name for the line.' "

For many of the designers Grossman has recruited, the stress is more acute and the concerns about image more pressing. They go on air anyway, having realized that in order to survive they must accommodate the marketplace. "Designers have to become more business-savvy, and that means tailoring assortments to specific retailers. They have to come to terms with that," says Kelly Tackett, a consultant at Kantar Retail.

When he launched Timeless by Naeem Khan on HSN in October 2009, Khan was apprehensive. "I'm not used to that kind of volume. I might [typically] cut 100 dresses, while they're buying 800, 1,000, 2,000 dresses. How am I going to sell all that?" In the first 10 minutes, 7 of the 10 styles of dresses, tops, and pants (priced $59.90 to $499.90) sold out. In his second appearance in March, Khan sold all 531 pieces of a silver sequin dress (price: $179.90) in 12 minutes. "The way I sell my clothes is the way I am with my wife and children," he says. "I race cars, cook, raise a family. Women love to hear that. You have a lot of pretentious designers out there. People buy your clothes because they like you."

When Grossman talks about her ambitions for HSN, she doesn't talk about a mere shopping channel. The experience, she insists, "could be empowering for the customer. She wouldn't just buy something; she would be inspired and engaged."

The source of that inspiration must be the style icons who appear on-screen. Grossman wants celebrities who are comfortable with the hustle of "sellavision," as some of them call it. She thought Williams would be a natural fit: "I knew Serena would love this and would be successful," says Grossman. "When she and Venus were kids, they used to pretend they were hosts on HSN. Even though she's a globetrotting athlete, her passion is fashion. One time I was talking her through all the fabric technology we had at Nike, and she said, 'Mindy, I really just care that it looks great.'"

Williams' selling coach at HSN's St. Petersburg (Fla.) studio is a lively executive named Christie Miranne-Seipelt who is priming her for her debut, a two-hour sale that begins at midnight. "Start with the bracelet. The up-sell is the matching necklace and earring set," says Miranne-Seipelt. She and her mother, Joy Mangano, a home shopping sensation in her own right, serve as the liaisons between Williams and HSN. Their goal is to match the tennis pro's more youthful, body-baring sensibilities with those of HSN's older, body-conscious shoppers.

A word about the bracelet: It's a woven metal and crystal cuff engraved with "Serena Williams First Anniversary 2010" (Williams launched her Signature Statement collection for HSN last April). It has been designated a "Today's Special," which means it will be mentioned or shown hundreds of times before Williams' visit is over. It's $29.95. "So, we're going to sell the bracelet with the necklace and earrings," says Williams.

"I want you to focus on the bracelet," says Miranne-Seipelt.

"You focus on the bracelet," Mangano says. "Connie [the HSN host] will weave in comments about the necklace and earrings. But the focus for you is the bracelet."

Williams tries out her pitch: "Wear it this way [with the clasp in front] and it's kind of rock and roll."

"You can talk to the fact that you're giving them a luxury look at such an affordable price," Miranne-Seipelt says. "Once these are gone, you're never making them again."

During each of Williams' five shows, Miranne-Seipelt watches the sales figures and gives instructions that the producer passes on to Williams and the host: "Go through the colors for the chiffon scarf. It's the last thing. The price is unbelievable [$19.95]. It feels like silk. The shrug feels like cashmere—lightweight cashmere. One thousand people have bought the jeans. Get those tonight. The dress is flattering on everyone. It's available in black, gray, cream. It was $99. Now it's $49.95. It's classic, it never goes out of style. Pick up the flats...."

The next day, after a two-hour sellathon that ends at noon, Williams lies curled up on the couch in the green room. She pulls a blanket over herself and mumbles, "Can someone get me something to eat?" She goes on: "These visits are getting harder and harder. At the beginning they were very easy. Now it's just not as easy." What's changed? "I don't know. It's like when you're first on tour, you're really eager to play the top players, you want to be the best, you're eager, eager. That's how I felt. Now I've played her, beaten her, let me relax."

During her 24-hour visit, HSN sold $3.25 million worth of products; Williams accounted for about one-third of it. The 1,900 pairs of jeans are gone. So are the maxi dresses. About half the shoes remain, though, and even Serena Williams couldn't sell all 15,000 bracelets. Thanks to her relationship with Grossman, she'll be back to sell another day.

Berfield is an associate editor at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Time: End of Innocence

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1993864,00.html

Monday, Jun. 14, 2010

TIME's Review of Toy Story 3: 'An Instant Classic'

By RICHARD CORLISS

Sheriff Woody is doing his durnedest to save the world from Hamm the piggy bank, alias Dr. Evil Porkchop — "That's Mister Dr. Evil Porkchop to you!" — before the Old West train Woody's on and the orphans inside crash to their doom. His cowgal pal Jessie rides to the rescue, and space ranger Buzz Lightyear is, as always, eager to take his friends "to infinity — and beyond!" But even they may be no match for the spaceship that descends and, when its doors open, reveals ...

... Reveals, in the first scene of Toy Story 3, that the boy Andy has a terrific time playing with his toys. In a bedroom strewn with all kinds of characters, from cowboys and astromen to a Slinky dog and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, the 7-year-old mashes genres together to accommodate them all. Toys trigger what the movie's director, Lee Unkrich, calls a child's "crazy, non sequitur imagination." They unlock his creativity, let him play out elaborate scenarios inspired by films and TV shows he's seen and then remade in the wild innocence of a young mind — one that knows all the rules of narrative but doesn't mind smashing them with Dadaist abandon. (See a photographic history of Pixar.)

That's the creative strategy at Pixar, which produced the first computer-animated feature, Toy Story, in 1995 and has bloomed ever since, through Finding Nemo, WALL•E and last year's Up. Pixar filmmakers have to be able to tap into their vestigial child, their inner Andy. In that sense, the Toy Story series is their collective autobiography. Like Andy, the Pixarians — from creative director John Lasseter on down — are smart kids who never renounced their childish belief that anything is possible. Why, to make an instant classic like Toy Story 3, it just takes an unfettered imagination, several hundred artists and technicians, about $200 million and four years of nonstop work. Child's play.

In 15 years, the Pixar unit has produced just 11 features. The first 10 — Toy Story; A Bug's Life; Toy Story 2; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; Ratatouille; WALL•E and Up — are not just some of the best computer-animated films but some of the liveliest, brightest, most heartfelt movies of the recent past. That they have earned lots of money ($5.6 billion worldwide) for Pixar and its parent company, Disney, is almost beside the point. Like the earliest Walt Disney fables, Pixar films are for children and their parents and everyone who can be touched by moving images. "We don't make movies for kids," Unkrich says emphatically. "Our mission statement is to make films for everybody." That includes the Motion Picture Academy: Pixar has won five of the nine Oscars for Best Animated Feature and the last three in a row. (See the top 10 voices behind Pixar characters.)

Okay, but a third Toy Story, from a studio where nine of the first 10 features were total originals? Lasseter, who directed and co-wrote the first two Toy Story films and who's supervising second episodes of Cars and Monsters, Inc., allows that some people "make sequels as a way of printing money, and they tend to rehash the same idea." He insists Pixar returns to favorite characters because "they are alive in us. We think of them as friends and family. We want to see what new, deeper emotions we can find."

For Toy Story 3's screenwriter Michael Arndt (who won an Oscar for writing Little Miss Sunshine), that meant rethinking each old toy and finding unsuspected human wrinkles. The film's visual style, bracingly clear in its 3-D version, is both state-of-the-CGI-art and faithful to the simple design of the first two films. "I wanted it to look great," says Unkrich, who served as editor on the first Toy Story and co-director on the second. "But it also had to look like Toy Story." What's more potent is the upping of the emotional ante. TS3 puts its characters and the moviegoing children who love them in their severest crisis yet. Not since the early Disney classics have cartoon characters faced so dire a threat with such heroic grace. Lasseter recalls a meeting of the Pixar brain trust for the first reading of the story. "By the end," he says, "I had tears streaming down my face. I looked around the table, and we all had tears."

Watch TIME's video "How to Be a Cartoon Voice."

See the best movies of the decade.

The Philosophy of Toys
In Toy Story 3, Andy is now a teenager, ready to go to college and wondering what to do with the toys that nurtured him through kidhood but that he hasn't played with for years. Unkrich admits that this is a dilemma he and his colleagues haven't had to face. "Pixar," he says, "is filled with people who don't get rid of their toys."

Lasseter, whose office at the company's Lego-like headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., is crammed with hundreds of gewgaws from his films, is an expert on the secret life of toys. "If something inanimate were to come to life," he posits, "it would want to do what it's been manufactured to do. A toy wants to be played with by a child, to make that child happy. If it's not played with, that causes severe anxieties. If a toy is lost, it can be found. If broken, it can be repaired. The one thing toys are most anxious about is being outgrown, because there's no way that can be fixed." (See the 100 best movies of all time.)

Andy's toys are a needy bunch. Woody (again voiced by Tom Hanks) is the leader and the most loyal among them, in part because he's Andy's favorite. The cloth cowboy suffered a case of battery envy when Buzz (Tim Allen) joined the team in Toy Story and a displacement complex when a toy collector filched him in TS2. But now trauma looms over all his friends: Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Rex the Dinosaur (Wallace Shawn), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark) and the rest.

Like many working stiffs, the toys fret about losing their jobs; like adopted children, they fear being sent back. There's a touch of Stockholm syndrome in their dependence on Andy — once their playmate, now their inattentive jailer, their absent God or Godot. With Andy heading off to college, the toys could be relegated to the attic. Or worse, the dump truck.

Hey, guys, come to Sunnyside Day Care! It has kids galore — no toy left behind — and new friends: Ken (Michael Keaton), enthralled to finally find his Barbie (Jodi Benson), and Lotso (Ned Beatty), a folksy stuffed bear with a strawberry scent. If only the 2-year-olds to whom Buzz and the rest are assigned as playthings weren't such violent little beasts. If only Lotso didn't have a hidden agenda. If only the toys from the first two films didn't have to attempt a great escape that leads to ... well, we said the movie is intense. Unkrich calls it "taking toys to their endgame." (See the top 10 movie performances of 2009.)

The Next Generation
What's a happy end for a toy? Perhaps to be passed on to the next generation of kids. Pixar may be approaching a similar torch-passing. So far, nearly every Pixar feature has been directed by a man who has been with the company since its founding; the only exceptions (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) are the films helmed by Brad Bird, a college friend of Lasseter's who joined a decade ago. Pixar releases just one feature each year, a schedule that has created a talent logjam at the top (Pete Docter waited eight years between Monsters, Inc. and Up) and the risk that gifted, ambitious, younger animators might be lured to another studio. (Watch TIME's video about Pete Docter.)

Now, by chance and design, the kids will get their shot. Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL•E) is away filming John Carter of Mars; Bird, the fourth Mission: Impossible feature. And the studio will release three movies in 2011-12: a sequel to Cars, a film involving the Monsters, Inc. characters and Brave, the first Pixar feature directed by a woman (Brenda Chapman, who also helmed DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt). "With Andrew and Brad off in live action," says Unkrich, "it makes sense that we'd be nurturing the next generation of Pixar."

Yet continuity remains a studio hallmark. John Morris, the child who voiced Andy in the first two films, is back as older Andy. And next year there'll be a short film with the same characters. Some toys — and Toy Storys — are to be treasured forever.

• 
• Find this article at:
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marketing, advertising, mad men, emotional, apple iphon, kodak, carousel , wheel,

marketing, advertising, mad men, emotional, apple iphon, kodak, carousel , wheel, techcrunch

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/10/apple-facetime-commercial/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus

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FT: Mobiles deployed to entice shoppers

Mobiles deployed to entice shoppers

By Jonathan Birchall in New York

Published: May 17 2010 18:29 | Last updated: May 17 2010 18:29

Scanned: consumers are using quick response codes to look up information on potential purchases and get digital money-off coupons

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Mobiles ring the changes in stores - May-11

Traditional retailer presents a new image on Facebook - May-11

MediaTek sees turning point for smartphone - May-16

YouTube in fresh push to providers - May-17

Google and Intel in web TV launch - May-16

US retailers have become engaged in a battle for hearts and mobiles.

As leading retailers, including Wal-Mart and JC Penney, continue to grapple with the potential of the internet, the proliferation of smartphones has inevitably caught their attention.

Three years after Apple launched its first iPhone, mobile connectivity is shaking up the way retailers do business, not only online but in their stores.

E-Commerce series

Part One: Digital retailing rings the changes

Part Two: Mobiles deployed to entice shoppers

“Unlock the code,” says the poster in the window of a Best Buy consumer electronics store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Beneath is a pixellated black and white square – a QR, or quick response code – that can be scanned by a smartphone camera to link the device to the retailer’s mobile website.

For retailers, the black and white square is sign of dramatic changes under way as a growing number of customers arrive in stores equipped with smartphones that give them access to the internet.

“I think its one of the most exciting developments in retail,” says Scott Silverman, head of Shop.org, a national online retailers group, of the impact of mobile connectivity on retail. “You have all the abilities that you have with online shopping . . . and you can take that into the store.”

Customers of the US retailers are already using the phones not just to make online purchases but to check prices at other retailers, to look up information on potential purchases, and to receive digital money-off coupons that can be scanned at check-out. “Everyone needs to get past this idea of buying things on this small little screen,” says Mr Silverman.

“There are so many other things that the small screen can do right now.”

Thirty-one per cent of all mobile phones sold in the US in the first quarter of 2010 were smartphones, according to NPD, the consumer data group, up from 21 per cent in the same quarter in 2009, which give customers enhanced access to internet services.

Japan leads way with coupons

Consumers in Japan have used their mobile phones as shopping tools for the better part of a decade, and their experiences may hold lessons for other countries.

The QR bar codes now being introduced in the US and Europe were originally invented by the Toyota supplier Denso to track car parts. They are now on advertisements and fliers and 76 per cent of Japanese consumers have scanned one with their phone, according to the market researcher Netasia.

Only 0.8 per cent of consumers use them to access items for purchase. Instead, consumers mostly scan QR codes to download product coupons to the payment chip that is built into every Japanese mobile phone.

At Japanese McDonald’s, for example, consumers can download a coupon on to their mobile phone and then wave the phone over a reader at the till to receive a discounted price.

In contrast, the mobile digital coupons now being used in the US generate bar codes on the phone’s screen, which need to be scanned at checkout.

Japanese shoppers can also use their phone chips as a payment device, something that has yet to be introduced in the US and Europe.

If the customer at McDonald’s has a phone from NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile network, then by waving their phone over the reader they can also pay for their meal and have the charge added to their monthly phone bill.

TNS Compete, which produces a quarterly study of smartphone usage, found that two thirds of users had reseached information about stores on their phones, while half of them had used phones to look up product reviews.

More strikingly for retailers, one-third had used their devices while in stores to compare prices at rival retailers. Only 28 per cent had used the phones to make purchases.

“We are definitely seeing a lot more being used for research than for shopping,” says Danielle Nohe, an analyst at Compete.

TheFind.com, an online search engine, found that 2m of the 30m searches during last year’s Christmas shopping season in the US were made from mobile devices.

Siva Kumar, founder and chief executive, says a surge of mobile useage on Black Friday – the day of the post-Thanksgiving sales – to 200,000 from 5,000 last year showed “people were checking prices while they were in the store”.

Over the past 18 months, leading US retailers including Walmart, Sears and Gap have responded by launching mobile versions of their websites, together with shopping and browsing applications for iPhones and BlackBerrys.

Now they are rapidly exploring ways to tie their brands into Facebook and other social networking sites, and pursuing a range of other initiatives aimed at delivering marketing messages and promotions to smartphone wielding companies.

Retailers such as JC Penney and Sephora have embraced Facebook’s new initiative that enables users to populate their Facebook pages with product information, images and reviews.

The retailers are, in part, responding to a challenge to their traditional grip on instore information from a plethora of independent services and smartphone apps.

Shopsavvy, for example, is one of a range of apps that deliver price comparisons, reviews and product information, based on scanning a product’s indentifying bar code.

Snaptell, now part of Amazon, delivers customer reviews, ratings and information to customers in response to camera-phone images of books, CD or other media product.

“The retailers can’t be absent from that conversation,” says Mr Silverman.

Smartphones also intensify the risk that shoppers will choose to visit retailers’ physical stores to view products, followed by a purchase made from a rival, lower-cost retailer online.

But Mr Silverman argues that this kind of price transparency already exists on price comparision search engines such as Pricegrabber, and TheFind.

“If you talk to folks, price plays a role but its not the final factor. Brand and trust are really important as well. So I think the brand promise; service; trust; these are all tools that the retailers will use to win sales.”

Much of that battle, argues Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer of JC Penney, will be waged on mobile phones. “We really believe that the handset is where the future interaction is going be between the customer and the retailer,” he says.

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Economist: The guru of the bottom of the pyramid

Schumpeter

The guru of the bottom of the pyramid

Apr 22nd 2010
From The Economist print edition

C.K. Prahalad’s death on April 16th has deprived the world of a great management thinker

COIMBATORE KRISHNARAO PRAHALAD, universally known as C.K., was the most creative management thinker of his generation. He revolutionised thinking on two big subjects, business strategy and economic development, and made a significant contribution to a third, innovation. His admirers were legion, including bosses of some of the world’s biggest companies, heads of NGOs and founders of scrappy start-ups.

Mr Prahalad burst onto the management scene with two path-breaking articles in the Harvard Business Review, “Strategic Intent” (1989) and “The Core Competence of the Corporation” (1990), and a bestselling book, “Competing for the Future” (1996), all co-written with his former pupil, Gary Hamel. “Core competence” remains one of the most frequently reprinted articles ever published by Harvard Business Review.

Mr Prahalad shifted the focus of strategic thinking dramatically. He believed firms should seek not simply to position themselves well within their existing markets but to capitalise on their advantages to redefine markets in their favour. That, he argued, involves identifying and developing strengths, such as logistics or miniaturisation, that cannot easily be imitated by competitors. Firms should then “stretch” those skills to the maximum, setting themselves ambitious and industry-transforming goals, and using those goals to galvanise their workers. He cited a long list of successful Japanese companies, such as Sony, Canon and Komatsu, which had done just that.

Mr Prahalad was particularly struck by the ability of these firms to harness the ideas of their humbler employees. And, later in his career, he became increasingly fascinated by innovation. He argued that company-centric innovation was giving way to “co-creation”, in which firms collaborate with their customers and business allies. He also shifted his attention to the legion of small businesses that were redefining the corporate world.

Mr Prahalad’s work on strategy and innovation turned him into a superstar. He sat on the board of several prominent companies, including Hindustan Unilever and Pearson (which is a part-owner of The Economist), and worked as a consultant for others, including AT&T, Citigroup, Oracle and Philips. He subjected these corporate titans to often coruscating questions about their ability to “compete for the future”. He commanded huge speaking fees and lived in grand houses in Michigan and California.

But his native India always tugged at Mr Prahalad’s heartstrings. He was a leading member of Indus Entrepreneurs, a self-help group for Indian entrepreneurs. He was haunted by the contrast between the rich world he inhabited and the poor world he had grown up in. This led him to veer off in a radically new direction—and to produce perhaps his most thought-provoking book. “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits” (2004) was a counterblast against two types of intellectual laziness: that of corporate titans who were ignoring the bulk of humanity and that of humanitarians who regarded profit as a dirty word. He argued that the world’s poor represented trillions of dollars’ worth of pent-up spending power. And he demonstrated that a legion of innovative companies in the developing world, including several in his native India, were learning how to turn these people into paying customers.

The book proved to be perfectly timed. Companies were waking up to the fact that technological innovation and economic reform were opening up new markets in poorer countries. Firms from those countries were growing in confidence. And academics were recognising the limits of their state-sponsored view of development. Mr Prahalad was lionised in the emerging markets, particularly in India, and hailed by corporate philanthropists, notably Bill Gates. The United Nations gave him a seat on its commission on the private sector and development.

What made Mr Prahalad such a creative thinker? And why was he able to keep reinventing himself when his fellow gurus were happy to trot out the same ideas for ever-rising lecture fees? For all his success, he was an outsider in the American-dominated world of management theory. He was one of nine children of one of Chennai’s leading judges and Sanskrit scholars, and spent a formative period in his youth working for Union Carbide, an American chemicals firm which later became infamous for the deadliest industrial accident in history, at a factory in India.

This outsider’s view went hand in hand with intellectual restlessness. Mr Prahalad invariably worked with a collaborator and never wrote more than two articles on the same subject. This gave his work an unfinished air. He did not revisit the idea of “core competences” in the light of the poor performance of some of the Japanese Godzillas he once worshipped, nor the idea of “stretch” in the wake of the epidemic of over-leveraging. Nor did he provide a satisfactory reply to critics who argued that the real promise of emerging markets lay in the middle of the pyramid.

Preaching, not practicing

This impatience led to one of the few failures of Mr Prahalad’s otherwise gravity-defying career. In 2000 he co-founded a software company, Praja, which was meant to act as a test bed for his ideas, particularly his commitment to bringing information to ordinary people. Instead, it ate up millions of his own dollars and was sold off two years later. He concluded that he was no good at the “blocking and tackling” that fills most managers’ days.

But then Mr Prahalad’s core competence lay in big ideas rather than in dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s. He taught the world’s biggest companies to think of themselves anew, as a “portfolio of competencies” rather than as a “portfolio of businesses”. He taught everyone to see the developing world not as an also-ran but as a vortex of innovation and creativity. The world of management theory has more than its fair share of charlatans, but C.K. Prahalad was the genuine article.

Copyright © 2010 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Magazines

MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS UNITE & UNVEIL INDUSTRY-WIDE AD CAMPAIGN PROMOTING STRENGTH OF—AND CONSUMER COMMITMENT TO—MAGAZINES

"Magazines, The Power of Print" Campaign to Launch in Nearly 100 Magazines, Reaching 112 Million Readers Per Month

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2010, 8 a.m. ET /PRNewswire/ — The leaders of five major magazine companies—Charles H. Townsend, Condé Nast; Cathie Black, Hearst Magazines; Jack Griffin, Meredith Corporation; Ann Moore, Time Inc.; and Jann Wenner, Wenner Media—today jointly announced the launch of one of the largest print advertising campaigns ever created to promote the vitality of magazines as a medium. The announcement was made at the opening day of the 2010 4A's Leadership/Media Conference in San Francisco.

Created by Y&R NY, the "Magazines, The Power of Print" campaign will roll out in the May issues (for weeklies, the issues on sale the week of April 5) of nearly 100 titles and run for seven months in magazines and Web sites from the five publishers, as well as Active Interest Media, American Express Publishing, Bonnier Corporation, Emmis Publications, ESPN, National Geographic, New York Magazine, and third-party sites in the food, shelter, sports, entertainment, fashion and news categories, reaching a combined 112 million readers per month. A complementary digital component will support the print campaign beginning this spring.

With the full support of the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), the campaign targets advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers, and seeks to reshape the broader conversation about magazines, challenge misperceptions about the medium's relevancy and longevity, and reinforce magazines' important cultural role.

To achieve maximum impact, the ads will debut as color spreads, prominently placed in May issues of the publishers' top titles with headlines such as, "We Surf the Internet. We Swim in Magazines." And "Will the Internet Kill Magazines? Did Instant Coffee Kill Coffee?" These will be accompanied by iconic images lifted from the pages of America's best-known magazines. A second phase, which will start appearing in June issues, will embed multiple cover images from widely recognized publications into the ad's text to convey key phrases. To view ad visuals, visit the downloadable photos section on the right.

A special "Magazines" logo will debut with the campaign. Y&R NY created the image by combining the distinctive typographies of multiple magazine logos: "M" from Time, "A" from Vanity Fair, "G" from Rolling Stone, "A" from Entertainment Weekly, "Z" from Harper's Bazaar, "I" from Marie Claire, "N" from Fortune, and "ES" from Esquire.

Metrics supporting the campaign's message include:

1. Magazine readership has risen 4.3% over the past five years (Source: MRI Fall 2009, Fall 2005 data)
2. Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009 (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first half 2009 and second half 2009 data)
3. Adults 18-34 are avid magazine readers. They read more issues and spend more time per issue than their over-34 counterparts (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)
4. During the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership increased 11% (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)
5. Magazine effectiveness is growing. Ad recall has increased 13% over the past five years. Action-taking—based on readers recalling specific ads—increased by 10%. (Source: Affinity's VISTA Print Effectiveness Rating Service, 2005-2009)
6. Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent. (Source: Dynamic Logic)

"There's a reason magazines are such an enduring and engaging media force," said Charles H. Townsend, president & CEO of Condé Nast. "The format showcases our rich content and our advertisers' brand messages like no other medium, resulting in a bond with consumers that is uniquely powerful."

"This campaign supports the fact that there really is no better medium to advertise in than magazines," said Cathie Black, president, Hearst Magazines. "Magazines are the most cost effective and consistent medium at both ends of the purchase funnel. They drive consumer attitudes and intended behavior more effectively and efficiently than viewing television advertising alone or when TV is combined with online advertising."

"The campaign reflects the vitality magazines have now, and will continue to have with audiences of all ages," said Jack Griffin, president, Meredith National Media. "Clearly, magazines continue to resonate on many levels with consumers, and this is reflected in the enormous trust and value readers have for their favorite magazine titles."

"Together, we can change the conversation about magazines and share what we in the business know to be true: magazines are relevant, play an important role in society and have a strong future ahead," said Ann Moore, chairman & CEO, Time Inc. "This campaign showcases those messages of relevancy and longevity."

"Magazines have enduring values for readers and advertisers that have gotten a little neglected and misunderstood in the era of Internet instant buzz and chatter," said Jann Wenner, chairman, Wenner Media. "Magazines are beloved and powerful in people's lives for very good reasons that need to be remembered and reinforced. That's what this campaign is about."

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Economist; Beyond the burqa

Headgear in Muslim lands

Beyond the burqa

In Islam’s heartlands a covered head has more than one connotation

May 13th 2010 | CAIRO AND ISTANBUL | From The Economist print edition

A far-from-simple fashion statement

IN MUSLIM countries, a conservative head-covering does not always mean being conservative in other ways. Just glance at a couple enjoying the romantic night air in Istanbul; her hair may be hidden, but the rest of her attire is hip-huggingly modern, and there is nothing restrained about the kiss she offers her boyfriend.

Odd as it might sound to Western ears, for many women in the Islamic world dressing “Islamically” may be a choice that has been freely taken for reasons of religion, politics or even fashion: one that is especially pointed in countries where the right to cover one’s head is restricted by law or secularist convention.

There are some places, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, where women must cover their heads; in others, notably Turkey and Tunisia, female civil servants along with pupils in state education are banned from concealing their hair. To the horror of Turkey’s secular establishment, the wives of the president and prime minister both cover their heads; hence they are barred from many state institutions, including some hospitals. On April 29th a prosecutor quashed a claim from a secularist group that the two ladies had committed a crime by attending public ceremonies in scarves.

In the rest of the Middle East, most women don a veil of one kind or another, though almost none wears the burqa. In Iran many women defy the strictures of the Islamic republic’s dress-code with token scarves, short coats and heavy make-up. They suffer in an annual campaign against “bad hijab”, kicking off now. In spring and summer women whose scarves are deemed flimsy or whose ankles are too conspicuous are taken to police stations to sign statements vowing to dress more modestly.

In other countries, where there is more choice in the matter, the reasons for veiling are more complex. In Egypt’s socialist heyday, few wore the veil. In the 1970s and 1980s, as political Islam gained ground, many covered up as a sign of growing piety and conservatism. There were practical benefits too. Islamic garb enabled women to work alongside men without attracting opprobrium from strict male relatives. Something similar applies in provincial Turkey, where the scarf has made it easier for women to be active in public.

The hijab is now so popular, in many places where it is not compulsory, that it is no longer much of a political statement. In Egypt magazines such as Hijab Fashion have proliferated, along with shops selling bejewelled and beribboned scarves. In Cairo young women match the colour of their veils with that of their tunics, handbags, make-up and shoes. In Damascus they top fashionable outfits with tightly wound white scarves. Little flesh is on show, but the tight outfits suggest that not all veil-wearers are pious.

The niqab, though, remains controversial. Shortly before his recent death, Sayed Tantawi, who was Egypt’s senior Muslim cleric, told an 11-year-old girl to remove her niqab, saying it was not Islamic. Egypt’s leaders dislike the garment but have yet to outlaw it. Periodic bans in universities and government offices have been couched in the language of security.

Politics plays a role too. In Egypt those pushing for the niqab tend to be zealous Salafists, so pure that even the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s main Islamist opposition, is wary of them. Cracking down on the niqab may be a way for the government to muzzle one group of opponents.

Afghanistan is the only country where women wear the burqa in any great numbers. Some cast it off after the Taliban’s overthrow, but many more did not. Afghan feminists—and there are such brave souls—say challenging this may not be the most urgent task in a society where imposing change from outside can often backfire.