It seems that each new day we wake to yet another bit of Eurozone news that leaves one wondering how much more is yet to come. If Spain needs to go cap in hand go the Eurobankers for £81b when, according to the BBC they have 7% less debt to GDP ratio than the UK, just who is holding the mirror and blowing the smoke.
Only five years ago we use to call debt 'credit' and we flashed the plastic as if debt was academic. For this we have been rightly chastised but now entire countries are behaving in the same manner.
It can only end in tears.
A glimmer of hope is that most economists agree, however we like to cut it, making things is the only way to make growth. 'Making things' drives new ideas, improves profits and feeds a service industry and retail market alike.
The difficulty for the developed world is that the Far East and India have become very good at this, taking away our ability to generate wealth.
Rather than step up to the challenge and find ways to compete we have cast about for ways to make things cheaply with their help and then sell on at vast profits.
Enter 'luxury goods stage left'. My question for us all is whether hanging our hat on the luxury goods market, where high margins and smaller volumes mean happier brands in the short term, can't really be sustainable. Once all the streets are paved in gold it all starts looking the same.
And won't the developing nations simply watch, learn and 'take unto their own', leaving us stranded. This might help the cause of a small ratio of elite brands but it won't save a countries economy.
History shapes us and we have seen so often that luxury divides. Those who 'have' consume resource in greater proportion to those who 'have not', so the net effect is to increase consumption of resource for unsustainable margin advantage for the few. This has tended to end in revolution. I reach for the cake at this point. But maybe it's a revolution we need?
I think the time will have to come where the great luxury brands make a virtue out of minimalism to survive in the hearts and minds of their customers, making wearing hair shirts a positive statement of wealth and where the luxury dollar is not about self esteem but more about self sustain. It's a truism that old money drives battered Subaru's, not brand new Range Rovers.
Whatever the outcome, packaging will be there, will always be there, playing its vital role in protecting contents, promoting brand, distributing product safely and communicating messages succinctly.
We packaging professionals are in an enviable position and we need to keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground to ensure we respond quickly and effectively to the coming trends and to lead thinking rather than waiting to be told what to do.
