I dare say we’re celebrating New Year’s right now. I don’t mean the calendar New Year’s Day decreed by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE and celebrated on 1 January. This is more like an ancient Finnish festival celebrating work and joy. The end of a season and the beginning of a new one. Originally, the turning point in the farming and herding year – Kekri.
The ancient Celts, for their part, celebrated Samhain, the beginning of winter, a time to reflect on the past and make plans for the future. At Dimex, this is the time when we switch to the winter season, for which we have high expectations and new products that are predicted to be the sales hits of the coming winter. While sales are focused on the coming winter, product development is already thinking about the product range for the next catalogue, for 2014.
Among these most traditional celebrations could be mentioned the Anglo-Saxon Halloween, which is better known as an American form of celebration. In Finland, Halloween is mainly a commercial celebration and has not achieved the same level of recognition as Christmas, Midsummer and May Day. Finnish Halloween has disguised itself as Angry Birds and thus gained popularity. Can anyone argue that Angry Birds and jack-o-lanterns have nothing in common?
At the Finn-Build fair in October, Halloween was celebrated in a sneaky way. There were no jack-o'-lanterns or grinning pumpkins to be seen at the fair stand. However, there was a trick-or-treater in traffic. He couldn't seem to get any candy from the fair stand, so he pulled a prank. We were the victim of theft. Even the demo piece of the new product fell into the hands of thieves. Is it possible that the black color with its orange effects attracted Halloween goers?
Perhaps the savvy one knew the jacket wasn’t on the market yet? Temptation and weakness struck before the official launch date – the jacket just had to be had immediately. Hopefully that’s a good omen: that the jacket will be just as hot in the shops and fly out through the tills into consumers’ hands.
Heli Inkeroinen
Product Designer