Futures Platform steps into the future: Second-hand clothing replaces team hoodies
FUTURE PROOF – BLOG BY FUTURES PLATFORM
Helsinki. Futures Platform, a growth company, founded by futurists, offering a world-leading library of future trends and a SaaS solution for strategic foresight, has taken a pivot from a classic start-up tradition: no more team hoodies.
“Logo-printed team hoodies are indeed a widespread and ceremonial tradition among growth companies like us”, says Futures Platform CEO Juha Mattsson. “We wanted to keep the ceremonial part of it, but refresh the implementation to the 2020s.”
“What we didn’t want to do is produce a pile of new hoodies so that people can wear them at a few company events and then archive in their wardrobes”, comments Mattsson.
So instead of speeding up the consumption of the Earth’s resources and mass-producing new hoodies for their team of 30-ish people, the company decided to follow what their futurists’ analysis shows: go second-hand.
Gift cards to a leading Nordic marketokace for second-hand clothing
The company handed out their employees gift cards to Emmy, a leading Nordic marketplace for second-hand fashion, for everyone to get an item of choice.
Naturally, when shopping second-hand, it’s virtually impossible to acquire a few dozens of identical items with suitable sizes for everyone, so they had to allow a new dimension of flexibility. “As long as it’s something you’d be ready to wear on a team photo”, comments Mattsson on their guideline for the team to select their items.
But that was just the first part of it. Enter the logo print.
Reinventing the logo print
“The logo is important as well, as the idea is to visually demonstrate that we belong in the same family. However, clothing becomes immediately non-resellable if you print or embroider a custom logo on it. We had to rethink this too”, Mattsson continues.
The solution was simple after all: They acquired re-attachable logo stickers, which everyone could attach to a location of choice on their item of choice.
“I hereby challenge all fellow companies to ditch new hoodies, caps and what have you. Take a concrete step into the future and go for second hand. Here we have a proof-of-concept: it works and makes your team much more motivated!”
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