Any brand interested in nurturing a community through the power of personalisation need look no further than Japan’s custom bike scene. How are boutique stores in this market catering to the discerning needs of an enthusiastic niche? And how can mass customisation be applied across sectors?
- Sectors
- Locations Central & East AsiaJapan
Chris Namba is a frame designer, bike painter, and co-founder of Squid Bikes, based in Sacramento, California. The brand was created by riders within the grassroots cyclocross community and produces lightweight aluminium bike frames that can be painted in-house or shipped raw to allow riders to paint themselves.
B. Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor. He has addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, California's original TED conference, and the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. He co-founded Strategic Horizons LLP to help businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. A prolific writer, Pine is most well-known for the 1999 book The Experience Economy. It was updated in 2011 and re-released in hardcover in 2020 with new ideas on competing for customer time, attention, and money. This book was twice named one of the 100 best business books of all time.
Alex King is a journalist and former staff writer at Huck, a youth culture magazine and website in London. Now based in Athens, he writes about creative subcultures, human rights and activism around the world.
