Gina Ciancone

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Sleep on It: How Casper *Flipped* the Mattress Industry
Gina Ciancone
Posted on March 4, 2019 at 9:17 pm
Digitally-born companies like Casper have transformed the previously mundane experience of mattress shopping into buying an aspirational item - and lifestyle.
Rent the Runway and the Future of Retail
Gina Ciancone
Posted on February 25, 2019 at 2:39 am
Rent the Runway continues to challenge the need of brick-and-mortar retail stores by providing a compelling and accessible online platform to rent high-end women’s fashion for work, evening, and any event in between.

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On March 5, 2019, Gina Ciancone commented on The Best Camera is the One That’s With You :

This is such an interesting post, thank you for sharing! In fact, I completely agree. I used to work for Annie Leibovitz and as one of the most preeminent photographers of the 20th century, it was always fascinating to me that she could be heard musing that the iPhone camera was really all she needed. In fact, I think that Apple, in particular has latched on to the fact that the camera is really the only phone feature that matters. Just think about its recent advertising campaign for the iPhone X which showed large, full-bleed images that were crisp, artistic, and vivid alongside the tagline “shot on the iPhoneX.” Its interesting to think of our mobile phones as really a digital camera that can do messaging, emails, etc. rather than the other way around.

On February 25, 2019, Gina Ciancone commented on Swap your not-so-favorite holiday gifts for things you want or a contribution to a charity! :

Thanks so much for this interesting post!! Montreal also has a similar “sharing” platform that taps into a purpose marketplace, although it does not yet have the ability to donate items to charities. While the platform certainly reveals the current consumer attitude that “less is more,” the app (it seems like?) does not appear to work out the logistics behind the donations. In addition, it is slightly different than the Montreal-based platform, which allows people with an excess of a certain item, to post what they have and what they need.

On February 25, 2019, Gina Ciancone commented on VIPKid – “Ubernization” in EdTech :

Thanks very much for such an interesting article, Li! I have heard of VIPKid before and I agree with previous comments addressing the development of trust and value proposition surrounding face-to-face language instruction. I wonder if there is a possibility to make this a true peer-to-peer platform in which virtual language “pen pals” develop and not only are Chinese student being taught English, but English instructors are also able to learn Chinese.

On February 25, 2019, Gina Ciancone commented on The RealReal.com – Managed Marketplaces and the evolution of platforms business models :

Thanks for this very thoughtful post, Nicolás! TheRealReal is a useful platform to understand the customer needs surrounding luxury items and quickly identify conventional pain points: length of ownership and cost. In fact, the similarities to this platform and the platform that I wrote about, Rent the Runway, are significant. However, I wonder if TheRealReal is in fact proof of concept for an “ownerless” model of high-end fashion. Since consigners are effectively putting their luxury items up for sale to lighten the load of their closet of make some extra cash, are they actually extending the shelf life of these items? Or are they revealing consumer trends in needing to own less?