5 Things to Know:  September 26

Acuity reports fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results Thursday, and analysts expect quarterly earnings of $5.66 per share, up from $5.20 a year ago, on revenue of $1.25 billion. The last time Acuity reported, in late June, the stock jumped 17.6% in one day. Three analysts then raised price targets: Morgan Stanley to $410, Baird to $390 and Goldman Sachs to $358. Friday's close of $319.42 sits below all three, a gap Thursday's numbers will either narrow or widen.

This is also the first earnings call since Acuity named Ruth Gratzke president of Acuity Brands Lighting on Aug. 18. She arrived from Siemens, replacing Sach Sankpal, and inherits a $3.9 billion segment that has slipped slightly all year while the Intelligent Spaces segment carries the growth story.

For lighting people, three questions matter most. Did the late-spring demand firming CEO Neil Ashe described hold through summer? Did the direct sales channel, down 28% in the third quarter, stabilize? And is the independent agent network, which drives 76% of Lighting segment revenue, continue to deliver?

Then there is the fiscal 2027 outlook, which may matter more than the quarter itself.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "AI and the 'Dangers of Electric Lighting,'" Peter C. Earle of the American Institute for Economic Research revisits Thomas Edison's 1889 campaign against alternating current as a warning about AI executives asking Washington to regulate their industry. Edison, Earle argues, could sincerely fear high-voltage AC while favoring rules that would hobble George Westinghouse.

Westinghouse won, and AC became the American standard. The industry Earle uses as his modern parallel has a twist for that history. Nvidia, working with Google and Microsoft through the Open Compute Project, is pushing an 800-volt direct current architecture for AI data centers. Its first 800-volt power rack is slated for production in the second half of this year, with full-scale deployment targeted for 2027. 

So more than a century after losing the war of the currents, DC is returning at the kind of high voltage Edison once called dangerous, carried by the very industry Earle is warning about.

For lighting people, the data center boom is already a sales story. Its power architecture is becoming an engineering story, too.

In an interview with Marketing Mind, Nikhil Gupta, Signify's chief marketing and strategy officer for Greater India, explains how the company sells brand value in consumer lamps, one of the most price-competitive corners of lighting anywhere and especially in India. His answer leans on trust, attribution and a bit of theater.

• LED is old news: Gupta says brands still pitching the switch to LED are behind. The next fight is brand preference, which he argues matters most on big-ticket purchases and online, where shoppers lean on names they trust.
• Digital flip: Signify India's marketing mix has moved from about 80:20 offline to more than 50% digital.
• Attribution drives spend: The Diwali festive season takes close to 40% of the annual marketing budget, and more than 80% of that goes digital, partly because performance marketing ties spending to sales when it matters most.
• Moods over features: Ads that once touted product innovation now center on life stages, moods and home décor.
• Theater in the store: More than 350 Philips smart light hubs let shoppers stand in a dark room and see connected lighting before buying.
• Cricket and reality TV: The Indian Premier League cricket season is now a second annual marketing peak, and Signify is talking with reality TV producers, including regional shows.

Zumtobel Group has moved a lighting executive into its most troubled business. Saurabh Pandhi, who has run Thorn Lighting's global business since 2021, became CEO of Tridonic on Sept. 14, replacing Hugo Rohner, who has left the company. Pandhi previously held senior roles at Sylvania Lighting.

He inherits a tough assignment. Tridonic anchors Zumtobel's Components segment, whose adjusted profit fell from €13.5 million ($15.5 million) to €4.6 million ($5.3 million) in fiscal 2025/26 as industrial demand stayed weak. The company also wrote off past product development spending and the segment's remaining goodwill. Zumtobel has not said who will now lead Thorn.

Friday's general meeting in Dornbirn approved every proposal. Chairwoman Karin Zumtobel-Chammah was re-elected for another three years, and Eva-Maria Berchtold, a 30-year Ernst & Young veteran, joined the supervisory board in place of Eva Kienle. The chairwoman singled out Berchtold's experience in international transactions and business valuation.

This week, House Beautiful took another swing at the flush-mount dome fixture, calling it by the name most consumer outlets now use: the "boob light." Its advice is to cover it, swap it or hang something better.

The nickname has moved well past design blogs. The Washington Post put it in a headline in 2024, a Nexstar wire story carried it to local TV sites across the country, and NBC News followed with a shopping guide. The lighting and electrical trade press, as far as we can find, has left it alone.

The "boob light" in the headlines:

• The Washington Post: Why the dreaded 'boob light' is everywhere, and how to cover it
• NBC News: We dread the 'boob light' too — here's how to get rid of it without calling an electrician
• The Seattle Times: 'Boob lights' are a scourge. Here's how to cover them
• KXAN Austin: Why are 'boob lights' in so many houses and apartments?
• House Beautiful: "Boob Lights" Are Making Your Home Look Tacky. Here's How Designers Fix Them

There is precedent. The HVLS Fan Company (for high-volume, low-speed) kept fielding calls from customers mentioning "those big ass fans," so it became Big Ass Fans. We wonder whether a lighting manufacturer will take the same hint with its next product family launch.

The industry can keep calling it a flush-mount dome. Its customers have already picked another name.