10 Trends to Think About


CONNECTIVITY
We are living in a 24-7 connected world. March 2006, Rupert Murdoch predicts a future in which “media becomes like fast food” with consumers watching news or entertainment on the go in a wireless world of web 2.0. In the developed world it will be impossible not to be connected: devices and access have become absolute necessities, no longer a privilege. In the developing world handheld devices will continue the connectivity growth with wireless connections at the forefront of development vision. Some time ago consumers had to adapt to new technology – in the future, to cope with the speed of technology innovation, commercialised technology will adapt to consumers – not the other way around. It will become increasingly important to understand how consumers are using technology and what they want from technology. Connectivity redefines the brand / consumer relationship from ‘brand to me’, to ‘me to brand’













INDIVIDUALISM
Consumption and consumerism is at the core of modern culture and society. For many it defines who we are since shoppers and consumers today buy a lifestyle based on what’s fashionable amongst our peers. However, no matter how rich we become the curse of all human beings is to compare one’s self with others. Our consumerist society is destined to head towards individualism - wanting more personalised products to feel like you’re not a meaningless number in the six billion. A sense of personalisation and individualism is created for brands through shopping experiences, channel exclusivity or brand intrinsics. Customised service offerings around consumers, shoppers, channels and customers are also growing. Manufacturing is being slowly redefined by this consumer and shopper need: We are fast approaching the point at which mass customisation is commoditised and manufacturing innovation is the next breakthrough wave required to allow this trend to be fully manifested. A key challenge for all mass market brands in the future will be how to create economies of scale out of satisfying individuals.


ENGAGEMENT
Today consumers define brands – they control the ‘what', 'how' and 'when’ they will receive the content you are marketing to them. Consumers have more power and are more demanding. Brand communication and distribution channels are more fragmented. Markets are becoming more competitive with more choice than ever before; and, as the world has got smaller, many services, brands or products are increasingly becoming bland faceless copies of one another. Traditional marketing approaches are no longer sufficient to stand out and capture attention. It is going to be all about having a ‘brand experience’ in the future. Creating communities around user generated content will continue to be a burning platform for businesses seeking to translate this key trend into commercial applications. Making marketing dollars work harder, using engagement techniques that are potentially more expensive and leveraging poorly developed internal skills will be at the forefront of this trend application. Creating a seamless experience of your brand wherever your consumer and shopper chooses to interact with your brand will remain a key challenge.


MEGA RETAILERS
Global retail consolidation will continue as retailers look for global growth opportunities, and in response supplier consolidation will increase. Mega retailers will continue to forge ahead with creating the one stop shopping experience and lifelong loyalty: from baked beans to high fashion. The continued growth of private label and the vast swathe of ‘new and innovative’ coming from smaller niche suppliers and private label heralds a new future of competitiveness for big suppliers, who with big global brands are looking for amorphous solutions that can be applied as generically as possible. At the same time retailing has moved rapidly from ‘buying’ to ‘selling’, from ‘selling space’ to ‘driving brand equity’. The future trend of disconnect between the two is obvious - the key to competitive retailing in the future is differentiated and personalised offers to targeted shoppers and consumers. Despite mega retailer’s size and scale, these retailers will increasingly tap into worldwide consumer trends with multi channel retail formats and the ability to interact directly with consumers and shoppers thanks to technological developments.


HEALTH
Health is becoming a new religion and in the future will be as much about lifestyle as it is about curing illness. Globally definitions of health are expanding and more and more players are entering the space traditional pharma companies used to occupy and they are competing more directly with a growing host of businesses and health care products. Health and Convenience mega trends continue to strongly converge with multi functional products being brought to market. Whilst obesity and weight loss remain high on the agenda in the developed world, in the developing world governments and corporations will seek to eradicate disease and find models to provide low cost quality healthcare for all. The move towards self determination, managing costs and sense of individualism will remain evidenced by the growing Self Medication trend


CONVENIENCE
Convenience is a need state that is generated by people’s increasingly busy lives. Consumers are time-poor and are demanding convenience - whether the convenience of a product or service: pre-prepared meals ready-prepared ingredients, store location, online or telephone services etc. Time poor consumers will continue to look for ways to create more time - convenience has to be healthy (if possible) and convenience has to be enjoyable (if possible). Convenience is a generic basic characteristic shared by all brands and services. It is not in of itself differentiating. A key future challenge is that convenience is not a source of true competitive advantage unless you can own a universal definition of the convenience need being met. It is; for example, more convenient to open a tin with a built in tab than to open it with a tin opener. However, unless you’ve made a hugely unique stride and can somehow own and patent the proposition there’s very little long term strategic advantage.


VALUE NETWORKS
With brand and innovation lifecycles becoming increasingly shorter, most companies are unwilling or unable to invest alone. The way in which business generates ideas and brings them to market continues to undergo a transformation with value networks, open and collaborative innovation replacing ‘go it alone’ strategies and internally focused innovation processes. Speed to market is an important competitive advantage and forming a value partnership is a key way to achieve this, whilst at the same time minimising the risks associated with these investments. Innovation across all spheres of business life has become a bottom up exercise (consumer driven) rather than a top down exercise (R&D lab driven). Co-creating with users and customers echo’s the global ‘engagement’ mega trend and is made possible by the global ‘connectivity’ trend. The most effective value networks have the broadest range of information, knowledge and experience.


INNOVATION
Shaping the global economy it is now standard issue in this fast paced world to say that companies ‘innovate or die’ – managing and implementing innovation above all else remains the most important future business skill. Innovation is high on the agenda for stakeholders and most annual reports will now highlight what % of revenue has been or is targeted to be generated from product or service innovations. Tracking successful companies and innovators across industries yields some important common denominators: innovation champions who are hands on, innovation a fully fledged business priority and culture and process, creative thinking encouraged and cultivated and most importantly, end user/ consumer orientation. Innovation is also being fast tracked with value networks tapping into the global brain, and consumer created ideation now embraced as a viable commercial approach. Innovation represents growth opportunity for all, including boring or non sexy brands, businesses and non fashionable industries.


SERVING LOW COST CONSUMERS
“Not only can corporate and social needs be integrated, but the success of the developing world in improving prosperity is of fundamental strategic importance to almost every company” says Michael Porter in ‘Tomorrow’s World’. Emerging markets are a future priority for most corporations who consider that the developing world will deliver the highest GDP growth in future. Going forward global corporates will be focusing on the majority not the minority of consumers, and tapping into local knowledge and networks where possible for strategic advantage. At the same time there will be an increase in local start up’s to compete with global multi nationals. Corporate responsibility remains high on the agenda for corporations who will need to demonstrate their role in eradicating poverty, in social and economic upliftment in the emerging markets in which they are operating or planning to penetrate.


DEMOGRAPHICS
Global demographic trends are well documented, as are future forecasts. In 2015 four in five consumers will live in the developing world. Increasing urbanization and immigration will offer lower cost to serve opportunities, as the mega cities of the future become a reality. The youth bulge in the developing world is driving a host of youth culture insight initiatives and corporate social responsibility and investment in children will become even more important. In the developed world an ageless marketing communication will attempt to address the growing ‘new old’ consumers and the economic implications of an aging population are being hotly debated. So too the increase in single households in the developed world is representing a commercial opportunity and change in focus for many brands and categories. These, amongst others, important global demographic shifts will drive corporate and marketing strategy like never before and present a host of challenges to multinationals who might have to decide where to compete on a more polarized playing field in which global brands have a less impactful role.

To discuss how these trends can be commercially activated in your business contact tracey@in-deed.com.
© Copyright 2012 Weben PartnersWebsite design by Toolkit Websites