Trend watching for 2008
My colleagues shared with me two resources for latest trends. Thanks.
http://trendwatching.com/briefing/ - 8 important consumer trends for 2008:
- Status spheres - there are different “status spheres”, or “a variety of lifestyles, activities and persuasions, which can be mixed and matched by consumers looking for recognition from various crowds and scenes”. Examples: traditional sphere (status by luxury), transient sphere (collect as many experiences as possible), etc.
- Premiumization - trend to create premium versions of products and services
- Snack culture - “embodies the phenomenon of products, services and experiences becoming more temporary and transient; products that are being deconstructed in easier to digest, easier to afford bits, making it possible to collect even more experiences, as often as possible, in an even shorter timeframe”
- Online oxygen - “consumers needing online access as much as they need oxygen”
- Eco-iconic- “Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic design and markers, that help their eco-conscious owners to visibly tout their eco-credentials to peers”
- Brand butlers - companies going out to provide useful services to potential customers (e.g. toilets at the concert) instead of advertising. Hmmmm.
- Make it yourself - “the next frontier will be digitally designing products from scratch, then having them turned into real physical goods as well”
- Crowd mining - rewarding crowds for valuable deliverables (fellowforce would fall into this category)
The second is an article on BBC - The shape of things to come. They list following trends, some are overlapping with the above:
- Make it yourself
- Local networking
- See-hear-buy (ability to buy product instantly, like a song playing in the restaurant)
- Think blue (from the sky - carbon labeling)
- Secret bling (less obvious exclusivity, “being in the known” required to recognize the value of the objects)
- Radical transparency (services to remove unwanted personal information from the open web)
- Body language (devices understanding gestures)
