June 3, 2008
IT'S A cool afternoon in Sydney and a slice of corporate Australia is descending upon the Art Gallery of NSW, but it is not the art they are interested in.
Three hundred designers, brand and marketing managers and their excited assistants from Australian companies such as Pacific Brands, David Jones, Westfield and Big W have converged to catch a glimpse of the future, provided by British trend forecasting service WGSN.
They're here because modern business demands it. Being "trend aware" is the new frontier in business, where companies struggle to keep up with web-educated, trend-hungry consumers. Knowing about trends before they happen is increasingly being perceived as crucial to a company's survival.
"The consumer is so aware of what's happening at a global level with trends, from celebrity culture through to street blogs and the immediacy of delivery of that information through the internet. Companies need to stay ahead," explains Maria Janssen, WGSN seminar presenter and global managing editor for its youth, street and sport divisions.
The former Nike design director is at the tail end of a five-week seminar tour through Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The roadshow ends in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria on Tuesday, where 500 WGSN subscribers such as Myer, Target, Holden, Country Road, Rip Curl, Sportsgirl and Sussan are booked.
According to Ms Janssen, forecasters arrive at their predictions by analysing a large amount of unrelated information. "We look at anything and everything. From the wider design community, we look at business analysis, we look at the economic environment, consumer attitudes, technology. Then we analyse what we've done for the last few seasons and we combine it with our intuition. From that, we develop directional long-term trends."
Predicting the future is big business and WGSN is not the only company working in the industry. Another British forecasting service and consultancy, the Future Laboratory, which focuses on socially driven consumer trends, conducts "trend briefings" around the world and counts Melbourne City Council as one of its consultancy clients.
"Trend is the new big business — knowing your future consumer," says Future Laboratory co-founder Chris Sanderson. "In these uncertain times, if you don't know your consumer, you don't know your business."
Mr Sanderson, whose clients include Vodafone, Nokia and Ralph Lauren, believes that the rise of forecasting companies comes as a result of the limitations of conventional marketing.
"It's gone hand in hand with the demise of traditional marketing metrics as society changed and standard quantitative analysis no longer accurately captured the changes going on in society," he says.
"We embraced a more qualitative understanding that drew on sociology, anthropology and the writings of thinkers such as Malcolm Gladwell, Charles Leadbetter and John Howkins."
Looking into the future — whether it's the shape of shoes in 2010 or how people will be thinking and feeling — is not cheap. WGSN annual subscriber fees start from £12,500 ($A32,000), which gives clients access to a web portal that houses reams of information. The Future Laboratory sells "Future Reports" for £1000 but a commissioned report costs up to £35,000.
Online trends company Trendwatching.com takes a different approach, offering information free on its website. It makes money from a single annual trend report and trend-briefing seminars conducted everywhere from Stockholm to Melbourne.
So what insights are the world's biggest companies paying for? The Future Laboratory asserts that we are entering the age of "austerity" in which people crave simplicity and authenticity. "It's not just austerity as an aesthetic, but as a way of life," Future Lab co-founder Martin Raymond has said. People are becoming civic-minded in their shopping and buying habits. They are becoming "more judgemental, less forgiving and more determined to use their power".
What's coming up in fashion, according to trend forecasters WGSN
SUMMER 2009 Theme: "Connect"
Inspired by the global melting pot, we'll see a new kind of urban uniform referencing different cultures.
* Theme: "EXTRAordinary". Inspired by the real and the ordinary. A kind of suburban chic and an antidote to the high glamour of the catwalk.
* Theme: Transformation. Science is the inspiration. Designers will incorporate "smart textiles" into their ranges.
trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated consumer trends firm, relying on a global network of 8,000 spotters, working hard to deliver inspiration and pangs of anxiety to business professionals in 120+ countries worldwide. For more info, check out our latest (and free) Trend Briefing.
