TRENDWATCHING.COM relentlessly scans the globe for the most promising
consumer and marketing trends. None of the ‘red skirts are
the new blue skirts for the Summer of 2003’, but broad trends
applicable to many business disciplines. We hope to inspire you
to come up with new ideas, concepts and services. For more info
about us and what we offer, please check out www.trendwatching.com.
Now, continue reading this newsletter, and you'll be able to quip:
"I knew it was a good idea all along!"
|
As Warhol predicted with
"15 minutes of fame", hundreds of millions of individuals
are craving immortality, or at least some public attention.
Whether it’s blogging, participating in Big Brother,
having a character in a novel named after you, or adorning
your car with personalized license plates, the masses want
their names out there. This is where graffiti meets vanity
to form GRAVANITY:
an entire industry catering to the obsession of ordinary citizens
wanting to leave ‘something’ behind in print,
audio or imagery, preferably in the public domain. Consider
it a 21st century version of university libraries and hospital
wings being named after the rich ruling classes.
GRAVANITY
offers a host of opportunities for entrepreneurs willing
to (re)name their goods and services, however small, on
behalf of eager customers. TRENDWATCHING.COM predicts museums
selling sponsorships of even the smallest works of arts
(or just the frames!), theatres offering GRAVANITY
space on each seat, real estate developers auctioning off
the rights to have apartment buildings and lobbies adorned
with the names of middle-class families, and Domino’s
introducing pizzas named after cash-rich, attention-poor
pizza lovers who will reveal their favourite toppings to
the world. If it can have a name attached to or printed
on it, it WILL sell!
>> Email this trend to a friend.
|
|
Phenomenon describing the
unfounded resistance to spending money on minor indulgences,
even though one’s personal wealth and prosperity allow
for it. While actual purchasing power has increased immensely
over the last 50 years, deep, almost generational convictions
remain about ‘exuberant’ versus ‘responsible’
behaviour. PROSPERITY DENIAL
applies to small luxuries such as gourmet coffees on-the-go,
taking a taxi when it’s pouring down, purchasing premium
seats for a classical concert, or buying the entire work of
a new favourite writer.
To do the math: the cost of a cup of excellent coffee, at
3 USD/Euro, represents roughly 0.0048% of median US annual
income. Sipping a latte once a week then represents 0.25%
on a yearly basis. Which leaves 99.75% for other necessities.
Median income in Western Europe is a bit lower, but still
high enough to disregard dents in disposable income when occasionally
choosing a taxi over getting wet and miserable.
Therefore, marketers of minor indulgences should work on
a change in attitude to make sufferers of PROSPERITY
DENIAL understand that to treat oneself
now and then is neither a sin nor a recipe for bankruptcy.
Perhaps this is even more relevant during economic down-turns,
when life's little luxuries provide considerable comfort
at a negligible cost. If a behavioural move away from PROSPERITY
DENIAL succeeds (never easy!), then the
way is paved for introducing more ‘Snobmoddities’
(discussed later in this newsletter). May TRENDWATCHING.COM
humbly suggest: ENJOY! >>
Email this trend to a friend.
|
|
The popularity of Royal-Class airport lounges
and invitation-only Centurion credit cards are just two examples
of modern man's immense need for respect and privilege. The
more access consumers have to outstanding quality goods and
services (the DVD player in your living room probably doesn’t
differ too much from the one Queen Elizabeth’s grandchildren
use to watch ‘Lord of the Rings’), the more they
want exclusivity and status of a different order. The kind
that visibly sets you apart from the masses and gives you
access to privileges most others won’t get.
This 'exclusivity for the masses’, or MASSCLUSIVITY,
can be an instant add-on and revenue booster for many services
in the public domain. MASSCLUSIVITY
is NOT about exclusively opening up Harrods or Macy’s
late Sunday night for a Hollywood super-celeb looking for
a last-minute party dress, but rather about setting up special
in-store coffee lounges or luxurious fitting rooms for members
only. Respect and privilege are scarce nowadays. Reason
enough to add them to your offerings. >>
Email this trend to a friend.
|
|
Remember the ’80s when brands like Nike and Lacoste
introduced the brilliant idea (for them) of making customers
pay to display their logos? Ever since, human branding
has seen extremes like tattooed logos on body parts, and
brand icons shaved onto heads. Now, with the current wildfire-like
spread of mobile/cell phones, expect audio to be added
to people’s branding expressions.
Enter JINGLE CASTING.
New generation phones sport features like ‘16-voice
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) synthesizers’,
meaning, in plain English, that jingles and ring tones
are reproduced with previously unattain-able sound quality.
So what’s to stop corporations and organizations
from persuading consumers to download their company jingles,
commercials or political cries for change?
Using cell phones to broadcast commercials, tunes and
jingles could well be the next big thing in the multi-billion
euro ring tone industry. TRENDWATCHING.COM can’t
wait to hear “Always Coca-Cola!” being JINGLE
CAST from a million hand-helds, handies,
cell-phones, mobiles, and keitais ;-) >>
Email this trend to a friend.
|
|
Describes the phenomenon
of turning completely mundane commodities into chic, popular
luxury items or goods, offering consumers a bewildering number
of varieties of what were once invisible parts of daily life.
Witness a recent Forbes article about ‘Salt Chic’
(Forbes, October 28, 2002) featuring Californian restaurant
chefs using 20 varieties of gourmet sodium chloride, with
a certain Japanese sea salt costing 45 USD per kilo.
So 50 different kinds of pepper or one hundred kinds of sugar
cannot be far behind. Far fetched? Other commodities became
SNOBMODDITIES
a long time ago (bread, water, chocolate), so it is a sure
bet that more ‘unexpected’ commodities will become
specialty goods one day or another, however unlikely it may
seem at inception. In that sense, SNOBMODDITIES
more than fit Arthur C. Clarke's theory about the three periods
that new ideas pass through:
1. It can't be done.
2. It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
3. I knew it was a good idea all along!
Opportunities aplenty: there is hardly any commodity which
can NOT be turned into a SNOBMODDITY
or specialty good. By adding variety, choice and/or a brand
(with a certain promise), margins can only go up. How to find
the next SNOBMODDITIES?
Study commodity success cases such as lettuce (which now mainly
comes pre-washed, precut, and prepackaged, in a few dozen
varieties, as strategy guru Gary Hamel pointed out in 1999),
daily bread (Portuguese flat bread with Moroccan dates, anyone?)
and the lowly coffee bean (Double Shot, Half Decaf, Skinny
Iced White Chocolate Mocha to go)!
Not to be outdone, TRENDWATCHING.COM boldly predicts that
you will one day insist on having Saharan desert sand in
your children’s sand box, and Saharan desert sand
only ;-) >>
Email this trend to a friend. |
|
With
face-to-face communication being rapidly replaced by email
and chat, goods and services being purchased online, and big
city apartments shrinking year by year, urban dwellers are
trading their lonely, cramped living rooms for the real-life
buzz of BEING SPACES:
commercial living-room-like settings, where catering and entertainment
aren't just the main attraction, but are there to facilitate
small office/living room activities like watching a movie,
reading a book, meeting friends and colleagues, or doing your
admin.
Starbucks is a great example on a global scale, while many
companies in Japan, China and South-Korea offer deluxe gaming
and manga-reading facilities, as well as semi-private DVD
booths.
BEING SPACES
charge us for eating, drinking, playing, listening, surfing,
working, or meeting, just as we would at home or in the
office, while successfully reintegrating us into city life.
>>
Email this trend to a friend. |
Want more trends? Customised for your company, products or services?
With ready-to-implement business ideas and concepts? Please contact
us via the services page on our website: www.trendwatching.com/services.html
Or click HERE
for our current issue, and don't forget to subscribe! TRENDWATCHING.COM:
loaded with Future Trends, Trends in 2003, Trends in 2004, Current
Trends, Emerging Trends, and Consumer Trends!
|
NEWSLETTER
TRENDWATCHING.COM
ISSUE: 11 / 2002
HOMEPAGE
>>
CURRENT
ISSUE >>
SELECTION
OF PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS AND TRENDS, 2002/2003 >>
SUBSCRIBE!!
To subscribe to this FREE monthly email newsletter, please
fill in your email address and click on SEND.
BE NICE TO YOUR COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS!
If you enjoy this newsletter, and would like to share it with
friends or colleagues, just forward it or visit our TELL
A FRIEND page. Thanks!
WHO IS IT FOR?
Marketers, analysts, heads of start-ups,
management consultants, budding and serial entrepreneurs, students,
researchers, VCs, journalists, business development directors,
fellow trend watchers, and anyone else interested in staying on
top of the latest global consumer trends.
PRINT IT!
Click
here to print this newsletter.
If you have trouble viewing the file, click below for a free download
of Acrobat Reader.
CAN I PUBLISH
OR REPRODUCE SOME OF THESE TRENDS?
Yes, as long as you properly credit the source, www.trendwatching.com,
you can do with these trends whatever you want!
SUBSCRIBE!!
Make sure you don't miss out on next edition's batch of trends!
To subscribe, please fill in your email address below and click
on 'SEND'.
|