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It's Spring! What better time to get inspired by fresh insights from around the globe? Here's our contribution: two new trends, HYPERTASKING and . You'll also find cool updates on SNOBMODDITIES, GRAND BOUTIQUE and MATURIALISM. Missed any of our previous editions? They're still online, at www.trendwatching.com/trends/archives.html. And for those of you who really can't get enough of our spottings, observations and findings, check out our afternoon trend seminars around the world: the next two months we'll be in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, and New York! And more cities to follow soon. More...>>

The next newsletter is due May 15, 2004.



••••••••

Starbucks 'explains' to customers how to speed up the ordering process!

Consumers love to complain about their busy lives, yet many indicators reveal that they actually enjoy doing everything at the same time, from simultaneously watching TV and surfing the Net, to conducting meetings over the phone while in the bathroom, to having coffees and lunch 'on the go', if not at one's desk.

The concept of 'multitasking' consumers is not new (courtesy of the computer and software industry, who taught consumers how to work simultaneously on five different documents!), however it's now rapidly morphing into something that TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed HYPERTASKING: multitasking moving beyond the desktop and ferociously invading all aspects of daily life.
Some recent stats and random spottings that underscore, fuel and facilitate this phenomenon:

• BIGresearch claims 70 percent of media users consume more than one medium at a time. Of those who listen to radio, 53.7 percent are online at the same time, 46.9 percent are reading a newspaper and 17.7 percent are watching TV. Of those watching TV, 66.2 percent are online and 74.2 percent are reading a newspaper.

• A well-known, yet still evolving example of people doing everything at the same time, and still keeping control of their work, home, and life: Starbucks' partnership with T-Mobile, offering WiFi hotspots in most of its cafes, thereby enabling HYPERTASKING customers to check email, look up data, meet up with friends, organize a business meeting; all away from the office or cramped living space (see our related trend, BEING SPACES). The same is now happening at WiFi-enabled McDonalds restaurants in the US, UK and Taiwan.
The latest HYPERTASKING example at Starbucks? In the US, the company is distributing 'how to order' flyers (see picture above), explaining to customers (well, instructing is more like it), how to order in the most efficient way while customizing their beverages in a bewildering number of ways. Want that to stay or to go?

• Encouraged, no doubt, by Starbucks' sip-and-go success, Campbell Soup is scoring big time with 'Soup at Hand': sippable, heat-and-go soups. Campbell was inspired by market research from National Eating Trends, indicating that 59 percent of all meals in the US are rushed, 44 percent of women carry lunch to work or school, and 34 percent of lunches are eaten on the run. Soup is consistently a top choice for consumers preparing lunch at home, but falls low on the list for out-of-home lunch choices. So putting one and one together, Campbell saw the opportunity to get consumers to think of soup as a meal solution for many occasions, even on the go, while doing other things. In fact, launched last year with four varieties, sippable Soup at Hand was one of the most successful new product introductions in the company's history.



• New widescreen 17"-or-more laptop and PC monitors are gaining popularity fast, not just because they're great for DVD watching, but because they enable users to have two windows open side by side. Surf two websites simultaneously, or work on a PowerPoint presentation on the left, while playing a multi-user game on the right... definitely an upgrade of the original 'multitasking' phenomenon!

• And what about cell phones (or mobile phones for Europeans), those ultimate HYPERTASKING tools? With cell phone ownership now approaching 90% of the population in many European and Asian countries (which means that only newborns and centenarians are NOT indulging in blabbing and SMS-ing and gaming 24/7 via GSM), consumers are consciously choosing to be able to communicate and interact whenever they want, and above all, to do so while they're grocery shopping at Tesco's, cruising on I-95 (hands-free, of course ;-), cycling alongside canals, or partying in a Kowloon bar. Living proof that HYPERTASKING is a choice, not a punishment!

OPPORTUNITIES
Is this a spanking new trend? No. Did TRENDWATCHING.COM feel an adequate conceptual moniker was missing? Yes. If you're a marketer or a manager, start thinking in HYPERTASKING terms whenever you're trying to dream up new (or adapt existing) products and services to more versatile, on-the-go, in-control consumers busy doing many things at once. Or come up with innovative marketing and advertising campaigns that play to today's multi-channel media consumption. Ignore the objections from old school mono-taskers: consumers are voting with their hands and feet in favor of at least having the choice to HYPERTASK when they feel like it. >> Email this trend to a friend.

RELATED TRENDS AND IDEAS
ONLINE OXYGEN
TRANSUMERISM
Soup up your profits
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
DVDs on the move
Big Mac? Big Tec!

WANT TO LINK TO THIS TREND?
www.trendwatching.com/trends/HYPERTASKING.htm

Here's a secret about the art of trend spotting: every trend spurs an anti-trend, so if you want be ahead of the masses, just take any emerging trend and investigate what counter-behavioral effects it may have on consumers. For example, if there's an emerging MASS CLASS, then basically a MASSCLUSIVITY trend can't be too far away!

So, practicing what we preach, how about a pretty obvious alternative to our HYPERTASKING trend: the need -- in between HYPERTASKING -- for simplicity, order and more quality time?

We have dubbed this phenomenon : the fast growing class of products and services that cater to consumers' need for simplicity, and that literally daily life. Time for some inspirational examples...

• Champion of organized life, US coast-to-coast The Container Store recently opened up a mega-store in the HYPERTASKING capital of the world (that would be New York City), bringing storage solutions to time and space starved Manhattanites. This move more or less completed the chain's quest to become the number one player in this market. However, still no stores abroad... Which smart global entrepreneur is going to take The Container Store's philosophy to -starved busy bees in the EU, Japan, Singapore or Australia?


Tagline translation: "Saturday-Plus Subscription Plan: daily on the Net, on your door mat on Saturdays!"


• Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant recently introduced a clever Saturday-Plus subscription. 'Plus' subscribers receive the paper version of the daily on Saturdays, while on weekdays they have access to the (full) digital version. Which mirrors the lifestyle of more and more readers: no time to read the paper version from Monday to Friday, combined with little desire to leave the home early Saturday mornings to get the still-popular paper weekend edition. Very astute, not just from a publishing approach, but from a behavioral, process and service angle as well.

• Domestic help is not exactly a new service, but take a look at this well-presented 'Lifestyle Management' company from the UK, called Urban Angels. It helps customers juggle the 9-5 with home and family commitments, bringing balance back to their lives efficiently and discretely. Rates are GBP 20 per hour (or part thereof), a block of 5 hrs costs GBP 90 per month, while a block of 10 hrs goes for GBP 170 per month. And no, they're not based in London, but in Liverpool. No doubt professional services like this will continue to trickle down from large metropolitan areas to smaller cities and towns, truly bringing luxury to the masses.

• For consumers who don't have access to a company like Urban Angels, 'simplicity' magazines may be an alternative. Already a massive hit in the US, Real Simple magazine delivers its 1.5 million affluent readers (median age 40, median household income USD 90,000) tips and tricks on which products to buy to make their busy lives easier. In the magazine's own words: "While balancing professional, family and community priorities, our readers also recognize the importance of taking care of themselves." And to go full circle: Real Simple is the sole magazine for sale in all The Container Store outlets, appearing at each checkout counter. A simple yet smart partnership in the world of !

OPPORTUNITIES
Like its twin-trend -- and sometimes anti-trend -- HYPERTASKING, represents a trend that has been building for a while now. TRENDWATCHING.COM expects it to reach global mass-status soon, opening up much larger markets not only for clever, new, simplicity-oriented products and services, but also for simplifying the way consumers actually use products and services (see the Volkskrant example); buy them (time to give your website a make-over); or interact with them! More to follow in upcoming issues of the newsletter, and yes, we'll keep it simple. >> Email this trend to a friend.

RELATED TRENDS AND IDEAS
Store it, stuff it
Need more space?
Don't convert it yourself

WANT TO LINK TO THIS TREND?
www.trendwatching.com/trends/DAILY_L.htm

"A vital combination of mature consumers pursuing a seemingly restrained 'best of the best' materialism is driving the trend in ditching mundane goods and services for more professional, premium or sassier versions."

Mature consumers have mature tastes. They also have the time and money to get their hands on the best of the best. Some cool spottings further validating and illustrating this emerging yet massive trend:

• High quality mattresses are 'hot' in the US, as cash-rich baby boomers flock to specialty stores to get the top in comfort for their ageing bodies. Citing the ultimate excuse for luxury consumption (health concerns, sleep depravation!), about 17% of US mattress buyers now spend USD 1,000 to 2,000 on mattress and box-spring sets (source: International Sleep Products Association).
Popular brands include Hypnos from the UK, which has been supplying beds for the British royal family for four decades, and Swedish Hästens Beds. US-based luxury mattress manufacturers like Shifman Mattress and Stearns & Foster are experiencing high growth too: their top of the line mattresses sell for more than USD 6,000.
With boomers around the world still in their peak spending years, TRENDWATCHING.COM believes the MATURIALISM trend will mean sweet dreams for the bedding industry for a long time to come. (Source: Springspotters, NYT.)

• Trend watchers like ourselves love to point out the vast amounts of leisure time that boomers will soon have on their hands. But how to translate that into profitable new services and products? Well, for one, expect amateur hobbies and interests to turn decidedly mature and 'pro'.

Point in case: the success of home weather stations in the US. Although The Weather Channel, weather-obsessed websites and personal update services already beam consumers the latest weather conditions minute by minute, wireless stations with indoor consoles (displaying digital readouts of outdoor conditions) are HOT. Professional stations, once only available to atmospheric scientists, are now for sale at stores like Best Buy, Target and the Sharper Image, for anywhere between USD 150 and 2,500.



The Weather Channel and AccuWeather websites have joined the fray, selling detectors and weather predicting clocks. Communities are forming, too: sites like WeatherMatrix.com and Weatherforyou.com connect thousands of newbie-weather-maturialists (source: USAToday). Basically a trend within a trend: selling professional goods to boomers who proceed to gather and 'bond' online. How's that for new business inspiration?


• Remember Häagen-Dazs' MATURIALISM-inspired Desserts Extraordinaire (which included, amongst others, adult flavors like Bananas Foster and Tres Leches)? Two companies Down Under have taken the mature-flavors concept one step further: beloved Tim Tam biscuit manufacturer Arnott's recently introduced Kahlua-flavoured Mint Slices and Tia Maria-tinged cookies (in itself another great example of one of our other trends, BRANDED BRANDS!).



Not to be outdone, Streets (Unilever's ice cream brand in Australia) then launched a new vodka-flavored ice cream (the Illicit Vodka Cranberry Magnum), which is, for now, only available in the state of Victoria (Australia).

Puritans were quick to point out the massive dangers these 'mature' treats pose to innocent Australian tikes, even though the vodka ice cream contains NO alcohol, just vodka flavoring, and in the case of the cookies, one would have to consume one's body weight in biscuits every hour to reach a blood-alcohol content of .05 (the Australian drink-driving limit). From Cirque du Soleil's tantalizing Zumanity shows to tasty liquor-laced biscuits and ice-creams: MATURIALISM will hopefully defy the nanny-state for a while to come! >> Email this trend to a friend.

OPPORTUNITIES
If you're in B2C, the boomer generation is no doubt high on your target list. The above spottings should give you plenty of inspiration on how to add mature versions to your existing offerings. And if you happen to be selling to professional users, then this seems like the right moment to sell those pro-goods to mature, 'amateur' consumers as well! We'll bring you more examples of this trend in following issues of newsletter.

RELATED TRENDS AND IDEAS
Heavenly Bed
MASSCLUSIVITY
FLORIDASATION

WANT TO READ THE ENTIRE TREND DESCRIPTION, OR LINK TO IT?
www.trendwatching.com/trends/MATURIALISM.htm

"Describes the phenomenon of turning completely mundane commodities into chic, popular luxury items or goods."



• The concept of turning something mundane into more varieties than you can wave a stick at, is taken very seriously by Rice to Riches, a Nolita (New York) store offering a bewildering choice in rice pudding, and rice pudding only! More than 20 varieties, from 'Surrender to Mango' and 'Coconut Coma' to 'Caramel Yogurt Crackdown' and 'Pray for Praline' are available for take-away in funky plastic containers. No doubt inspired by Ben and Jerry's high quality desserts with funky names, Rice to Riches is yet another example of how marketers can turn even lowly products into something special: premium prices and higher margins courtesy of their own imagination. What is your company's equivalent of rice pudding?



• To stick with the food and beverage theme: tea seems to be ready for a SNOBMODDITY upgrade, too. Now that even corner shops in small Swedish villages are selling raspberry-infused Japanese green tea, it's time for tea-inspired SNOBMODDITIES like Black Tea Lollipops from Verithé, which are made from brewed tea and cane sugar. Or try green tea pedicures at the Warren-Tricomi Salon in New York. And what to think of 'Perfect World' skin products from Origins, which combine essentials like firming moisture treatment, intensely hydrating body cream and highly hydrating body lotion with White Tea? It might not be YOUR cup of tea, but it IS to tens of thousands of trend setting consumers...



• And from Japanese tea to Japanese food: now that Sushi restaurants are becoming as ubiquitous as Chinese and Thai eateries around the world, keep an eye on wasabi, a SNOBMODDITY-in-waiting! The sharp, green Japanese horseradish has gone from novelty to mainstream, which means SNOBMODDITIZATION must be around the corner. For more inspiration, visit www.wasabiwatusi.com, and don't say we didn't warn you on this one! (Source: Springspotters, Newsweek)

OPPORTUNITIES
You may be sitting on a SNOBMODDITY without even knowing it! With the world going MASS CLASS, there will be demand for products variations that only a few years ago would have been dismissed as being beyond 'nichest of the nichest'. The most important thing about SNOBMODDITIES? Repeat after us: premium prices, higher margins! >> Email this trend to a friend.



RELATED TRENDS / IDEAS
ONLINE OXYGEN
TRANSUMERISM
Soup up your profits
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
DVDs on the move
Big Mac? Big Tec!

WANT TO READ THE ENTIRE TREND DESCRIPTION?
www.trendwatching.com/trends/2002/11/
SNOMBMODDITIES.html

"Design-driven innovation, based around changing customer needs, will always be disruptive across many industries."

Thanks to a vibrant mix of ONLINE OXYGEN and HYPERTASKING, consumers are increasingly working from home these days, sometimes full-time, more often at night and in the weekends (one IDC study expects the number of mobile workers to reach 55 million this year in the US, and European studies signal the same significant numbers and percentages for some Western European countries).



So, with the boundaries between work and play blurring, home offices will increasingly be where consumers will spend some of their most valuable hours. At the same time, the traditional office furniture market is still kind of, well, STYLE CHALLENGED! In our book, that spells OPPORTUNITY. So TRENDWATCHING.COM wasn't too surprised to recently find an eight page spread in stylish Wallpaper Magazine, touting high design home office solutions for the Creative Class, whose dwellings are increasingly morphing into fully wired, fully equipped home offices. For the cash-flush, Wallpaper recommended Julian Brown desk equipment, Clipiola paper clips by Cavallini & Co, and file holders by Magis. Sounds too boutique and whimsical? Then consider this GRAND BOUTIQUE spotting, proving the beautification of the home office is about to go MASS CLASS:

• Office Depot, the office supplies giant, recently introduced the Christopher Lowell Collection (designed by Lowell, the Emmy-award winning designer and TV personality), offering 'affordable office furniture and accessories that work with any look, any lifestyle, and any budget'. As ads (popping up in small business mags like Entrepreneur) for the new furniture line put it:

"If you wanted your home office to look like an office, you'd work in an office"! And "Can you spot the office in this home office"? Witness the birth of yet another industry, courtesy of GRAND BOUTIQUE!




• And to stick with the office/storage/work theme: fast expanding 'The Container Store', already basking in the glow of our trend, advertises its actual storage products as stylish alternatives to the usual bland boxes, racks and containers found in nondescript dollar stores. In their own words: "Make a statement with your organized space." Basically, with its GRAND BOUTIQUE approach to mundane goods, The Container Store is to storage what the W Hotels are to modern lodging!

OPPORTUNITIES
If Office Depot and The Container Store can do it, so can you: applying design to not only improve the looks of your products, but also to adapt to a new reality: modern design is no longer 'just' modern, it's become the design standard for today's 'average' consumer. Think Apple and computers. Virgin and airlines. IKEA and furniture. Calvin Klein and underwear, Nokia and phones, Alessi and household products, Starbucks and daytime cafes, and now, Office Depot and home offices! Who's next? >> Email this trend to a friend.

RELATED TREND
MASS CLASS

WANT TO READ THE ENTIRE TREND DESCRIPTION?
www.trendwatching.com/trends/2003/10/GRAND_BOUTIQUE.html