TrendWatching | Consumer Trend Radar

The Consumer Trend Radar

There is no shortage of exciting, intriguing, emerging consumer trends. But...which ones are 'for you', empowering meaningful growth within your company?

Our Consumer Trend Radar helps you focus, prioritize and visualize key trends in a few easy steps.

Who Is It For?

Consumer-facing organizations

The radar can form the basis of a powerful annual or even multi-year Purposed Trend-Driven strategy planning session. It can be used to establish a clear strategy for your entire organization or a specific department or team.

Agencies and Consultancies

Use the radar to identify and plan the application of trends that are important to a (new) client.

What to expect with the Consumer Trend Radar?

What To Expect?

Your end result will be a clear, one-page visual of your Purposed Trend-Driven strategy, outlining the trends that matter most to your business & how and when to apply them.

There’s no 'right answer' when it comes to developing your Purposed Trend-Driven strategy. That’s because your decisions on which trends to apply, along with the when and how, are rooted in the specifics of your organization - where it finds itself today and where you want to take it.

The three steps on this page are your guide to getting there.

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Step 1.

Select 6-8 trends using one of the following approaches:

If you have access to TrendWatching Premium, turn to the Trend Mapper to enter your industry and the main areas of focus, and receive recommendations of trends to explore.

Scan the Trend Framework and its 16 Key Consumer Trends and consider if, in the future, you want your business to fit within these trend. Select the 6-8 that most apply. If you can’t decide, then run one session using the first 8, and another for the second 8.

If you don't have access to TrendWatching Premium, you can also read our free MakeShift and Innovations of the Day publications, and use these globally relevant, curated trends to explore what they mean to your business.

Step 2.

Explore The Opportunities

Put trends to work in solving your business challenges and delivering against your goals

Before you start plotting trends on the radar, you need to explore the opportunities they present to the future direction of your business and how they will impact its growth.

To guide your thinking, start by considering how the trend relates to your purpose, mission, vision, goals, business challenges, capabilities, resources and more. In other words, ask yourself and your team members:

’What can this trend do for us?’

Step 3.

Plot The Trends

Plot each trend on the radar, based on three core areas:

Innovation Type
Priority
Response

A. Innovation Type

In which area of my business will we apply this trend?

Select from these four types of innovations:

New Brand Vision
New Business Model
New Product / Service / Experience
New Marketing Campaign

Of course, many trends can, and often should, impact more than one—or even all—of these levels. In this case, we suggest you write the same trend on multiple post-it notes and simply place it on different parts of the radar.

B. Your Priorities

When will you apply the trend?

For each trend, choose from these three levels of priority:

> 'Now'

Within 6 months? Get started today.

>> 'Next'

Within 6 to 24 months? Start planning for the planning.

>>> 'Beyond'

Keep an eye on things but not a priority, yet.

It is difficult to apply every important trend right away. So, ask yourself which trends are both urgent and important for now, and which are more of a soon to be applied.

C. Your Response

What level of commitment will you need to apply the trend?

How intensely will you apply the trend?

'Light'

Launch new products, services or campaigns, quickly. No excuses.

'Intense'

Requires serious innovation commitment, including time, money, and multiple teams or departments.

'Total'

This leads to fundamental shifts in purpose, mission or vision, using resources from across your organization.

More...

Unlock the true power of this tool and invite others to workshop your Purposed Trend-Driven strategy with you. Be it your direct team, your C-suite leadership, or brilliant brains from across your organization. Make sure you also download our free Consumer Trend Canvas, which helps you apply the trends you've prioritised with the radar - and end up with winning, meaningful innovations. Good luck!

Want us to run this workshop for you? Reach out to Lucy Goodman, our Business Development Director, at workwithus@trendwatching.com.

Our Services

Platform

Course

Keynotes

Our trend intelligence platform

Amplify is our company-wide trends & ideation solution, neatly platformed, giving you access to our full Trend Framework, Innovation Database with 28,000+ innovations, Annual Trend Reports, Industry Reports, Analyst Support and more. Everything you need to guide and inspire you and your teams to turn trends into meaningful innovations.

Used by 100s of brands and professional services firms worldwide.

A 25-lesson, self-paced online course on how to act on trends

Let us help you to absorb 10+ years of working with consumer trends - in just a few weeks. The course is designed to train you in trend forecasting as well as making the most of our methodology. Taken at your own pace, all insights and tools will remain at your disposal post-course, too.

Public and corporate keynotes & workshops

Engage our team of Trend Analysts & Presenters for your next corporate or public trend session - having delivered literally 100s of keynotes and workshops in 35+ countries, to some of the world's leading brands and agencies, we know how to deliver.