Trends Identified
The mobility revolution
As radically innovative forms of mobility hit the mainstream, the way we move around will change forever.
2018
Trend watch 2018: the next five
Landor
The primacy of purpose
Today’s brands must be purposeful and provide the services customers want while fulfilling steep demands for accountability and transparency. The business model of the future will require giving back—to employees, to communities, and to the planet.
2018
Trend watch 2018: the next five
Landor
Engineered Empathy - Human engagement in an EI-expectant world
Emotional intelligence – an ability to empathise and engage on a human level – will become a core and advocacy-building consumer expectation, as well as a valued everyday life skill demanded by workplaces and personal relationships alike.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Life in Beta Mode - Ready for a world of forever onboarding?
The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) era creates a world in which B2B and B2C products routinely upgrade and improve long after purchase. That products reach peak performance some time after POS is a message many will welcome (and drive long-term loyalty), especially those maximisers who seek post-purchase reassurance that money has been well spent. Anticipate a greater need for post-purchase support, value-signalling and a clear process of rolling onboarding.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Anti-Automation - Driving change in CSR policy near you soon
Anti-automation sentiment hangs heavy in the air. All manner of people – from entrepreneurs to policy makers, from technologists to everyday consumers – fret about the promised disruption to working and leisure lives caused by the forces of automation and evolving AI. Whilst, in reality, consumers will welcome the multiple benefits that automated innovation brings, disquiet (about job prospects, spending power, status) creates opportunities for brands to create supportive messaging as well as new skills to help consumers adapt.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Latchkey Loyalty - Harnessing the free range shopper
In Latchkey Loyalty, anticipate consumers to seriously review long-term and overly complex commercial entanglements in favour of commitment-lite engagement where simplicity and ease of entry/departure are emphasised. The demand for relationships of this kind has been building for some time among capricious consumers: but herein lies renewed opportunity to creatively ensnare the shopper in gilded cages of apparent freedom and comfort, from where “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Fine to be fallible - profitiing from an age of epic fails
In societies hard-wired to strive for and venerate success, it may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that competitive advantage lies in publicly sharing our shortcomings. Fine to be Fallible describes a world increasingly at ease with the notion that failure is a necessary pre-requisite of success – and an acceptable consequence of being human. A companion trend to Engineered Empathy, herein lies an opportunity to associate brands with the kaleidoscope of human endeavour and carefully address failings of their own.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Quest to Purchase - The rise of elective barriers to buying
Orthodoxy demands that brands strain every sinew to kill obstacles on the path to purchase. In Quest to Purchase, brands are instead invited to recognise the perceived value of deliberately contrived pre-checkout challenge. For the One-Click Generation, used to zero delay between intent and satisfaction, new barriers to buying – with opportunities to graft and compete for favoured brands’ custom in offline, IRL settings – provide new routes to fun and status.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Custom at all Costs - Playing new games with price
Price sensitivity remains a key and determining feature of the consumer landscape, and recent years have seen much price elasticity innovation to appeal to consumers (even the relatively well- off) engaged in a daily battle against unnecessary largesse in the aisles. In 2018 and beyond, anticipate further dismantling of RRP and a growing tendency to permit flexible, time-sensitive, lifestyle- and lifestage- personalised, progressive pricing models to differentiate and entice.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory
Mechanised Truth - Centralised routes to corporate truth-building
Truth, trust, believability – all under serious pressure in a consumer landscape developing a healthy disrespect for traditional arbiters of truth and authority, and where claim and counter-claim on any given issue mean that settled, mainstream truths are in short supply. Enter new, centralised routes to commercial truth- building that herald a future in which tangible, mechanised truths more robustly challenge emotionally-charged “alternative facts” and meet a significant need for corporate transparency.
2018
Trending 2018
Foresight Factory