The report highlights the 'Super Stress Era', 'Intelligent Objects' and 'Going Private in Public' among the major trends
BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | December 13, 2012
JWT, the world's best-known marketing communications brand, has released its 8th annual forecast of key trends that will drive or significantly impact the consumer mindset and behaviour in the year ahead. JWT's “10 Trends for 2013” report is the result of quantitative, qualitative and desk research conducted by JWTIntelligence throughout the year and specifically for this report. It includes inputs from nearly 70 JWT planners across more than two dozen markets and interviews with experts and influencers across sectors including technology, health and wellness, retail, media and academia.
According to the forecast, everyday objects will become smarter as technology gets embedded into everything from eyeglasses to socks to bikes, helping us to measure, navigate and augment the world. At the same time, smartphones will become de facto fingerprints as they evolve into wallets, keys, health consultants and more – our identity all in one place. The forecast also puts a spotlight on health, with two separate trends examining the rising awareness around the impact of stress and happiness on well-being and how businesses are addressing it.
The 10 trends cited in the report are:
Everything is Retail: Shopping is shifting from an activity that takes place in physical stores or online to a value exchange that can play out in multiple new and novel ways. Since almost anything can be a retail channel, thanks largely to mobile technology, brands must get increasingly creative in where and how they sell their goods.
Peer Power: As the peer-to-peer marketplace expands in size and scope—moving beyond goods to a wide range of services—it will increasingly upend major industries from hospitality and education to tourism and transportation.
Going Public in Private: In an era when living publicly is becoming the default, people are coming up with creative ways to carve out private spaces in their lives. Rather than rejecting today's ubiquitous social media and sharing tools outright, we're reaping all the benefits of maintaining a vibrant digital identity while gradually defining and managing a new notion of privacy for the 21st century.
The Mobile Fingerprint: Our smartphones are evolving to become wallets, keys, health consultants and more. Soon they'll become de facto fingerprints, our identity all in one place. (Example: A commercial from Indian telecom Idea Cellular reflects the notion that a mobile number can serve not only as an identifier but as an equalizer: A group of men having an argument approach the head of their town council, who declares that to end name-calling and fighting over caste status, people will be identified by their mobile number.)
Sensory Explosion: In a digital world, where more of life is virtual and online, we'll place a premium on sensory stimulation. Marketers will look for more ways to engage the senses—and as they amp up the stimuli, consumers will come to expect ever more potent products and experiences. (Example: Dunkin' Donuts installed a technology in buses around Seoul that released coffee aromas whenever the brand's jingle was played.)
Play as a Competitive Advantage: Adults will increasingly adopt for themselves the revitalized idea that kids should have plenty of unstructured play to balance out today's plethora of organized and tech-based activities. In an age when people feel they can't spare time for pursuits that don't have specific goals attached, there will be a growing realization that unstructured time begets more imagination, creativity and innovation—all competitive advantages. (Example: Spacious, a recently formed organization in Washington, D.C., champions the idea of adult play and has sponsored events such as an “adult recess” that included pie-throwing and games of Twister.)
The Super Stress Era: While life has always been filled with stressors big and small, these are mounting and multiplying: We're entering the era of super stress. And as stress gets more widely recognized as both a serious medical concern and rising cost issue, governments, employers and brands alike will need to ramp up efforts to help prevent and reduce it. (Example: Recognizing that the drive to succeed for white-collar workers in Chinese megacities has led to intense pressure and long working hours, outdoor brand The North Face created a campaign advocating that people escape – if only for a weekend – to nature.)
Intelligent Objects: Everyday objects are evolving into tech-infused smart devices with augmented functionality. As more ordinary items become interactive, intelligent objects, our interactions with them will get more interesting, enjoyable and useful. (Example: Designed for skiers and snowboarders, Oakley's new Airwave goggles use GPS sensors, Bluetooth and a display so that skiers can see their speed, location, altitude and distance traveled, and can also read text messages or emails on the screen.)
Predictive Personalization: As data analysis becomes more cost efficient, the science gets more sophisticated and consumers generate more measurable data than ever, brands will increasingly be able to predict customer behavior, needs or wants—and tailor offers and communications very precisely. (Example: As a part of its “Know Me” program, British Airways relies on a database of passenger info it gathered from many sources over the course of several yearsto give highly personalized service to its VIP frequent flyers.)
Health & Happiness: Hand in Hand:Happiness is coming to be seen as a core component of health and wellness, with the rising notion that a happier person is a healthier person—and, in turn, a healthier person is a happier person.(Example: In Australia, Nestlé's “Happily Healthy Project” is a bid to educate consumers about the health-happiness link. The campaign's website lets users take a test to measure their HHQ, or Happily Healthy Quotient, which asks about lifestyle, behaviors and attitudes.)
Ann Mack, Director of Trendspotting for JWT, said, “In our forecast of trends for the near future, new technology continues to take center stage, as we see major shifts tied to warp-speed developments in mobile, social and data technologies. Many of our trends reflect how businesses are driving, leveraging or counteracting technology's omnipresence in our lives, and how consumers are responding to its pull.”
"JWT recognises the need to anticipate and actively participate in the changes that will fundamentally define the future of our business and our clients' businesses. Our annual trends forecast helps us to do just that," said Bob Jeffrey, Chairman and CEO, JWT Worldwide. "With our Worldmade outlook, we identify emerging global opportunities that we can leverage on behalf of our multinational roster of brands."
Among the trends JWT has forecast in past years: “Food as the New Eco-Issue” in 2012 (the environmental impact of our food choices is becoming a prominent concern); “De-Teching” in 2011 (more people logging off, at least temporarily, to get a break from technology); “Location-Based Everything” in 2010 (the explosion of location-based or -aware services that leverage data from mobile phones); “The Small Movement” in 2009 (the shift away from “bigger is better” in everything from homes to cars to stores); and “Radical Transparency” in 2008 (the “nothing to hide” ethos seen in some online behaviours).
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