Consumer trends

For new product developers, it is always the question what will be the next big thing in the market, so you take a look at consumer trends. Consumer trends are used as a forecast for new product development, while this forecast can largely be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A trend does not start before the first innovative designers have designed products that created the trend in the first place. To be truly innovative, you have to create your own trend anyway. But if you don’t want to be too innovative and fit in the current market developments, trends are a useful input for new product development for the consumers that are considered as early adopters.

Consumer trends are a manifestation of new enablers unlocking existing human needs. But what are human needs? Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef tried to make an overview of the Fundamental Human Needs and this is his answer:

An overview of current consumer trends (with great help from Insight Instore and Trendwatching.com) and examples of products and services:

Buying the experience

There is a shift from buying products towards buying experiences, which implies a dematerialisation, or even a shift from owning goods towards using goods. The experience economy (Pine 1999) started in tourism and architecture, but is expanding to other fields too. Leasing art and expensive cars, enjoy shopping, dining, a great holiday or outdoor sports activities are all experiences.

Music concerts are the new ways for artists to earn money; you can’t download a concert, you can only experience it. The beertender from Heineken and Krups gives consumers the experience of tapping your own beer at home. Social media like Twitter and Facebook are our personal media channels to share our experiences.

Econcierge & ecoeasy

More and more products are about assisting households go green, like energy monitoring and saving systems, combined with roof top PV panels. Now environmental consciousness is growing, sustainable products can finally be sold at a large scale. Behind closed doors, manufacturers are making products sustainable, without consumers ever knowing about it, since rules and regulations are getting tighter.

Switching from a grey to a renewable energy supplier is as easy as it gets; fill in your details on the internet and you are done and it doesn’t even cost you more. From 2012 on, there will be no light bulbs for sale within the European Union; all consumers will just have to go for energy saving lights (CFL and LED). Wattson is an energy monitoring system; indicating how much power your appliances are using by showing a subtle glow that changes colour when you are consuming more or less energy than normal.

e Conversations

There is more and more active engagement of prosumers in conversations with brands via the internet.

Now consumers are tweeting about their experiences with brands and their products and services, companies can engage in this open discussion. Tripadvisor features over 30 million reviews of hotels around the world and is now open towards feedback on the reviews from the management of the hotels. Method from San Francisco again; their website is an example of openly starting a discussion with consumers on your corporate website by maintaining a blog with an active community.

Innovation Boom

During the economic recession, smart entrepreneurs enter the market with innovative products for a fair price. The need to get more value for your money asks for innovative and basic products, which can be oriented towards a niche market. This trend has a contrast with the brand consciousness of global urban citizens.

The XO laptop (aka $100 laptop) inspired all laptop manufacturers to start selling netbooks. Tata Nano is the cheapest new car on the planet, making car ownership a reality for a before unattended market of lower middle class consumers in developing countries and soon also in developed countries. Inspired by Africans using their prepaid credit as electronic cash, Nokia is launching NokiaMoney for payment in stores etc.

Happy ending

Companies have to show their customers they really care about them. This can be realised by personal communication and special care programs, showing empathy in turbulent times.

Nokia offers free mobile charging spots in schools and airports all over the world. Ben & Jerry’s occasionally gives away free icecream to it’s customers. Diesel provided visitors of Dutch festival Pinkpop with a free shower service.

Design-centric

Design is becoming centric in companies and in the total product development process. From consumer research to marketing, design integrates all aspects of new product development into the process, which results in better products.

Of course we all know the famous design centric image of Apple computers and iPods. Dutch smoothies company Innocent drinks managed to get into a heavily competitive market of soft drinks by using a strong design centric approach in it’s packaging and marketing. Method uses a unique combination of design and sustainability to compete with giants like Procter&Gamble and Unilever.

Global citizens

The youngest generations (aged 0-25) are international citizens with an opinion about global topics and discussions. The generation gives rise to all types of social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Contrary to NIMBY’s, global citizens want to see the story of a product and prefer decentralised and local production.

The sales on farmers’ markets and of organic products are increasing more and more. Rotterdam based architecture firm 2012 designs its buildings by sourcing local scrap materials, they start a project by making a scrapmap (mapmania) to get an overview of locally available scrap material. San Francisco based cleaning and personal care products company Method has invested it’s R&D into a developing purely Cradle 2 Cradle producst.

Mapmania

The new interface is a map. All companies can be found on a map; GPS is the new dimension to use in advertising and product functionality.

GoogleMaps offers is expanding its data by covering functional locations of all kinds, from restaurants to schools. Layar is a start up company from Amsterdam that offers an augmented reality interface to look for functional locations nearby by projecting an information layer over your view. AroundMe and other smarthphone applications do the same by showing functional locations nearby, of course sharing user generated ratings and comments.