new|desires
Companies, facing the decreasing demands on markets, fight more intensely for grabbing the attention of consumers; they try to come up with products, services of a special kind. For the sake of this cause they want to show their products and services as unique phenomena. Keywords are temptation and arousing desire. These products and services make the consumers feel that by buying and consuming them, he/she might get much closer to the bluebird of happiness.
There are new types of desires:
- info|desire & seeking the ‘most’. The consumer is eager to get more information to find the best of the best, the cheapest of the cheapest, the very very first, and the healthiest of the healthiest.
- story|desire & audible consumption. All brands have to have a ‘story’! Beyond physical and visual elements they have to tell real stories about the brand itself. These stories must be unique so that nobody else knows them except for its owner. When one consumer tells this story to the other, he/she suggests a status of a higher knowledge.
In 2010 calmness and permanence are the most characteristic countertrends of desire. In everyday rush there is a growing importance of spiritualism, emotions and emotional freedom. The consumer is eager to find the right balance under the pressure of time, and strive to reach a life/work (family/work/me) balance.
The everyday consumers’ most important purpose is to reach joy and happiness. Yearning slips into everyday life: the real purpose is not earning and spending money, these are just means for reaching happiness.
eco|hybrid
This trend is a combination of eco-consciousness and hedonist consumption. The eco-feature mingles with a hybrid-like approach. We can see that the consumer has to balance between eco-consciousness and the enjoyment of consumption. On one hand the eco-attitude does not change, but on the other it can be easily combined with other components so that the consumer do not have to give up anything. The level of production shows the same characteristics: companies are intended to apply pure ‘green techniques’, while from other aspects they pollute the environment. Pure ‘eco-centric’ behaviour does not exist.
- a new group has appeared: the generation g, the group of the generous. There is a change in social and economic aspects, which means that ‘me’ is not in the centre any more, community and environment took its place. Let us be a bit kinder, a bit more generous and human, so that the consumer feels him/herself much closer to the brand, the company, because it cares for him/her.
- conscience driven buyings. Products and services are expected to be ‘green’ by now, so those companies/brands survive the competition that are aware of this and are ready fulfil the consumers’ such expectations
momen|ternet
The uncertainty of tomorrow and the disappointments of the past are both drawing the attention to present. Immediate experiences, immediately accessible happiness and consumption get into the centre of interest. The means and channels of instantaneity are the new generation IT/communication devices that make real-time reactions, feedbacks possible. Real-time products, services come into the limelight.
Conquering physical space and the double pressure of time re-evaluate buyings. The joy coming from consumption transforms: the consumer needs immediate joy and feedback.
Condensing is a product of instantaneity, which means that condensed short messages have a larger effect and the consumer can understand them easily. The demand on condensing is increased by the general impatience that comes from new technology, and the spread of visual communication within reach.
trans|control
Consumers are fed up with „plastic fantastic” solutions, which are intangible, useless, superfluous and uncontrollable. Media, full of promising „best” products, offered „right now”, means an unreal and fake world for consumers. Even more companies has to fulfil the requirements of transparency. As a result of increased consciousness and improved personal social responsibility, consumers need even more information. In case the consumer does not receive these information, he or she may become doubtful, mistrustful and neglects the company’s products. They rather believe to peers, to unknown consumers than to companies.
In the same time consumers are empowered with tools enabling them to check brand stories and the validity of resources, representatives. As a consequence with control they can enforce transparency. The consumer forms opinion, analyses and evaluates. Forums, blogs enable people to express their thoughts immediately.
re|virt
Today the new era of hyper-reality is about to come. We step over the border of reality and virtuality, but the movement is converse: virtual world conquers the real world and influences it. The border of virtual and real becomes vague, while virtual takes over the real. Many times virtual adventures have manifested consequences in real life. For example virtual life influences our language, penetrating into the usual offline life (googling, to chat etc.).
virtual finances – real money. It is even more popular that virtual platforms transform into workplaces, money earned at virtual market places, online entrepreneurship, web games are real. Furthermore virtual services are also functioning as real jobs, e.g. blogging is becoming a well paid activity.
online planning – offline execution. Not matter if it is about hair dressing or interior design, online planning softwares, by exploiting technological novelties, help to imagine the future, although decisions affect the offline life. In the same time Virtual games and thematic pages organise offline meeting, redirecting online awareness to the real world.
virtual world in a pocket. The even more popular locating programmes and developing technology (cell phones, GPS) enabled real time tracking, resulting in real world happenings presented on virtual platforms. Apps of today are based on GPS and mobile technologies enabling to locate people. For the appropriate manifestation of the real world in virtual context, myriads of tags are necessitated.
crumbs|age
The world of the consumer is made up of small mosaics, and it always changes. Seemingly constant things and phenomena in the past are now crumbling, they lose their constancy, and the security they yielded not so long ago. Geographical mobility endangers communities and permanence. It leads to the fragmentation of human relationships, and the independency from space.
fragmented groups of consumers. In a fragmented environment human relations are revaluated. The different individuals are knit into small consumer groups. These people cannot be reached with the traditional marketing approach or means. They form small target groups, so called scenes, and they expect to get customized offers.
simplifying. The web 2.0 became boring, the consumer wants more. He/she does not want to depend on time and space: would like to get everything, keep everything within reach, and handle everything with one device. The consumer wants everything to be related to everything, and customized to his/her demands.
elite owners of knowledge|superficial barely understanding. People get more and more differentiated according to their knowledge and interests. Members of the knowledge elite has access to information and opportunities which are out of reach for the majority. The barely understanding, however make the majority so they vote for and buy under the influence boulevard.
brand|fake
Standing out from the crowd of advertisements and information is an even harder task. Consumers should be surprised, should be shaken up, should even suffer an electric shock to pay attention and to notice something. Brands, lost their power, try to implement new strategies to retain and acquire customers. With brand marriages and support they try to make the image of their brands stronger.
lux lag. The phenomenon of affordable luxury is not a new issue. The trend is fuelled by the relative perceived luxury deficit of the region. This lag forces and motivates people to buy smaller and cheaper luxury items to bring the desired brand into their life.
fake brands. Buying brands is still one of the means of shining out from the crowd, even if it is about fake brands. Branding has overtaken the era of no-name and even fake brand. A new category is about to born.
discount-luxury. It is not a new information that private labels appeared everywhere, it is rather new that cheap own brands appeared in premium sectors with sub-brands. Basic-expectations highly contribute to the fast development of luxury private labels becoming the strong competitors of traditional brands.
web2b|uisness
Consumers, realising the opportunities offered by the internet, get into business by selling what they have. Behind this phenomenon we can find tendencies like the source and information sharing characteristics of peer to peer systems, the creative generation’s desire of creation, the moral hedonism of eco-conscious behaviour, the outstanding desire of participation and saying. Success does not only materialise in the form of money, but in the form of becoming famous, in the form of selling the products, in the form of joy evoked co-creation.
Internet is not only a free info source, but the field of business opportunities. By revealing new resources hidden in sharing, co-operation and online applications, this trend offers new options for SMEs and those focusing on niche markets.
create and trade. Consumers are even more active in designing products, even their own products sold on the internet. The web provides perfect circumstances for single minipreneurships, for cost effective product distribution. Nowadays there are platforms, where consumers form the product range in close co-operation with companies. Consumers provide design, recruit other customers, while companies provide logistics and production. As a result even more unique and small series of products appear, which are not branded by the company but the consumer. The consumer also becomes the seller, giving life for the new generation of prosumers, the sellsumer.
The new web „business communities”, which are organised around an industry specific topic, become the place of knowledge sharing and collective intelligence.
celeb|me
Concentration on the inner self (me), self-definition, self-realization, excelling, self-expression, ‘self-presentation’ are strong trends nowadays. The improvement of technology, and the spread of user-friendly applications and platforms make self-publishing, showing, and self-broadcasting possible for most of the consumers. He/she creates virtual identities to make friends and new relations. It has never been so essential for the consumer to be cared for, he/she would like to be respected and admired by others.
Consumers can make more friends and relationships via internet. Time and space is unlimited. If the consumer wants to be seen, even millions of people watch or listen to his/her thoughts, work, or desires. Anyone can start writing a blog, launch new ventures or new self-shows, design products. The consumer can evaluate, disapprove, share or network.
MiY (Make it Yourself). Everyday people can become heroes, acknowledged adviser, admired public figures, celebrities, or even all of these in one person. They do not need anything else but a bit of vocation, an idea and a computer.
It is not enough to have the last technological devices, because it can still be difficult to break out of anonymity. Self-presentation can be rather hard, because it is not easy to rise out of the crowd, sometimes people can only succeed with real extremities.