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Latest trends | 2017smartperson
Besides the smart devices which support people in their average days, the next level can be the improvement of the consumer. Consumers needs to be more informed and smarter than others. This need can be satisfied by the support of the brand, the community or technology. This level of involvement can boost brands as well, because perfecting consumers can be a new pursuit for brands. Brands can educate consumers to be gourmet or expert of a given field. Good tools for this education are workshops, master courses, open-offices and different brand experience stores and events. Digital prostheses, several smart devices and applications are available in order to be more perfect and to be able to react faster to changes. Augmented reality (AR) is a new and exciting platform of digital world, where consumers are in a new world and, even without taking any risks, can learn something. Active communities – the communities of smartpeople – have more and more roles, because the feedback and ratings are part of the perfection.
„don't talk, show”
The new wave of visuality is here in 2017. Consumers are impressed by easy understanding and demonstrable novelty of visuality. Consumers need to be insiders, to know brands better. We have less and less time to process information, that is why we use not that reliable sources, such as videos. Our institute wrote about F-factor, which meant that Facebook likes and follows were a kind of indicators. Today, as we see, V-factor is intensifying, because video presentations can cause feedback, recognition and watching, seeing and following are the indicators. The aim of to make people watch/look is to reach as much people as it is possible. Internet makes this possible in the global world. The ME-representation shows newer and newer possibilities, like live videos or active cooperation have new spaces: for example the voice is not ours but the performance is.
„now you need me…””
network errors
People use the convenience of internet every day, like personalized ads and offers or even those situation when it is not necessary to write my personal data, because the computer ’remembers’ me, but the main aim is to have more and more data. We can listen to news about buying and merging databases and that they are becoming public. There is growing fear about it and because of the traceability of our lives. We know about spyware and drones, which drive to the new shapes of private life. These fears seem to be far but still can decrease the enjoyment of using internet. We can print a leg or even a dessert for ourselves, but in the background the fear is still there. The concept of ’removable worker’ can be interpreted as the worker who can be removed by a robot. This is a new challenge for the mass of people.
envy of attention
Today’s narcissist person desires for constant affirmation, positive feedback, and the sources of these are mainly the social media platforms. These feedbacks are quantified that is how envy of attention appear if someone from among the friends has a bigger attention. Those who ‘hunt’ for others’ attention publish more and more extreme things that is how it can drive to a kind of competition. Not just the (mostly young people containing) community of those who desire for attention fight for attention, but brands do that as well. This is not a new phenomenon, still marketing experts face the fact that big campaign did not reach their aims which is to exceed the limit of attention. It is even more complicated to get along the message to our consumers. There is too much stimulus that is why professionals have problems. The world of brand-story has a big role which gives the constant contact between consumers and brands and what should be built and maintained in turbulent conditions.
shopping hybrid matrix
nearby
hedonistic sustainability
body workout-body flow
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Earlier companies changed their work force very quick, but now they try to get new people by additional benefits. Loyalty building and employer branding is becoming more and more important. Even if the definition is quite new, the use of it is necessary. Knowledge, experience and the recommendation of a work place became a value. Those professions which were not acknowledged have a new meaning. The different levels of work are equally important. For good work force, everything is possible, that is not even important to be at the workplace. The New Nomad workers can work from different types of co-working spaces, like a restaurant or even a bus. The most important is to be efficient and to strengthen the brand image of our workers, thus employer and employee branding are stuck together. Employer branding, besides the improvement of learning possibilities, makes the role of companies’ good positioning more important. Employee branding means that employee tries to become a unique brand at the workplace. Consumers are not considered as a crowd, because their knowledge and decision-making mechanism is much more complex than before. Today we do more and more in order to bring brands closer to consumers.
There is a change concerning shopping decision-making process. Besides transaction, not information is in the centre of thinking, but communication. Classic steps follow this, such as evaluation and shopping decision. It is necessary to have an interactive community for interactive communication, thus shopping is a community experience, because people talk about it, they evaluate, ask, recommend etc. There are brand evaluating communities as well, the evaluation from an unknown person is highly credited. Shopping decisions are often shorter. Simpler shopping and following opinion leaders are common. That is why brands can lose the control in this process, they cannot be sure that their message reach the target audience in that form they would like to. Impulsive decisions are still typical, in lots of cases the impulse is a good experience, this drive brands to create better and enjoyable shopping environment. There is a growing need for games, thus the altered process of shopping shows the realization of Playing Society. We are members of playing communities, where we are challenged physically and intellectually as well.
Beyond local and hyper local people move back to even smaller areas, they prefer the foreseeable, understandable offers, knowledge and discovery. Nearby is a good expression for creditable authenticity. Credible because I know it, it is nearby, it is not far from me that is why I can control it. Consumers do not question the local offers, quality, and credibility. What is nearby that is always better quality than those products which are 200 kilometres away. Consumers consider these products as their own, even if it is more expensive than other products. Sometimes we quit from fast changing life, we are willing to look for challenges in our immediate environment. Seclusion is where community is closed and the aim is to return and find ourselves. To do for the community is not working properly yet but there is a need for that. To intensify the attractiveness of nearby things is a need, because lots of people leave and they build their environment elsewhere.
In the spirit of sustainability we try to be smart and considered to maintain the standard of living of ours and our environment’s. But the very green, very bio, and very conscious drive to lots of compromises in the aspect of financial or even time matters. That is why just a few percent of the population can be conscious without limits. Today we accept the ’good enough’ category, because the limits are widened, convenience and smaller compromise is an affecting factor. Green industry is aware of this consumer tendency, that is why we can find solutions which are conscious but a small convenience is involved. We work together with our environment, we are glad for companies which support somehow our every day lives. Solutions which serve our hedonistic way of life on a green way are more popular. Convenience is an unchanged factor for impulse which serve the online and offline offers of retailers.
The happiness of our body means the happiness of our soul. We show our body and the success we performed. It can be sport performance, clothes (Health Look), or a selfie during shopping. Sporty body is important and also healthy lifestyle has an increasing role. The health megatrend affects the health behaviour of people, for example through the prevention. Superfood is a new expression. To perform very good results is not anymore the privilege of professionals, average people also can reach good results with the help of trainers, chefs or even doctors. The proportion of consumers who are influenced by gastronomy is higher, they prepare meals on sophisticated ways. More consumers are passive fans of gastronomy. New fields and industries are related to body workout, such as tourism, cosmetics, education, or even entertainment, and textile industry. New target groups appear from time to time, such as fitsters out of hipsters or the group of gastronauts. To show the inner body is a new manifestation of showing our body and adapting that.