Top Trends 2010+

The Designer Magazine asked trendwatchers Reinier Evers and Anne Lise Kjaer: What is next?

Top 5 Trends 2010 – Kjaer Global – Anne Lise Kjaer

Doing My Bit: The influential and informed individual practises sustainability by ‘doing’ and this is already starting to filter through every level of society. Take a lead as an ethical organisation and become the worthwhile choice, but never overplay your ethical credentials.

My Tribe: Sharing lifestyles and value sets across conventional borders we want to learn about ourselves and find greater meaning in life. Companies must create inspiring, informed, interactive and meaningful propositions for the purpose of empowering people and influencing their lives in a positive manner.

Staying @ Home: Be it work, leisure, entertainment or even going to the movies – staying at home is the new going out. Whether it is our own private dinner club, the home-office, self-pampering or technology, we invest in our home to make it our ultimate destination. The average person in the UK spent £2K+ on technology in 2008.

Empowerment Branding: People bond with brands that engage and empower them by providing inspiration, interaction and informed knowledge. This leads to a feeling of personal ownership. Unconventional thinking emotionally engages people and cements lasting relationships.

‘Time-saving’: In a fast society time-saving is a magic word. Fast, easy and empowering solutions that make us feel in control appeal to us all. Absolutely fab apps for iPhones are a huge success. There are now more than 65,000+ apps available, inspiring people by offering intelligent navigation and smart choices.

Top 5 Trends 2010 – Trendwatching – Reinier Evers 

Business as Unusual: For the first time, there’s a global understanding, if not a feeling of urgency that sustainability, in every possible meaning of the word, is the only way forward. Meanwhile, to truly prosper, companies will have to display greater transparency and honesty, have conversations as opposed to one-way advertising, and champion collaboration instead of an ‘us and them’ mentality. It’s time to study and learn from those brands that you think are already mirroring today’s more diverse, chaotic, networked society, and then outdo them.

Urbany: A forever-growing number of more sophisticated, more demanding, but also more try-out-prone, super-wired urban consumers are snapping up more ‘daring’ goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations. And thanks to near-total online transparency of the latest and greatest, those consumers opting to remain in rural areas will be tempted to act (and shop) online like urban consumers, too.

(F)Luxury: In 2010, luxury, and what it means to a bewildering number of ‘consumer segments’, will remain in flux. Luxury will be whatever you want it to be. After all, what constitutes luxury is closely related to what constitutes scarcity. And, beyond the basic needs, scarcity is in the eye of the beholder, especially those beholders who are desperately trying to be unique. Just declare that the end is nigh for anything that’s getting a little too affordable, too accessible, too polluting, or just too well-known. Then introduce something very different (if not the opposite), appealing to the in-crowds who are ready to jump ship anyway.

Eco-Easy: While the current good intentions of corporations and consumers are helpful, serious eco-results will depend on making products and processes more sustainable without consumers even noticing it, and, if necessary, not leaving much room for consumers and companies to opt for less sustainable alternatives to begin with. This will often mean forceful, if not painful, government intervention, or some serious corporate guts, or brilliantly smart design and thinking, if not all of those combined.

Maturialism: Let’s face it: 2010 will be rawer, more opinionated, more risqué, more in your face than ever before. Your audiences (who are by now thoroughly exposed to, well, anything, for which you can thank first and foremost the  anything-goes online universe) can handle much more quirkiness, more daring innovations and more risqué communications and conversations than traditional marketers could have ever dreamed of.

Sources
* Kjaer Global >>
* Trendwatching >>
* James Woudhuysen >>

Images
1. London’s City
2. Labour and Wait
3. Wooden Norwegian Cottage 
4. Tate Modern London

Article:
 The Designer Magazine, March 2010