A COMPENDIUM OF TRENDS FOR 2012 BY PULSE

THE YEAR AHEAD

Top trends?

Where we looked…

Tumultuous Times

Anarchy in the UK

Rice Riots

Which would you like first?

Young Fogeys

• Young Britons are looking for a respite - for brands to lend a helping hand – for brands to help them enjoy their youth.

• Early adulthood is the point at which bonds are formed and broken between brand and consumer.

• It’s hard to forget someone who helps you when you need it most. Similarly, it’s hard to forgive someone that lets you down when you need them most.

“Seven lean years”

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England

Head of Doom-mongering

Marketing in the

forever recession

99 cents a bottle

• A consumer lost once is often a consumer lost forever.

• When the New Normal doesn’t look like the old, work out how you can allow your consumers to stick with your brand.

The accidental hero

Unipolar to Multipolar

Rolling out the Red Carpet

Smirnoff – Masala Marke Rolls Royce – Year of the Dragon

• The poles are shifting. Soon no brand will be able to pull down the shutters and block out the world beyond its traditional geographical regions.

• Cultural connections will become even more important, and even more tricky.

• Don’t just look to the developing world as a source of consumers, but also as a source of inspiration.

Rebooting Britishness

2012 is great

• Make sure that your attachment to the sentiment that runs alongside the Games and Jubilee is credible.

• Obvious bandwagon jumpers will receive the disdain of the Great British Public.

A Helping Brand – where PR meets ER

• Identify areas where you can credibly involve yourself at a grassroots level.

• Be wary of short-termism and piecemeal initiatives – consumers are wise to these.

• Look on your engagement as both long-term and mutually beneficial.

Micro Democracy

• Consumers enjoy being involved in decision-making processes – it helps them to feel a sense of ownership and affiliation to the brand.

• It can also be a way of sharing the blame and softening the blow, enhancing a brand’s reputation as one that demonstrates transparency and openness.

Rewriting History

The entire history of you?

Was promoted to…..?

Living in a one-faced world

Facebook – nearest and dearest

Twitter – all and sundry

• It’s crucial to establish which version of your consumer you’re interacting with, and which version you need to interact with.

• Targeting consumers in aspirational sectors is easy – social networks are built around aspiration.

• Targeting consumers in less aspirational sectors is much harder based on social networking information.

• There are nuances aplenty and context is king.

DO NOT BUY

Totally Flawsome

"This is easily the worst movie of all time. It's a bunch of spaceships and special effects, but there's NO coherent plot."

"I found it to be incredibly boring ... if your looking for an entertaining classic, I'd try Ben Hur or Cool Hand Luke ...it had no color and was uterly depressing."

• If consumers want information, they will get it.

• Withholding it will not make a big difference to purchase behaviour. Giving it up freely will enhance openness and transparency credibility.

• The level of pro-active openness depends on how much a brand feels it has to lose.

Frictionless Sharing

iOS 5 – Twitter boom

“It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure”

Clay Shirky

Twidiot Filter

• With the number of messages transmitted online growing exponentially, how will your brand survive the Twidiot Filter?

• The race for relevance has never been more important.

On Auto-Pilot

• Shopping on Autopilot negates all that is non-rational in the purchasing process – the branding.

• With our industry so focused on extolling emotion around a product, we should be thinking of how we help brands avoid auto-pilot.

• Or indeed, how we sell our market as one that avoids auto-pilot (think CompareTheMarket and GoCompare)

Escaping The You-Loop

• How will your brand help to bring surprise to consumers, in a world full of filters?

• The key lies in being random but relevant. How do you use consumer information to go beyond what they would have found?

Digital First

“They appear not to have perceived the printed book as a fundamentally different form, but rather as a manuscript book that could be produced with greater speed and convenience.’

Cyberspace Renaissance, by Leah Marcus

A 21st Century printing press?

Broken iPad?

Life of George

• Digital (it will take a wholly new generation to stop using this word) has to be baked-in from the beginning – especially when you’re dealing with the youngest audience.

• Start with the tools then make the idea – not vice versa.

M-Commerce

Mobile as mechanism

Internet of things

Smart TV

Big increase in QR code usage

Xenophobic Paywalls

• Much of the innovation mentioned deals with linking up technologies rather than creating new ones – à la Hyper Island mash-up.

• Be aware that your brand exists in an ecosystem, not in isolation.

• Be wary of digital red-herrings – for every winner there are two losers.

2012• Turbulent?• Positive?• Most likely both. • Personal brand management is key. • Order of the day - engagement and

transparency• Surf the data deluge• Think ecosystem

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http://britain2012.mccannlondon.co.uk/

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