WHAT IS GAME CHANGERS?

The Game Changers series is anannual exploration of what’s driving

change in the world of brands

THE NEW MAINSTREAM

We set out to determine how global cultural shifts and emergent consumer behaviours are

shaping mainstream consumer culture, creating opportunities for game change for businesses

and brands.

OUR APPROACHWe identified and explored shifting behaviours by sitting down with top cultural thinkers, business analysts, and anthropologists.

We analysed the cultural shifts and tensions shaping new behaviours and needs.

Our co-authors Wolff Olins led workshops with super consumers in London and New York and we tapped Kiosk’s research community to bring the research to life through ethnographic video.

PINK FLAMINGOS BY WILLIAM WARBYSOURCE: FLICKR.COM

MACRO SHIFTSWhen our social, cultural and technological infrastructures change at scale, so do our norms. When they change with the pace and pervasiveness we see today, they create the

conditions for new behaviours.

AN URBAN MAJORITY: CONSTRAINED YET CREATIVE

The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities, and it’s growing. From youth to migrants, this fosters an environment of stimulation,

competition, opportunity but also constraint.

Two in three people born in the next 30 years will live in cities. Scientific American

Between 1970 and 2011, the number of people living in megacities has been multiplied almost 10 times. Nigeria’s cities are expected grow by 200 million people over the next 40 years.

UN

Every week, 10,000 people make Shanghai their new homeBBC

MACRO SHIFTS

BLURRED & UNPREDICTABLE LIFESTAGES

Demographic certainties have eroded  - life stages blur, people are marrying later, if at all and finding new life in older age.

By 2050, over a third of the developed world will be over 60.

Lewis Wolpert, “You’re Looking Very Well: The Surprising Nature of Getting Old”

The number of single-person households has risen globally by 30.1% between 2001 and 2011.

Euromonitor

MACRO SHIFTS

AN ERA OF CULTURALLY OMNIVOROUS TASTES

People diversify their tastes and platforms for self-expression as they access and belong to more 'cultures' through travel and technology. The 'mass' is no longer a predictable, controllable, passive middle-

ground.

“In the past, you may have known a lot about a couple of things, so you could stratify people’s consumption on these narrow tastes. Now we’ve become more omnivorous – we

know a little bit about lot of things, you demonstrate good taste more broadly. Quirkiness is much more socially acceptable and conformity erodes.”

Professor Dale Southerton. Editor, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture

 

MACRO SHIFTS

SCARCITY OF EMOTIONAL RESOURCES

We know the familiar story of consumers’ hyper-connection, access to everything, technological empowerment...  But the world today is as much defined by scarcity of other resources: time, space and the

care we give to others.  

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Herbert A. Simon

“Our society has reoriented itself to the present moment. Everything is live, real time, and always-on…If the end of the twentieth century can be characterized by futurism, the

twenty-first can be defined by presentism”

Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock

MACRO SHIFTS

SOURCE: CREATIVE COMMONSMIGUEL PIRES DA ROSA

TOOLS FOR AGENCY AND INVENTIVENESS

Technological change has turned consumers into agents. People don’t just want access they want interaction.

In 2006 we had the 90-9-1 rule (Nielsen, Participation Inequality): 90% of online audiences were passive consumers, 9% were commenters and 1% were deeply engaged. Today the ratio has evolved towards the active: 23% passive, 60% easy interaction and 17% intense interaction

BBC Future Media studies, UK

“The difference to 10 years ago is that now millions of people around the world have arrived with the tools and materials to do stuff.”

Tom Chatfield, author How to Thrive in the Digital Age

MACRO SHIFTS

SHIFTS>BEHAVIOURSThese shifts clash opportunities with tensions, scarcity

with abundance. They make people, and their behaviours, less predictable and therefore controllable.

This makes brands anxious. Especially as these shifts alter what we understand to be the ‘mass’ as much as it

does the ‘fringe’.

BEHAVIOURS3 behaviours are becoming mainstream and

changing the game

BEHAVIOUR 1

People are sidestepping institutions

BEHAVIOUR 2

People are making, not just consuming

BEHAVIOUR 3

People are taking back their time

PEOPLE ARE SIDESTEPPING INSTITUTIONS

“In a world of broken trust, I need to create the truth”

Everywhere in the world, people are questioning authority – and finding ways to side-step it. They are mobilising against the growing cost-engineering, corruption and dis-enfranchisement of systems and

society.

People question, compare, probe, mistrust, even boycott – and find alternatives.

Behaviour 1

What really excites me now is that people feel empowered to make a change… People form their own opinions through their own networks”Priya Prakash, founder Design for Social Change

“

PEOPLE ARE SIDESTEPPING INSTITUTIONS

By-passing the phone companies, millions switched to Skype. Travel guides like Michelin have lost their influence to side-stepper

TripAdvisor. Zipcar side-stepped traditional car rental.

How to profit from this behaviour?

Be in the place people side-step to.

Behaviour 1

MASKED PROTESTERSSOURCE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

SHARE YOUROWN SENSE OF PURPOSE

SOURCE: WOLFF OLINS

AND FIND WAYSFOR EVERYONE

TO TAKE PART IN IT

FIREFOX OS APP DAYS BY ROLAND TANGLAOSOURCE: FLICKR.COM

BUY THE PLATFORMS PEOPLE ARE SWITCHING TO

SOURCE: ZIPCAR.CO.UK

EVERYONE SAYS:

THINK LIKE A START-UPWE SAY:

THINK LIKE AN UPSTART

PEOPLE ARE MAKING, NOT JUST CONSUMING

“In a world of free flowing ideas and opportunities, I need to make the most of what I have access to”

Flux and uncertainty about the future breeds a sharpened adaptability, a new way of doing things and making your mark. Economic opportunity,

especially where we see the rise of an emerging middle class from Africa to Latin America, drives a competitive, purposeful culture where people

find new ways of earning a living and showcasing their talents .

The days when consumers simply consumed are over. People now have so many ways to create, use, adapt, mix things up, sell things, and even build

their own businesses.

Behaviour 2

Our era is Elizabethan. It flourishes with new ideas. Compared with the couch potatoes of recent decades, we are all mad scientists.”Grant McCracken, Culturematic

“

PEOPLE ARE MAKING, NOT JUST CONSUMING

Amazon is enabling an explosion in self-publishing. Etsy , AirBnb and Asos give people their own marketplaces. Square allows anyone to be an entrepreneur.

How to profit from this behaviour?

Give people ways to make, share and sell.

Behaviour 2

HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, 1944SOURCE: DOCTORMACRO.COM

GIVE PEOPLE INGREDIENTS

RATHER THAN THE FINISHED ARTICLE

NIKEIDSOURCE: NIKE.CO.UK

GIVE PEOPLE SKILLS

SOURCE: FABERACADEMY.COM

GIVE PEOPLE A MARKETPLACE

ASOS MARKETPLACESOURCE: ASOS.COM

HELP CUSTOMERS COLLABORATE WITH OTHER CUSTOMERS + BUILD COMMUNITIES

TOW TRUCKSOURCE: MOZILLALABS.COM

EVERYONE SAYS:

USE YOUR BRAND TO HELP YOU SELL MORE

WE SAY:

USE YOUR BRAND TO HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS SELL MORE

PEOPLE ARE TAKING BACK THEIR TIME

“In a world of hyper-connection and hyper-presence, I need to use my time on my terms.”

We're living time-compressed, asynchronous lives where the anchor points and rituals in our lives are being eroded.

Faster and more frequent communication has pushed toomuch at us – and people are looking for ways to control that flow, to get things when they want them, where they want them, and on their terms.

Behaviour 3

Feelings of harriedness mean that consumers experience their lives as a series of hot and cold spots - the cold spots being the "quality time" they carve out for themselves and those they care most about.” Dale Southerton. Editor, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture

“

PEOPLE ARE TAKING BACK THEIR TIME

We converse now much less in synchronous phone conversations, and much more in asynchronous social media. We timetable our TV via on-demand.

We use technology to build walls and seams back in to focus our attention.

How to profit from this behaviour?

Let people manage their time with you.

Behaviour 3

GHOSTFACE CHILLAHSOURCE: SNAPCHAT

GIVE PEOPLE A MENU, FROM QUICK SNACKS, TO LONGER, DEEPER

EXPERIENCES

HBOGO APPSOURCE: INTOMOBILE.COM

DON’T BE DEMANDING. INSTEAD, FIND WAYS TO BE COMPLETELY

ON-DEMAND

SOURCE: COURSERA.COM

EVERYONE SAYS:

MANAGE YOUR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

WE SAY:

LET YOUR CUSTOMERSMANAGE THEIR

RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOU

THE NEW MAINSTREAM

These behaviours are not fringe, they reveal a mainstream on the move. We need to re-think and re-focus on the mainstream. The language and

assumptions which surround it all too often dull our creative senses because they undervalue people and the rapidly changing world in which they live.

THIS NEW CONSUMER ISN’T EVERYBODY, BUT THEY COULD BE

ANYBODY…AN ENTREPRENEURIAL 60-YEAR-OLD IN TORONTO, A SOCIAL

NETWORKING MUM IN BOMBAY, AN URBAN MIGRANT AS AGILE AND PRO-ACTIVE AS ANY TECH-SAVVY TEEN.

 THEY’RE EASY TO SPOT AS INDIVIDUALS. BUT THEY’RE IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT AS

DEMOGRAPHICS.

CONSUMERS ARE INCREASINGLY NUMBED BY A CULTURE OF UNIFORMITY. THEY ARE MORE OMNIVOROUS, LURED

BY THE DISTINCTIVE NOT STANDARDIZED. THE NEW MAINSTREAM

VALUES SURPRISE, DIFFERENCE, REVELATION AND ARE OPEN TO WHO

THAT COMES FROM.

XXXSOURCE: XXX

A FAIR EXCHANGE

These behaviours are signs that people want, and are creating, a new kind of relationship.

One of give and take. A Fair Exchange.

This creates huge opportunities for organisations, through their brands, to enlarge their relationships, to everyone’s benefit.

What new value can you create for people? And what new value can they create for you?