Trend Research in Strategic Planning

Katharina Michalski brandforesight.de August 2014 Image @ Kinfolk Instagram

Part 1 What : Role of trends in planning !

Part 2 How : Applying trends in planning !

Part 3 Why : From good to great

Part 1 What : Role of trendsin planning

Role of advertising is to connect brands to culture

Image @ Jimmy Jensen

Role of planning is to define the creative framework*

Image @ Amanda Almvide* that enables that connection

The role of marketing is evolving and broadening its focus to branding. This reflects an increasing influence of the brand across the organisation. The marketing department now has the license to take the responsibility for the evolution of the entire company.

✱ Think bigger than the ad, media, digital or data model

✱ Put the business of the brand at the centre of their thinking

✱ Understand the consumer environment

Source: Kay McCarthy, founder of MCCP, Cannes 2014

This means that role of planning is evolving, too. Planners now (more than ever) have to

Today planners need to lead brands and ultimately help brands grow

“We unlock new sources of growth for our clients” The Futures Company

“Our job and passion is to help brands navigate a path into the future” The Future Laboratory

“We transform strategy, marketing, research, service, innovation, customer analysis and training to strengthen businesses to not just understand the changing world around them but thrive in it” Future Foundation

“In our strategic and agile innovation processes we generate visionary concepts and renewal strategies for the markets of tomorrow” Sturm und Drang

Role of trend research is to anticipate growth opportunities for brands

Trends:

✱ Manifestations of change

✱ New ideas expressed in what people do, create or consume

✱ Happen when new offers tap into or create new wants or needs

Not all trends are equalFADS AND HYPES1 - 2 years, recurringFashions, Styles

CONSUMER TRENDS3 - 5 years, countertrendsIdeas, Needs

MARKET TRENDS5 - 10 years, evolving trendsBehaviours, Habits

SOCIETAL TRENDS10 years + Transformations

“A trend can be defined as the direction in which something (and that something can be anything) tends to move and which has a consequential impact on culture, society or business sector through which it moves.” !Martin Raymond, The Future Laboratory

Anatomy of a trend

CausesDrivers Inhibitors

TREND

Strategic Implications

Opportunities Threats

Source: beyondlabs, Oliver Perzborn

✱ Skills e.g. curiosity, observation, pattern recognition, extrapolation"!✱ Methodologies e.g. trend scouting, ethnography, immersion, social listening

✱ Questions e.g. why? what if? so what?

Trend researcher’s toolbox

“Trend forecasting is the archeology of the future… Found fragments located in discussions, a video, a word, an old lady glimpsed one day on the street, that compels you to think about something bigger, something more profound and insightful.” !Li Edelkoort, Founder of Trend Union (fashion and lifestyle forecasting)

Planner’s vs. trend researcher’s world views

Trend research is concerned with what is NEW: Emerging ideas, needs, behaviours e.g. People are increasingly looking for shared sensory adventures

Strategic planning is concerned with what is TRUE: Fundamental about human nature e.g. People socialise over food

Image @ Berinstagram

Planner uses insight to develop ideas that resonate with profitable market segments !

Trend researcher uses foresight to identify future profitability

Insight: Fundamentally true

Foresight: Potentially true

Image @ Kivilcim Güngörün

Planners must have both cultural sensibility to recognise what’s new and insight into human nature in order to explain it.

As planners today are consultants responsible for brand growth they must partner with or learn from trend research to widen their understanding of cultural change and to identify opportunities for growth.

Part 2 How: Applying trends in planning

Trend research is about standing back and understanding the macro picture

Bigger competitive context of the brand

Broader cultural context in which the brand sits

Market context in which everything plays out

Competitive context

Category Reviews Start with the brand and a predefined source of business!Scope: Direct and indirect competitors!Areas of interest: Campaigns, product launches, packaging !Objective: Tracking of all competitor activities

Researching the competitive context: Strategic planning approach

X-Category Reviews

Scope: Related categories

Areas of interest: Relevant product attributes, benefits and propositions, messages and cues

Objective: Inspiration and ideas

Trend research approach: Starting with the consumerCategory Trend Research Starts with the consumer and their need: what are new propositions that are likely to change consumer habits!Scope: Fringes and niches, challenger brands, start-ups, trendsetting markets!Where: Trade shows, trend sites, store visits, off-trade!Areas of interest: Concepts, features, applications, technologies, systems!Objective: Detect threats and opportunitiesCross-industry innovation

Cross-industry innovation is the creative adaptation of existing solutions from other industries. It is a quicker and less resourceful way to innovate. The idea is to be the leader in your category by being a follower in other categories. !Prof. Dr. Oliver Gassmann, St. Gallen

Cross-industry innovation: Is the proposition/ solution transferrable?

Desirability (Consumer)

Viability (Business)

Feasibility (Technology)

The planner must assess the desirability for the consumer and brand fit

Category trends: Sources✱ Desk research

✱ Trendspotter networks

✱ Store and off-trade visits

Cultural context

Image @ Kaleb Marshall

Your brand carries an identity and a cultural expression that exist within both history and society. Rather than coming up with a target audience definition, think of the cultural context your brand already exists in. Ask yourself whether this is a profitable place to be in in the long-term.

“To be successful, a brand’s story must connect with a larger conversation that’s happening in the culture. If it doesn’t, the story seems out of sync. Marketing based on an out-of-sync story goes unnoticed and products go unsold.” !Alex Bogusky and John Winsor, Baked in

Consumer trends are new emerging needs and ideas that result in new habits and behaviours morphing with or replacing old ones.

“Progress happens at the expense of the status quo. People adapt to change by replacing old habits with new ones.” !Jaron Lanier, Who owns the future

Rate of adoption of a new idea

Factors influencing the rate and intensity of adoption ✱ Geography✱ Social composition✱ Technological penetration✱ Cultural predisposition to change or newness

Diffusion of innovations model by Everett Rogers

“Observability has a huge impact on whether products and ideas catch on (…) Public visibility boosts word of mouth. The easier something is to see, the more people talk about it.” !Jonah Berger, Contagious

✱ Desk research

✱ Trend conferences

✱ Art and culture

Consumer trends: Sources

Brand fit✱ Relevance: Will the trend change the cultural meaning and importance of current brand values?

✱ Impact: Will it change or shape attitudes, behaviours and habits of the market?

Image @ Roberta Malino

Market context

Planners must be able to anticipate threats instead of reacting to problems at hand only

Smaller (and hence often underestimated) competitors can turn out to be the most threatening if they bet on and induce a habit change in your market

Chewing gum sales went down 11% and volume down 20% in the past five years. This is attributed mainly to changing consumer preferences for natural products and a cultural shift where it’s no longer cool to chew gum.Source: Fast Co.Exist

Pay attention to changing consumer attitudes in adjacent categories, but more importantly to cultural shifts that may render your product irrelevant

Image @ Fabio Astone

People in the past have used mainstream alcohol brands to mark out their identity and status, but today technology brands are increasingly fulfilling this role. What phone you have is far more important in communicating your identity and values than the beer you choose to drink. And on top of this, technology brands are eroding the very ‘social bonding’ territory which has been the preserve of alcohol for so many years.Source: Added Value, Cultural Traction 2012

Planners must be able recognise an emerging opportunity, as well as come up with a strategy to exploit it

Image @ Carlos Adampol

“The scientific association with a big idea, the ‘brand name’, goes to the one who connects the dots, not the one who makes a casual observation.” !Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

When trends converge

Subscription-based streaming

platforms (e.g. Netflix, Spotify)

Mobile devices and apps

(e.g. iPhone)

Fragmented consumption, self-curating and sharing playlists to the cloud

Sonos wireless music speakers

"Unless there is mass habit change, it doesn't matter, and we basically fade away because people didn't discover streaming before we ran out of will to keep going. We turned out to be more tenacious than some.” !Tom Cullen, co-founder of Sonos

✱ Consumer trends and category trends

✱ Trade magazines

✱ Expert interviews

Market trends: Sources

Are agencies sufficiently prepared to confidently face challenges of the future?

It's becoming increasingly clear that the marketing function needs to be the heartbeat of the business and intravenously linked to the customer. Today's senior marketers need a much broader skill beyond the full end-to-end marketing knowledge: leadership, commercial gravitas, rigorous understanding of data and its impact, knowledge of customer insight, ownership of innovation and a keen eye for emerging technologies.

Source: The Guardian

Part 3 Why: From good to great

Juniortypically works across several accounts, in charge of brand intelligence: desk research, creative reviews, competitor reviews, new business support

Mid-level/Seniortypically works on one or two big accounts, in charge of consumer intelligence: primary research, insights generation, brand strategy

Directortypically works across several accounts, in charge ofbusiness intelligence: overarching strategy, frameworks and tools, new business strategy

Use trend research to enhance your role

Use trends to get ahead of competition

✱ To widen your understanding of cultural change ✱ To identify the space you can innovate in ✱ To gain a new perspective on your brand’s business to build competitive advantage

Don’t just follow trends. Use trends to back up your strategy but ignore trends when developing the execution.

"We need to get back to the righteous indignation that led to the creation of planning as a discipline. Why aren't planners questioning advertising truisms such as the need to have an 'always-on' strategy. We should be questioning this – not going along with fashionable views.”

Martin Weigel, head of planning at Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam

Use design trends to sell creative work to clients but not as a source of inspiration

Similarly, don’t look to award shows for inspiration; everyone else does. Awards are assigned based on consent

Keenly interested in all the world’s cultures and countercultures, Gaultier has picked up on the current trends and proclaimed the right to be different, and in the process conceived a new kind of fashion in both the way it is made and worn. Through twists, transformations, transgressions and reinterpretations, he not only erases the boundaries between cultures but also the sexes, creating a new androgyny or playing with subverting established fashion codes.

The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier, The Barbican

Ask yourself: What would Jean-Paul do?

Image @ Lauren Cejm

Thank you