The New Inspirer

The guys & girls over at trendwatching.com are doing an excellent job at distilling major trends from consumer behavior. For 2008 they have identified eight major trends:

1. Status Spheres.  A variety of lifestyles, activities and persuasions, which can be mixed and matched by consumers looking for recognition from various crowds and scenes.
2. Premiumization. According to trendwatching.com 2008 will be about the premiumization of everything and anything. In other words, no industry, no sector, no product will escape a premium version in the next 12 months.
3.  Snack Culture. This embodies the phenomenon of products, services and experiences becoming more temporary an transient; products that are being deconstructed in easier to digest, easier to afford bits, making it possible to collect even more experiences, as often as possible, in an even shorter timframe.
4. Online Oxygen. The idea that consumers need online access as much as they need oxygen.
5. Eco-Iconic. Over the past few years, the ECO trend has moved from Eco-Ugly (ugly, over-priced, low performance alternatives to shiny ‘traditional sphere’ products and services) to Eco-Chic (eco-friendly stuff that actually looks as nice and cool as the less responsible version) to Eco-Iconic in 2008: “Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic design and markers, that help their eco-conscious owners to visibly tout their eco-credentials to peers”.
6. Brand Buttlers. Instead of stalking potential and existing customers (which is not very 2008), why not assist them in smart, relevant ways, making the most of your products and whatever it is your brand stands for? Remember, giving is the new taking.
7. Make It Yourself. With (in particular younger) consumers having come to expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods, the next frontier will be digitally designing products from scratch, then having them turned into real physical goods as well.
8. Crowd Mining.  When co-creating, co-funding, co-buying, co-designing, co-managing *anything* with ‘crowds’, the emphasis in 2008 will move from just getting the masses in, to mining those crowds for the rough and polished diamonds. How to do that? Shower them with love, respect and heaps of money, of course.

The report over at trendwatching.com has excellent examples which illustrate these main trends. Have a look at them and be inspired >:)

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