Trends in action: Looking ahead to tomorrow’s headlines
The pandemic pointed out how much marketers need a solid grounding in consumer trends to serve as a “guiding light” during unpredictable times. Crises don’t erase pre-existing trends – but they do influence their new trajectories.
The trends that we can call suitable for business planning may not be the ones you see every day. Online companies sometimes look at behavior on an hour by hour basis, or cull the answers of an unknown number and type of survey takers, and call these “trends.” But for those with significant decisions to make – about developing a new product or launching a multi-country ad campaign – this kind of information usually does not have “the right stuff.”
Once you have identified and acquired the right, reliable trends for your business, they can act as a compass, helping you:
Focus on the consumer’s voice to drive decision making
Uncover emerging needs and consumer segments
Inject fresh thinking into existing consumer strategies
Process current events in a way that points you toward the future
Over the course of 25 years tracking global trends, GfK Consumer Life (formerly known as Roper Reports®) has anticipated the rise of many trends from early-adopter to mainstream status. From pre-COVID signs of a remote-work movement (“portable offices” were a thing at the turn of the Millennium) to the growing clout of “influencers” and the rise of the “sharing economy,” trends show not only where the consumer marketplace is, but where it may be headed.
1. Making sense of the noise While it may sometimes seem that brands are continually chasing the “buzz” of current headlines and fads, marketers know that long-term planning and growth require a much different mindset. True trends can help brands separate everyday “noise” from reliable insights and guidance. Think of sustainability and environmental concern – during the height of the pandemic, many observers suggested that interest in “green” topics and activism might suffer. Who had time (or money) to prioritize the planet? But Green Gauge – a long-term GfK Consumer Life study tracking consumers’ engagement with the environment – told a different story. Concerns and priorities we saw before 2020 remained quite healthy and persisted – particularly in comparison to other worries that experienced more volatility.
Chart 1. Environmental concern doesn't fade
2. Integrating with other insight sources Marketers today usually have a variety of data assets and options at their disposal – and making sense of them all can be a job in itself. Proven trends can be a powerful resource to guide your sorting and prioritizing. When conducting qualitative or quantitative research, for example, trends can help inform screening criteria, inspire and prioritize lines of questioning, and add significant context to final insights. The outputs of trends also have a great deal of utility for sales materials, as external thought leadership, or for numerous other tactical efforts.
3. Prioritizing strategic moves The question brands face every day is “Where do we go next?” Rising above reactive approaches to the marketplace and setting clear, long-term strategy is a continual challenge. Trends provide an important foundation for inspiring creative exercises and helping teams prioritize their decisions and actions. They can act as a template for:
determining the themes most relevant to explore for your business
brainstorming new areas of exploration for product or service offerings
assessing the impact of external events on existing trends, or solving very specific problems for your organization.
4. Navigating crises large and small At times when our usual assumptions seem suspect, marketers need to step back and see the broader context of everyday events. Tracking trends provides grounding and guidance for this essential process. Macro trends, for example, offer a way to understand the world and the types of innovations and messages that consumers want and need to hear.
Among nine macro trends that GfK Consumer Life has been tracking for some time, three stand out for their relevance in today’s disrupted world:
Seeking safety – in many settings, consumers are seeking reassurance from what they see as threats to their health and wellbeing
Eco-conscience – the pandemic actually accelerated this trend – and, in fact, it is now the #2 global trend, behind seeking-safety
Discerning consumption – people increasingly look for high-quality products that serve people's needs – and for innovative solutions that protect consumers but still offer the element of surprise (see Chart 2)
Chart 2. Discerning consumption in action Which of these best represents what innovation means to you and the products you buy?
