"We believe it's essential to plot societal shifts in order to develop big brand ideas," says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT. "Trendspotting allows us to tune into the zeitgeist, discover how seemingly disconnected details are connected and figure out how the mood of the moment is affecting people's lives. Without this bigger picture, we run the risk of creating irrelevant and ineffective communications."
Key trends highlighted in the report "10 Trends for 2008" include:
- Blue is the new green: Climate change has quickly become the driver of environmentalism 2.0, and people worldwide understand that climate is all about the seas and the sky -- both blue. Watch for "green" to become a subset of "blue," which is coming to denote the much larger emerging spirit of good-citizen ethics.
- Radical transparency: It's the new generation gap, a divide between those who relish privacy and those who want to show and tell all. For younger generations, "nothing to hide" will be the new norm. But look for radical transparency to temper (at least temporarily) as online exhibitionists enter higher education and the workforce.
- Cooperative consumption: Fractional ownership is moving beyond the shared planes of the jet-setting elite. The masses are already sharing everything from art to cars to designer handbags, and as technology for pooling demand and resources becomes increasingly sophisticated, this model will be applied to an even wider range of categories.
This is the third year JWT has published its annual trends forecast. Trends we have previously forecast include the disappearance of downtime and down space, the rise of eco-awareness, "truthiness" in branding and the Old World taking on New World habits (the growing prevalence of obesity, fast food chains and smoking bans in Europe).
