EURO RSCG Worldwide launches its annual global trends report: a history-making 2011
The year 2011 was a history-making one: from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, from the exponential growth in location-based digital to cyberaddiction, from the world’s continuing economic uncertainty to the ever-increasing demand by consumers for sustainable business. But what does all this mean for 2012?
To help us understand what to expect globally in 2012, Euro RSCG Worldwide has undertaken its largest trendspotting effort ever.
A team led by Marian Salzman (pictured), CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America, has produced an in-depth report taking us through Euro RSCG’s predictions for 2012–featuring trend sightings for the new year in areas ranging from advertising to home furnishings, men, lifestage marketing, and politics.
Says Salzman: “We’re in the business of generating awareness for our clients–to promote good will, consumption, and, ultimately, loyalty–and the best way to serve them most effectively is by anticipating the density and velocity of the changes on the near horizon. When a multinational brand gets ahead of a trend and can own it, and ride its wave, the benefits are long-lasting–recognizing, of course, that one of the trends in recent years is the speed of change, as well as the fickleness of leading-edge consumers who embrace what’s new one day and move on to another new the next.”
Some of Euro RSCG’s predictions for 2012 include:
· Entitlements Ending, Traditions Changing. With the country (and the world) preoccupied with everything from Wall Street to debit card fees, change is in the air (and in the cloud). Because many people are redefining the very notion of “value,” a return to traditional thinking is the cause of the year. Look for many to refocus on family, food, and simple pleasures.
· Me v. We in the Age of Collaboration. With so many of us used to looking out for No. 1, next year might have you rethinking your math. The era of “me” is giving way to the era of “we” in this age of collaboration and common interest. Collaborative software will be huge in 2012 as the ability to work anywhere, 24/7/365, will require online connections.
· A Grayer Shade of Gray. Extreme fatigue is setting in, so gray best defines the year to come. We’ve all come to terms with work and life being blurred more than ever, so gray, the color of blur, is in our sights. Tracking on the new graydar is going to help decode where we are headed this year. But it’s not just a metaphoric construct: The world really is going gray, with some countries seeing citizens getting older in record numbers.
· Power to the People: Socializing the Mighty and the Tiny. With the era of entitlement on its last legs and with social media continuing to connect us, more movements will be hatched worldwide. Common citizens will be more mobilized to speak out against everything from bullying to GMOs. Regardless of what you believe or where you live, people are talking–loudly, clearly, and with great aplomb.
· A Keyboard Between Screenage Feelings. Remember the days when “We need to talk” meant talking face to face? Though nothing will replace some good old face time, the almighty keyboard is now the ultimate mediator and communicator, and next year that will be more true than ever. Screenage is a nod to our new instaculture; the role of Skype, Internet TV sites such as Hulu.com, and music-sharing sites such as Spotify all contribute to living a life onscreen and will continue to change the way we interpret “place” in 2012.
· Life in a Cloud: Mobility, Portability, and Transience. Cloud computing will be the most talked-about trend in tech for 2012. People will share more than ever, playing music and accessing their information from anywhere, providing a seamless digital experience from start to finish. The biggest player in this cloudy business? Mobile, the perfect device because of its extreme portability and ability to access our emails, notes, social networks, and favorite music and shopping sites from one place.
· Good Consumption in a Dire Economy. It’s no longer enough for brands to just provide; we want to know how they provide, why they provide, and what they stand for when doing so. Welcome to the new “value,” where fears of a double (even triple?) dip and a shallow consumer confidence pressure big business to do good.
3 Comments
… and yet it won’t help their ads.
Wow. Some incredibly generic insights here. My mum could have predicted all this. Hardly earth-shattering stuff.
“Extreme fatigue is setting in” – she must have seen some of their local work