This document summarizes key trends in several areas:
1. Data visualization is an area of interest for IBM, who has launched a site called Many Eyes to allow users to visualize data.
2. Infographics have been shown to significantly improve content retention over oral presentations and can help topics stand out.
3. Gamification, or using game mechanics for non-game applications, is being used by many large brands to increase customer engagement and create loyalty.
4. Living alone is becoming more common and accepted, with over half of women in some countries living without a partner. Brands are targeting this growing "singleton" demographic.
5. Global food security is a major issue as population rises,
8. 56 million people play dailyCrossing into business ➔ It’s a phenomenon that has inevitably been latched on to by marketers who have seen the potential benefits of tapping into the growing “gamification” of our lives. Big brands getting in on the act ➔ Big brands also understand the need for game-like connections. Traditional advertising continues to lose effectiveness with younger consumers, and customer acquisition costs remain stubbornly high. COMMUNICATIONS TAKEOUT HOW TO USE GAME MECHANICS: ➔ Integrate games from the outsetStart with your vision and work backwards. Define your end goal: what do you want to accomplish, what’s the big vision? ➔ Make a list of required user actions What behaviour patterns do they need to adopt in order to sustain your business model? Think in verbs, not nouns. What do you need people to do? Once you have this list, rank the items from most to least critical and from most to least plausible. Now you know where to focus your game-based psychology experiment. ➔ Motivate the most important behaviours Give users a series of meaningful choices. Layer tasks over time to create a share sense of past, present and future to make the experience “sticky.” Pull them towards the most critical behaviours with rewards. ➔ Evaluate and adapt Success lies in evaluating and adapting both the game mechanic layer & the behaviours that are critical to motivate. Both change as you learn about your customer & they learn how to play your game. READ: 5 Predictions for Game Mechanics in 2011: http://on.mash.to/fIjzZV
9. MARKETING THE POWER OF ONE It’s a lonely planet – or is it? ➔ The rise of social networking over recent years and the internet over a longer period, has seen a concurrent rise in lone communication. Keeping in touch with friends does not necessarily need to be made face to face or in groups - each user is alone with his or her computer. ➔ The mobile phone has perhaps been the prime modern cause of this solo communication, however. Texting and the ease with which conversations can be cut down to ‘txt spk’ has meant that the need to physically interact with others has been dramatically reduced. ➔ We are becoming more and more accustomed to being alone – but with the rise of digital entertainment and the ease with which we can travel the world in our second lives online, being lonely does not have to mean being bored. Socio-economic drivers ➔ The slowdown in growth of the global population has been matched by a growth in the number of households - meaning that more people are living alone. ➔ According to the UK Office for National Statistics, as people marry later and live longer, the number of single person households is expected to increase by over 2 million within the next 10 years - on top of the seven and a half million who are already living alone. Gender divide: the Freemale ➔ A new label - Freemale - has been given to a certain type of woman - those who are happy without a man. According to the ONS, only 25% of women live with a partner. ➔ There is also the seemingly unavoidable fact that women outlive men. The widowed demographic is one that should not be ignored - with men in the West dying around four years earlier than women, on average. This female-heavy market is ripe for brands and companies to tap into. Lifestyle Choice ➔ Overall being single is no longer perceived as a depressing fate - a la Bridget Jones - but as more of an active lifestyle choice. ➔ A group called Quirkyalone has been set up in the US for Singletons or people with “singleton attitudes”. The members of the group are not opposed to being in a couple but they are happier alone than in an unhappy relationship. ➔ The media agency Carat did some research on the topic of Singletons. The research revealed that when asked what one thing would improve their lives, only one in six Singletons said “finding a partner” compared to a third who answered “a large sum of money”; 60% of those surveyed believe that single people are as happy as couples. Respondents mentioned the following upsides to being single : having more time to spend on hobbies (76%), being more spontaneous (62%) and having more close friends (53%). COMMUNICATIONS TAKEOUT HOW TO TARGET THE “QUIRKY ALONES”: ➔ Brands can sensitively target singletons, emphasising the bachelor or bachelorette status (rather than emphasising loneliness) and underline the social status of such a demographic. ➔ This target group is ripe for the luxury category, having more disposable income and more liberty to indulge themselves. ➔ Individual holidays are no longer confined to the gap year student. There is plenty of scope to tailor independent adventures to explorers of all ages, especially in the area of health tourism. ➔ Singletons acknowledge experiencing some feelings of loneliness at certain key times such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, New Year and sometimes on Saturdays when there tends to be a heavy media focus on families and couples. These times may create an opportunity for brands to play a role in Singletons’ lives and create an emotional tie with them. READ: The Singleton Society http://bit.ly/fTXdM4
10. Global land grab ➔ The world community is in widespread agreement about the urgency of more investment in agriculture. The food crisis, partly characterized by unstable markets and low reserves, has led governments to seek measures to meet their food security needs more directly than through global trade. ➔ Governments and corporations, looking to outsource food and energy more directly themselves, are promoting a new wave of land acquisitions, known as "land grabs." Persian Gulf states are working out land deals in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. India has set up agricultural projects in Brazil. South Korea recently tried to buy up nearly half of the island of Madagascar. Longer term food supply problems looming ➔ Currently, the world’s population stands at 6.8 billion and is predicted to rise to between 8 billion and 10.5 billion between 2040 and 2050. ➔ In 1996, the World Food Summit set a goal of halving the number of undernourished people by 2015. The Food and Agriculture Organization says that target is not going to be met: World Agriculture towards 2030/2050. ➔ The UK government, in consultation with the EU, has put together a strategy around 6 core issues: healthy diet; resilient food system; sustainable production; reducing emissions; reducing waste; increasing impact of knowledge & technology:Food 2030. ➔ There are some signs of a move to build resiliency. The Forbes 2020 team of experts predicts that by the year 2018, 20% of all food consumed in U.S. cities will come from rooftop and parking lot farms. CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY FOOD SECURITY The world we eat in is changing ➔ Close to a billion people in the world are hungry and there is growing poverty, unemployment, and displacement in the rural sector. Conditions have rapidly been getting worse for families globally as they are battered by surging food prices. Rising costs are dragging more people into poverty, fuelling political tensions and forcing ever more people to go hungry. ➔ Food is now costing up to 70% of family income in the poorest areas of the world. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index — which covers 90 countries — was up 22% in March 2010 from the previous year. From credit crunch to food crunch A deep-rooted set of factors is destabilising the world food market: ➔The US, once the world’s greatest exporter of grains, is now diverting 20% of its cereal harvest to biofuel. The grain needed to fill the tank of a typical American SUV would meet the annual needs of one person in developing countries. ➔ The rising demand for animal feed for intensive meat production. This has given rise to a campaign for Meat Free Mondays. ➔ Poor harvests from traditional cereal exporters, such as Australia and Russia, which have been linked to climate change. COMMUNICATIONS TAKEOUT WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE: ➔ Improve smallholder productivity ➔ Link smallholders to markets ➔ Keep trade open ➔ Promote productive safety nets ➔ Integrate climate change into strategies at all levels ➔Reform global food governance system READ: Achieving Sustainable Food Security: New Trends & Emerging Agenda http://bit.ly/i4iAZO To request further information, give feedback or suggest a future topic for the newsletter, please contact: Elaine Cameron Strategic Research & Trend Analysis, EMEA elaine.cameron@bm.com And don’t forget to follow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FUTUREPersp CONTACT
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