#Dynamics15: A crowdsourced trend report

Table of Contents
An Introduction 3
Keith Anderson, Profitero 4
Kojo Baffoe, Project Fable 5
Martin Bihl, The Agency Review 6
Lauren Cerand, Lauren Cerand PR 7
Ted Coiné, Meddle.it 8
Matt Collins, Microsoft 9
Piers Fawkes, PSFK 10
Rob Fields, Strategist & Curator 11
Winston Ford, The Couch Sessions 12
Alex Frias, Track Marketing Group 13
Jonathan Hall, Added Value 14
Dr. Nat Irvin II, University of Louisville 15
Anne Lise Kjaer, Kjaer Global 16
Denitria Lewis, CUSPData Corporation 17
Christine Mauro, Siegelvision 18
Grant McCracken, Freelance Anthropologist 19
Philip L. McKenzie, InfluencerCon 20
Laura Moser, Momentum Worldwide 21
Indy Neogy, KILN 22
Latoya Peterson, Racialicious 23
Marian St. Laurent, Heavy Symbols 24
Michael Street, SF1M 25
Michael Tonge, Carat/The Culture LP 26
Tadd Wilson, Toshiba Global Commerce 27
About Rob Fields 28

A funny thing happened on the way to 2015. . .
After many years in the marketing industry, I’m no stranger to
the raft of “year-in-review” reports and pronouncements of
trends for the coming year that start popping up around late
November and continue on into the early part of January.
They’re staples of our industry. But unlike previous years, I had
this feeling that maybe, given my interest in marketing, business
and contemporary culture, I should publish one of my own.

Unfortunately, there were two big obstacles confronting me.
First, it was December, so I was getting a late start. Second—
and probably more important—I hadn’t really thought about
things in a way that would enable me to produce something
significantly different that what others were putting out. Then I
realized something.

I may not have the answers, but my network does.

After 20+ years of involvement in the arts, culture, business and
marketing communities, I’ve been fortunate to meet a ton of
super smart people. That’s the wonderful byproduct of having
supported individuals, institutions and communities over the
years.

So instead of making it about me, why not ping this network and
find out what’s on their minds? Not only would I learn some
things and gain new perspective, I’d be able to create a platform
to highlight people that I respect and learn from all the time.

That’s the curator in me: Making connections between people
who should, but may not, know each other, and highlighting
those who aren’t in any way “the usual suspects.”
What you’re looking at is a project I’ve called dy-NAM-ics
(dynamics), as these are the ideas and trends that the participants
have identified as the driving forces that will shape the year
ahead.

I’m also pleased that, in addition to mine, the 23 perspectives
come from a range of ages, genders, and ethnicities and company
types (smaller, indie consultancies to well-established
conglomerates). I’m also pleased that we also have a few non-
U.S. participants--two based in London, one in South Africa—and
that’s not even counting the two Brits and the Canadian based
here in NYC who participated. So, if you’ll permit me, I’m going
to call this a “global” project.

Yes, I’m very proud of what you’re about to see. Honored,
actually, that these people took time right before the holidays to
share their perspectives.

So, enjoy dy-NAM-ics. Discuss and share amongst your teams,
colleagues and companies. Most importantly, engage the
participants and keep and eye out for them. Most of them are
active on Twitter where they share and create a ton of great
content.

Thanks, and here’s to a productive, smart and dynamic year for
all!

Best,

Rob Fields

January 21, 2015

robfields.com | @robfields
Inflection Point For Online Grocery
Keith AndersonI’ve been following (and participating in) the online grocery landscape since
phase 1 in the 90’s, and I’m deeply familiar with all of the economic and
logistical challenges of selling CPG—and especially perishables—online.

That said, 2015 increasingly looks like the year online grocery might finally
break through to the mainstream. Walmart, Peapod, and Kroger are all
proving increasingly serious about online grocery services—especially pick-
up and drive models. AmazonFresh is steadily expanding, and the Prime
Pantry program is another sign that Amazon is committed to grocery and
CPG products over the long-term.

Instacart is growing at breakneck speeds, reaching an estimated $100M in
revenue in 2014 (10x its estimated 2013 revenue), with a $100M+ Series C
war chest for further expansion. Other interesting players like Blue Apron,
Door to Door Organics, and Relay Foods are also getting traction and
soaking up funding.

All this investment and innovation has made for some lofty projections. A
joint BCG, Google, and IRI study recently projected that ecommerce’s share
of CPG sales in the US will rise from 1% in 2014 to 5% in 2018—and could
reach 10% soon after.

That kind of exponential growth would profoundly change business and food
culture. It won’t happen in a single year—and may never happen. Either way,
2015 should bring the future into better focus.

Keith Anderson (US)
VP, Strategy & Insights

Profitero Impact:

@keithanderson CPG, Grocery, Supermarkets4

Storytelling
Kojo Baffoe
We are still paying lip service to the power of authentic
storytelling as opposed to simple marketing, but more
and more people are realising that you can't approach
marketing from purely a short-term perspective. Through
stories, we build relationships with customers and turn
them into evangelists. I believe we are returning to the
basics of telling brand stories across platforms with
honesty and authenticity. The story will become more
important than the platform. It's about how it makes you
feel, as opposed to the features/specs.

Kojo Baﬀoe (SA)
Director

Project Fable

@kojobaﬀoe

Impact: Advertising, Alcohol, Fashion, RMCG, etc
5

There Is No Them. Again
Martin Bihl
I was listening to Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal talk with Ben Johnson about the
Sony hack. As of December 18, the theory is that the hack went through one
person’s email and then very easily spread throughout the system.

Which reminded me – again – how fundamentally connected we all are. One
employee making one innocent mistake causes disruption on a global level.

And that’s the trend for 2015. Not the disruption, and not Sony. Rather, the
discovery of all the ways we have become interconnected.

For on one level, the past seven years can be read as an exercise in
demonstrating this to us again and again. The meltdown of Lehman Brothers
made it clear how intertwined the world’s economies were. The housing crisis
drove down your home’s price because your neighbor defaulted. China’s
industrial revolution drives the price of your gas up. Ebola, global warming,
credit card breaches at retailers – the list goes on.

And all of that, curiously, within the context of – and probably in no small part
because of – a degree of tribalism that is astonishing. Gated communities.
Political gridlock. The 99%. Generation this, that and the other thing.

Will this change in 2015? I don’t know. My hope is that at some point we will
stop ﬁghting the interconnectedness and start managing it. My expectation,
however, is that we will continue to be surprised by it in new ways all year long.

Martin Bihl (US)
Editor-in-Chief

The Agency Review

@MartinBihl or @TheAgencyReview

Impact: All 6

Reactionary Eloquence
Lauren Cerand
Credit for inspiring this idea, and coining the expression, goes to Stacia
L. Brown, a writer whose work and perspective I have long admired.
She posted a tweet on September 24th that advanced my thinking
about the news cycle and how to approach it, both as a reader and a
communications professional: "(Online) writers are being aﬀorded less
and less room to become better thinkers. The expectation is that we be
eloquently reactionary."

While the idea of responding to events with one’s own spin on the
narrative is as old as Montaigne, the 16th Century writer often credited
with inventing the essay, I’m not sure what he would have made of the
frequency that “think-pieces” are churned out in today’s Information
Age. Whether it’s an album fourteen years in the making, a podcast
series that takes up one case in episodic form, or a media venture that
will report a single story for a year, I'd like to believe that one response
to the complex world in which we live is to take some time to reﬂect,
and satisfy the craving for knowledge with deeper analysis, maybe
even slow news. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the writer
Patrick Modiano noted the way that always being logged-on consumes
the intimacy and privacy that nurtures in us an essential depth of
character. It’s a provocative point, and I may comment. I’ll think about
it.

Lauren Cerand (US)
Lauren Cerand Public Relations

@luxlotus

Impact: media, publishing, literature, journalism
7
photo: Zack DeZon

The Crowdsourcing of Everything
Ted Coiné
In crowdsourcing predictions for top trend of 2015, Rob is demonstrating
what that trend will be: the Crowdsourcing of Everything via the power of
OPEN (Ordinary People, Extraordinary Network).

Rather than leaving innovation to the R&D department as we did in the
Industrial Age, leaders of the Social Age are using collaboration
technology to find the true experts within their organization. They’re
turning to social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn groups
to identify expertise without. And they’re tapping firms such as
Innocentive, which holds contests to their community to source the best
invention for a client company.

Businesses are doing something similar with marketing. Where once a
small, highly polished cadre of marketers and PR pros crafted a
company’s public image, today’s savvy brands are encouraging
employees to show their own thought leadership on social sites, personal
blogs, or – for the non-blogging 99% - a content marketing tool such as
meddle.it, which allows anyone to quickly add their insights to existing
articles, demonstrating their own thought expertise in the process.

In every aspect of our lives, from self-management to self-rule, from
crowdsourced startup- and charity-funding to self-organizing social
groups through platforms like Meetup, the Social Age is proving to be a
time of profound democratization. That will be the true headliner of 2015.

Ted Coiné (US)

Chief Relationship Officer, Meddle.It & co-author of A World Gone Social:
How Companies Must Adapt to Survive.

@tedcoine
8

Return Of The Creative
Matt Collins
Big Data dominated the marketing press in 2014, and for good
reason. It has proven that itself be a driver of marketing innovation,
enabling more efficient targeting and the extraction of meaningful
insights about consumers.

Just as Sabremetrics enabled the Oakland A's to acquire a
temporary competitive advantage over its rivals, though, Big Data
soon will be ubiquitous and affordable. Companies relying on Big
Data will see their knowledge edge erode.

In a world in which information flows freely and cheaply, how will
companies out-flank their rivals?

I contend that market leaders will innovate the creative itself,
including the ads we consume, the promotions we enter, and the
packaging that draws our eye in-store. They will design mobile ads
that work. They'll scale native advertising. They'll deliver new,
compelling video formats.

If Big Data tells us whom we should target, the Return of the Creative
will show us how to do it.

Matt Collins (US)
Global Director, App & Partner Marketing

Microsoft

@amherstmatt

Impact: Advertising, especially digital, social and mobile
9

Step Inside The Story
Piers Fawkes
Immersive 360-degree audio and video experiences
are providing early glimpses into the real promise of
virtual reality, oﬀering new possibilities for how people
will interact with their media and entertainment.

Piers Fawkes (US)
Editor-in-Chief

PSFK

@piers_fawkes

Impact: Advertising, Tech, Hollywood, Media,
Publishing
10

Brands Explore Culture Through Social
Rob Fields
Lately, many brand leaders are talking about “aligning with culture.”
We’re at an inflection point, and that’s great. But it’s not because
everyone’s sold on the importance of culture. Rather, everyone’s sold
on the importance of social.

Heretofore, the problem with contemporary culture was that it’s been
too amorphous for brand managers who were measured on hitting
hard volume, lift and sales targets and CEOs concerned with rising
stock prices. But social media has at least made culture’s Matrix-y
code visible, even if it still remains a mystery to many. The rushing
Twitter stream, ballooning Facebook likes and spiking Google search
trends provide close-to-real-time indicators of what’s capturing
people’s attention and what they’re finding meaningful.

Brands know they need to be in social because that’s where
consumers are. In 2014, eMarketer projected that worldwide social ad
spend would reach over $16B, a nearly 50% increase over 2013.

But social is only one aspect of unlocking culture’s potential. To
generate lasting growth and loyalty, companies need to reshape their
organizations to move with the speed and self-awareness that culture
demands. Social isn’t only the promise of real-time information into
the corporation, but also the ability to meet growing consumer
expectation that companies will respond more quickly, and with more
agility, transparency and humanity.

Rob Fields (US)
Strategist & Curator

@robfields Impact: All
11

The Rise of Experience Companies
Winston Ford
One of the things I'm really looking at for 2015 is the rise of
"experience," companies. Companies such as
KitchenSurﬁng and Bookalokal allow users to hire chefs or
mixologists in their home, or book a space at private
dinner parties and shows.

It's already been proven that millennials are seeking more
authentic experiences, so this is a natural extension of a
product such as Airbnb. In fact, Airbnb has already started
experimenting in this space.

Winston Ford (US)
Founder & CEO/Director of Digital

The Couch Sessions / Tasty

@ThisIsStone

Impact: Travel, Hospitality, Restaurants and Dining
12

The Big Shift Towards Virtual Reality
Alex Frias
In 2014, virtual reality and the multiple iterations of the current VR
experience (Oculus Rift, mobile, tablet, augmented reality) were leveraged
in immersive brand activations throughout the world.

For example, Marriott introduced us to The Teleporter, which allowed
consumers to step into a phone booth-like “Teleporter,” put on an Oculus
Rift headset and be digitally whisked away to different Marriott locations
throughout the world.

2015 will be the tipping point where the barrier of entry to leverage virtual
reality (cost, availability of technology, consumer acceptance and
willingness to try) will be lowered to where forward thinking brands will be
able to integrate VR across-the-line into their consumer engagement
strategy. VR will become part of the consumer expectation not just for
momentous and high-profile brand programming, but day-to-day
experiences. Retail store experiences will be transformed where finding
gluten-free items in a grocery story will be accessible via an augmented
reality mobile app. Nordstorm and Rebecca Minkoff have already jumped
on this wave by starting to retrofit their dressing rooms into “smart”
rooms featuring large touch-screen mirrors.

The key to this tectonic shift in consumer experience will be how brands
use the virtual reality ‘toolkit’ to enhance the consumer experience. We,
as consumers, will only accept this shift if the interactive benefits are
worth any potential trade-offs.

Alex Frias (US)
Co-Founder & President

Track Marketing Group

@iamalexfrias
13

From Products To Experiences
Jonathan Hall
Brands and consumers are demanding more of each other. As touchpoints
fragment and competition proliferates, the brands creating the most impact
make every interaction with consumers add as much value as the product or
service itself.

This is about creating things that generate greater meaning for consumers –
either by being useful, being highly entertaining and immersive, or by
facilitating social connections. To do this, brands need to stop thinking about
communications, and start thinking about content that has genuine value in
people’s lives.

Red Bull is the king of the experience ecosystem.

The brand has built a rock-solid association with high octane sports, from
cycling to Formula One, something it lives through every touchpoint, creating
a volume of content so substantial that it owns its own Media House,
producing just about every type of digital and traditional content you could
imagine. It operates a TV station; prints one of the biggest magazines in the
world; produces documentaries, movies and music; and runs a market-
leading digital strategy oﬀering of web TV, web radio, online games
(leveraging its association with competitiveness), newsfeeds and digital
databases.

It runs more than 900 domains in 36 languages under the umbrella of
RedBull.com, and is one of the top ﬁve sports content producers on YouTube
globally. Throughout its operation, it entertains its young, marketing-cynical
audience by showing daredevil, extreme, epic content that people want to
watch.

Jonathan Hall (US)
President, Consulting

Added Value

@hallcjonathan Impact: All14

Rise Of The Walkouts
Dr. Nat Irvin II
Given the events of 2014, I expect that we will see an
increasing number of acts of civil disobedience.

Look for a combination of both minor/ major “walkouts”
designed to focus national attention on matters of race and
equality in America. These “walkouts” will occur mostly
around live ( but not always) broadcast events where
previously unknown persons of various identities will self-
organize —using all manner of social media to inveigh upon
the larger populace—and draw attention to policies and
procedures that have helped to perpetuate the unequal
treatment of blacks and browns in America. The more likely
venues (though not limited to) will be sports entertainment
including high school events, NCAA tournament games,
and even some professional sporting events.

Nat Irvin, II, D.M.A. (US)
Woodrow M. Strickler Chair, Executive In Residence

Professor of Management Practice

College of Business

University of Louisville

@natirvinii

15

Lightweight Nomads
Anne Lise Kjaer
Lightweight Nomads are Millennials who see a world without
borders. These mobile- and tech-savvy global citizens are vital
inﬂuencers so you need to make them part of your community,
as customers and employees. It’s estimated they will make up
half the workforce and most international assignments by 2020.

The key to engagement with them lies in the 4Ps—considering
People, Planet and Purpose alongside Proﬁt—since over a third
of Millennials believe that the goal of “improving society”
should be at the core of every business. This group wants to
know why they should buy from you or work for you—and
that’s a clear motivator for ensuring purpose sits at the core of
your organisation’s ethos.

—Taken from Kjaer’s The Trend Management Toolkit—A
Practical Guide To The Future
Anne Lise Kjaer (UK)
Founder

Kjaer Global

@kjaerglobal
16
Photo credit: Morten Holtum

Cultural IQ
Denitria Lewis
Marketers are finally becoming aware of how they may be (are) deficient in
Cultural IQ.

Good Cultural IQ is having a fundamental understanding of the social
behavior of a society, specifically where various ethnicities are concerned.

Trends of late note how various companies lack of Cultural IQ is becoming
more exposed. Cultural missteps online by companies like IHOP, Taco Bell
and Dave & Busters, feature slang filled tweets that are not “on fleek.”
Rather, they are offensive, and misrepresent key insights at the core of their
targeted audience marketing efforts.

Advertisers are not the only ones who can benefit from increasing their
Cultural IQ. The Sony email leaks, besides being racially insensitive, point to
a broader lack of understanding of various target markets and their relation
to the companies revenue model. There are even a multitude of mobile apps,
in a tech industry beleaguered by it's lack of cultural diversity, which are
focused on reverse targeting urban communities in order to 'avoid' them.

Personal perspectives and cultural cues shape how one views people,
places and ideas, As marketers, checking yourself for unconscious bias
should be the rule, not the exception. Unconscious biases and missed
cultural nuances are responsible for more underperforming campaigns than
poorly allocated media spends or ad inefficiencies.

Denitria Lewis (US)
Founder

CUSPData Corporation

@dnyree

Impact: Advertising, Entertainment, Technology17

Clarity
Christine Mauro
Complexity is rampant. Consumers are overloaded with
ambiguous information and overwhelmed with time-consuming
and complex transactions. Figuring out their cell phone bill or
applying for health insurance is a necessary evil, but it's
shouldn't be diﬃcult. If we are truly entering a customer-centric
era, then business should take the time to simplify and clarify
their communications, transactions and processes.

It’s trendy to use the word “Simple” in marketing campaigns.
But to truly be simple would mean to challenge the status quo,
step out of the box, look at products and communications from
a customer perspective and to push back on “lawyer-speak.”

I challenge business to walk the simple walk rather than just
talk it. I hope this sparks a movement to reduce societal,
governmental and corporate complexity. The more clarity is
recognized and rewarded, the faster we will break the curse of
complexity.

Christine Mauro (US)
Senior Strategy Director

Siegelvision

@cmauroc

Impact: Healthcare
18

Death Of Status, A “Slow” Culture Trend
Grant McCracken
Three things are clear: 1) that status was the magnetic
north of personal aspiration and consumer behavior for
contemporary culture, 2) that the younger you are the
less you care about status, upward mobility, competitive
or conspicuous consumption, 3) that luxury goods
continue to sell themselves with this antique idea. e.g.
those awful Macy's ads for Xmas 2014 in the NYC.

Marketer heal thyself, heal thy culture.

Grant McCracken (US)
Freelance Anthropologist

@grant27

Impact: CPG, Luxury Goods
19

Intimacy
Philip L. McKenzie
Predictions are always a challenge but in 2015 I can see a move
toward increased intimacy. Intimacy is the flip side of
authenticity, in the sense that as people crave honest
experiences they will seek to have more personal experiences.
The mass experience that we share online will be supplemented
by offline intimate experiences.

Social media/sharing often results in burnout. Our attention
spans are stretched and it's harder to discern what is truly
important. Intimate relationships that are authentic—i.e., heavily
anchored in trust—will become the new norm. Those who can
create and reinforce strong intimate community ties will likely
have more effective networks with richer and deeper
connections. Shifts in work (increased freelance) and in branding
(millennials cite cues from peers as among their most trusted
brand sources) means intimacy can (and will) operate on many
levels.

Philip L. McKenzie (US)
Global Curator

Influencer Conference

@FarFlungPhil

Impact: CPG (but likely broader)
20

Social Media & Commerce
Laura Moser2014 was a year of game change as more marketers expressed their
desire to better integrate their social media efforts with their shopper
marketing programs. Unfortunately, many find themselves in organizations
that either aren’t structured to deliver against these goals easily, or willing
to recognize that it requires more than just “becoming part of a
conversation.” Exploring these media beyond their immediate face value
is key to successfully leveraging them. For those of us who are still
weighing the business impact of these social tools, there’s good news for
2015.

Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are all evolving to a
point where commerce will be both enabled and seamless. We’re seeing
the beginnings of integration with purchase!

As an example, see how Target was the first to leverage the social strength
of Instagram inspiration into immediate purchase. Also, Twitter is finding a
way to capitalize on immediate and/or limited product opportunities with a
new “buy now” feature.

Of course, social platforms were initially created to facilitate connection,
expression, immediacy and trends communications. However, it’s
inevitable that marketers are going to want to be part of these
conversations at the point where people are ready to buy. That said, I’m
excited for those channels that are finding ways to connect their users to
products while staying relevant within the context of their platform.

Laura Moser (US)
SVP, Shopper Marketing Practice Lead North America

Momentum Worldwide

Impact: CPG, Retail21

Analytics-Driven Inequality
Indy Neogy
If there’s one rolling trend I’d say will be the story of 2015, it’s
the collision of inequality and analytics, which will bring us ever
greater distinctions in levels of service and supply.

Think “Platinum Premium Priority Service” lanes and “Silver
Loyalty Rewards” but spreading out from airlines and hotels to
events, movie theatres, restaurants, delivery services and more.
As economic growth remains uncertain and tagging technology
reaches every part of our lives, businesses turn to analytics to
divide up the customer base by value ever more ﬁnely.

And truthfully, as the airline experience shows, there are real
limits to how much better you can make most things. So to get
the required diﬀerentiation—to help you look down on the
Joneses who only have “Bronze Priority Service”—we can
expect that many services will actually get worse at the bottom
end.

Indy Neogy (UK)
Co-Founder

KILN

@indy_neogy

Impact: All
22

The Remix As Conversation
Latoya Peterson
Vine fascinates me, not just because of the content, but
because of the new way of speaking. In the same loving spirit
communicated by the rich sampled soundscapes of early hip
hop albums, Viners build six second remix narratives using
other people's speech, songs, and images to create a new
conversation.

From a copyright standpoint, this is going to be a nightmare of
Danger Mouse proportions. But from a cultural standpoint, I
love that acknowledgment, props, solidarity and playfulness is
built into the base line interaction. And it's amazing to watch
unfold.

Latoya Peterson (US)
Editor/Owner

racialicious.com

@latoyapeterson

Impact: Tech; Hollywood; Culture
23

Weapons of Mass Construction
Marian St. Laurent
As we’ve seen with the controversy around Sony’s film
The Interview, new paradigms of conflict & diplomacy
are leading to new ways in which real world conflict are
being conveyed in entertainment. As the stakes are
raised, this trend is evolving into new ways in which
public opinion, narrative trends in television, and
advertising are looking and feeling today and tomorrow.

Marian St. Laurent (US)
Founder

Heavy Symbols

@HeavySymbols

Impact: All
24

Podcasting Strikes Back
Michael Street
While everyone is screaming their heads oﬀ about video, there is a huge
surge and interest in audio. Marketing powerhouse Jay Baer just
recently launched MarketingPodcast.com and tons of people are in the
process of launching audio only, talk based programming. While talk
radio isn't new, brands and marketers now have an active audience to
talk to. Podcasting was just about dead around 2009/2010 with
everyones interested focused on YouTube. But YouTube has its own
barrier to entry and everyone isn’t comfortable creating consistent
video content. With the popularity of content on demand platforms
becoming mainstream, audio content is now seeing the same amount
of love. Also supporting the rise of audio-speciﬁc content is connected
automobiles. Increasingly, consumers are linking up their phones to
their cars and listening to more than music.

In 2015 we will see podcasting really make a comeback and the brands
will start to take bigger notice. New podcasters are willing to
experiment and are creating fresh new programming that’s right for
todays mobile audience thirsty for content in all forms. In the past year
podcast listening increased 25% in the US, and nearly 1 in 3 Americans
have reported listening to a podcast. Thus, as their trend grows we will
see more creativity and new stars emerge in this space that will
command our attention.

Mike Street (US)
Founder

SF1M

@MrMikeStreet

Impact: Marketing; Radio; Tech25

Socialized Coworking Spaces
Michael Tonge
As work and play become more synonymous in the worlds of artists
and entrepreneurs alike, the idea of the social club as well as the co-
working space are ripe for disruption. Currently, both entities tend to
stand alone. Either providing an experience ideal for work and
collaboration, or one that ﬁts the lifestyle and nightlife needs of movers
and shakers. Very rarely do they provide ideal solutions for both. As
millennials settle in professionally and explore entrepreneurial ventures
- this group will garner increased spending power and require alternate
living/work solutions. Without having the typical ﬁnances of a SoHo
house or Norwood club member we've seen a couple of companies
appeal to the more moderate earnings of the millennial. In 2013 and
2014 we saw companies like Magnises and Aristocard enter the
market and connect with likeminded individuals.

The two social clubs centered their membership around an exclusive
credit card – disrupting what the typical experience provided by luxury
programs like that of American Express. Additionally, Magnises has a
townhouse that all members have access to 7 days a week. This is the
future of work and play: Somewhere you can connect with a well-
curated group of likeminded individuals, both professionally and
personally, with a modern living/work space at the your disposal.

Michael Tonge (US)
Digital Strategist / Strategic Partnerships Lead

Carat/The Culture LP

@michael_tonge

Impact: Tech, The Arts26

Techno-Spectrum
Tadd Wilson2014 Toshiba and IBM research showed that while the most economically-attractive
and tech-savvy consumers demand robust brand interaction capabilities, other
segments (less-rich, less-young, less-tech-seeking, less mobile, etc.) want a few
modest capabilities.

This observation is only narrowly correct, and tempts us into myths of...

• Progression. Over time, all consumers value what today is valued only by a
select few. Fact: Old technologies rarely die (e.g., cash), they simply layer.
Generational demographics show progress is not linear: Many in the 55+ age
bracket skipped PC-based e-commerce but embrace tablets with high-quality
interfaces.

• Nationality. Certain countries or cultures shun technology. Fact: Nationality or
culture provides little guidance. Canadian e-commerce languishes, yet Canadians
adopted online banking and travel early, and over-index in mobile app use.

• Prosperity: If richer means tech-seeking, poor means tech-avoiding. Fact:
Wealth and pro-technology shopping attitudes align, but in emerging markets
groups at the economic fringes are leap-frogging generations of technology, eg,
skipping laptops to go mobile-ﬁrst.

• Consistency: Shopper always behave the same. Fact: Consumers seek or avoid
technology depending on category, mission, location, etc.

The 2015 reality: Brands will encounter consumers across a spectrum of tech-
seeking to tech-avoiding – and over time, few generalities hold true across groups
of consumers or even individual consumers.

Tadd Wilson (US)
Partner

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions Impact:

@smarterretail Retail, CPG, Mobile 27

About Rob Fields
An award-winning ex-agency account guy, Rob
bridges the worlds of contemporary culture,
marketing and business. He mixes an indie, DIY
sensibility with an understanding of global
business trends and opportunities. It’s what has
helped him craft brand-building solutions across
software (IBM); QSR (Burger King); consumer
electronics (Panasonic); entertainment (Capitol
Records, artist management, indie film);
automotive (Honda and GM); as well as non-
profits (Caribbean Cultural Center, the Black
Rock Coalition, and the Brand Activation
Association).

He’s a contributor to Forbes.com and PSFK,
and a few other places.

Want to collaborate? He strategizes, ideates,
consults, writes, executes and generally plays
well in whatever sandbox he finds himself. Drop
him a line at hello@robfields.com.

#Dynamics15: A crowdsourced trend report

#Dynamics15: A crowdsourced trend report

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#Dynamics15: A crowdsourced trend report