GLOBAL – NEW YORK, USA, DECEMBER 2010 – Technology is the key force behind the trends in JWT’s sixth annual year-end forecast of key trends that will drive or significantly impact consumer behavior in the year ahead.
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The report points to evolving skills and activities and how these impact our lives. According to the forecast, 2011 will see more brands applying game mechanics to non-gaming spaces (All the World’s a Game) and extending time-sensitive deals beyond the Web (Urgency Economy) , tactics that will help deepen engagement with consumers and/or nudge shoppers back to pre-recessionary spending patterns. Brands will also benefit by giving consumers ways to make less-permanent purchase commitments (Non-Commitment Culture) and by helping people exercise self-control across various facets of their lives (Outsourcing Self-Control).
The 88-page report “10 Trends for 2011” is the result of quantitative, qualitative and desk research conducted throughout the year and for this report. It also pulls input from nearly 50 JWT planners across about two dozen markets as well as interviews with experts and influencers across sectors including retail, media, technology, gaming, urban planning, psychology and academia.
Other key trends cited include:
Retail as the Third Space: Retail spaces will increasingly serve as a "third space" that’s only partly about shopping. With more people buying online as well as downloading digital versions of physical goods, shopping is becoming as much about experiences, unique environments and customer service as it is about the merchandise.
Eat, Pray, Tech: If there’s one category in which consumers are committing, it’s technology. Worldwide, high-tech devices and services (and the skills to use them) are fast becoming as integral to people as food and clothing. In an interconnected, tech-driven and -enabled marketplace, the latest technology will be more than just a luxury or a guilty pleasure.
De-Teching: More people will choose to log off-at least temporarily-or engage in one tech activity at a time in an effort to re-engage in the offline present and/or to rewire their brains to be more effective.
Other trends are Creative Urban Renewal, Worlds Colliding and Hyper-Personalization.
10 Trends for 2011 in 2 minutes
"As devices become deeply ingrained in people’s lives, we’re seeing technology becoming a core possession and skill to master worldwide. And as the Web and our gadgets evolve, we’re getting to a point where the cyber and real worlds are meshing, with the digital world becoming more personalized to individual users," says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT. "But as our dependency on technology rises, so too will our desire to log off or dial it down, at least temporarily."
Among the trends JWT has forecast in previous years: "Location-Based Everything," the explosion of location-based or -aware services that leverage data from mobile phones; "The Mobile Device as the Everything Hub," smartphones and other devices becoming the preferred platform for digital activity; "The Small Movement," the shift away from "bigger is better" in everything from homes to cars to mobile technology; and "Radical Transparency," the "nothing to hide" ethos seen in some online behaviors.
The "10 Trends for 2011" report is available at JWTIntelligence.com.
