Trends
Global branding, design and consumer trend observations from In-a-Nutshell
New frugality reshaping a generation?
Two interesting stories about how recession can shape future consumer behaviour.
Newsweek examines how recessions affect future lifestyle choices. It explores how tough times in early adulthood can reshape people's core values, making them more frugal and humane.
Using the example of people who came of age in the Great Depression: the grandmothers and grandfathers who can't use a tea bag too many times, yet are enjoying comfortable retirements in warm climates. And the children of the 1950s who are the optimistic boomers who embodied an age of continual upward mobility and possibility. They have often spent more than they earned, because for them it has been a truism that times can only get better.
Newsweek says that it is no accident that the psychology of entire generations is shaped by the milieu in which they grew up; economic research tells us that our lifelong behaviors are determined in large part by the seismic events - good or bad - of our youth. So, given that we have just experienced the worst economic period in 70 years, it's no surprise that people have begun to wonder what sort of consumers, investors, and citizens will be bred by the Great Recession.
Another interesting story from The Washington Post: author Michele Heller looks at whether consumers' new push toward frugality could be the silver lining of the recession, arguing that if we embrace change and maintain better financial habits, we will benefit in the long term, and the economy will too.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 14:57
Top twenty consumer trends for 2010
Continuing the top trends for 2010 theme, Trend Hunter counts down its top twenty consumer trends for 2010.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 14:32
Top ten business ideas for 2010
Springwise has published its top ten business ideas for 2010:
1. Small-scale food production using membership models
2. Low impact advertising
3. Health tracking devices
4. Sample stores, cafes & vending machines
5. Discreet rooftop solar panels and wind turbines
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 13:57
Smelly brands
Interbrand's Brandchannel looks at a couple of long-standing examples of brands using smell (and taste) to differentiate their brands.
DoubleTree Hotels and Midwest Airlines have long been baking cookies for their customers, and today the low-cost means of creating differentiation, particularly in down economic times, seems like branding genius.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 13:49
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