SME Convention Executive Summaries - 5 min. brief version
Michael Tchong talks about trends that create changes in lifestyle and have long lasting effect. Trends, as different from Fads that come and go quickly with no lasting impact, are major movements, patterns or waves emerging in the consumer lifestyle that ripples through society leaving many subtrends in their wake - called UberTrends by Tchong.
He describes three that, together, bring large social changes to people as well as for marketers seeking to be ahead of them and therefore in touch with the lifestyles of their consumers. The Trends Are:
Digital Lifestyle - peoples growing dependence of online life.
Time Compression - the speed up expectations of people seeking to be informed, connected and in touch at every moment.
Unwired - is a convergence between devices and applications that allows people to manage their lives and get information when and wherever they are.
Take the example of Capt. Sulllenburger who landed the US Airways plane in the Hudson river. If you heard it first on CNN you were too late. The story was broken by a person on Twitter long before mass media knew about it and the first photo was from a passangers iPhone. Even in our Puerto Rican reality this is true. Within 5 minutes of the Cataño Gulf explosion last week Angie and I got the first reports from people on Twitter in Old San Juan and driving near Buchanan a later on Facebook. Some almost 90 hours later the radio stations started to cover it with much less information that we had - we had already seen online photos and video.
These trends driven online with Twitter, Facebook, texting are the norm for younger people who believe that this is just fine to check social networks in the workplace while their older coworkers describe it as Social NOTworking.
Technology in the form of devices are excellence these changes from iPhones, Blackberrys, fashion laptops, netbooks - all give people online access and has lead to people spending much more time in front of rectangular screens leads to “ScreenSucking” - peoples dependence on getting info from screens.
Celebrities social media habits are even on display - Jennifer Aniston breaks up with John Mayer due to his “twitter addiction”. Paula Abdul resigns from American Idol on Twitter.
With all the "apparent" negatives to productivity and attention span their are great advantages. Social media has given people the ability to connect and collaborate in ways never before imagined. If you have ever heard me speak at SeriouslyCreative Space you’ll know that I believe that allowing open communication and creating environments and processes that promote group collaboration are two of the ingredients that drive corporate innovation. Heavy social media use also allows up to get insight into what people are thinking, what trends are emerging and what causes people are clustering around. It also is a way small biz drive people to their business - like Kogi Korean BBQ Taco Truck telling their fans where they are at any moment.
If you want to see this type of research in action go to TWENDZ which shows you what subjects are hot on twitter. Smart marketers are mining this kind of information to take a peek into future trends and fads and launch themselves before them.
So how did we get to where we are today? To a place where our lives are driven by our online presence? Th Trend is called Time Compression.
In 1946 - Ratheon discovers microwave oven introducing people to instant gratification. From them to now we went from a state of mind “I’m doing good” to a state of time “I’m really busy”. Instant gratification focuses on time and where we are in the time stream. This has been the speeding up of time and life passes in a blur. And it has become a kind of status - if you are not busy you are not important.
Just look at books and TV ads - they focus on time: Shrink your waist in 2 weeks, the 8 minute workout, clean floors in seconds, etc.
And it is changing our hobbies. Golf has suffered as less players feel they have the time for 18 holes away from their busy lives.
To make up for the face to face social time we have with people we substitute with Social Networking. We don’t visit as much but we’ll see our friends online - see their photos and read their status on Facebook. And with all these eyeballs on line interactive marketing is growing eventually closing in on 50% of view.
Businesses have taken notice. In the 1980s being category innovation leader was low on CEOs to do lists. But by the late 90s top management strategy focused on business harnessing innovation to become Category Innovation Leader (In a survey 95% of CEOs listed this as a top priority). This has lead business to seek help in innovation and the development of new ideas to satisfy new and constantly on the move consumers. Now some companies have either internal innovation managers or turn to innovation experts like us at SeriouslyCreative to help them navigate their need to create new ideas and new ways forward.
All these changes, all this data and access and lead so many to become Control Freaks - people want to know what is going on, where it is, what is it’s status. FedEx is the perfect example. People are no longer satisfied to know it will arrive tomorrow - where is it at this very minute. GPS tracking devices, Navigation devices let us know exactly where we are giving us control of where we are.
Look at Layer app and Yelp.coms augmented Reality Browsing gives us information about where we are adding information we might want, giving us control of our purchasing decisions based on where we are. And marketers need to start using these applications to add value and provide on demand information with value to consumers. Like Charmin's app to find bathrooms public.
The final trend is UNWIRED - it is about being free from wires and connected to information at the very moment you want it. It is the combination of device and app. How are marketers doing this? They are looking for ways to market not by interrupting you but by providing service or a value added experience. This is the experience marketing trend. They are also using Social Engagements much like the Obama campaign or Twilight books that create events - pushed on line - to bring fans together and allow them to connect.
But nothing in business goes without measurement and social marketing has its metrics. Companies seek out social intelligence using Trackur and other services to know what is the online presence and reputation of brands or to see where consumer conversations are leading to. To this they add data of views, click rates and other numerical data to add direction to context.
THOUGHT STARTER:
digital lifestyle is rewriting the rules of social engagement and marketers need to speak the language of social marketing. The old ways of marketing or simply doing business is rapidly being challenged and companies are now forced to abandoned tried and true ways of marketing or managing. They must now innovate, adopt new and fast moving practices and trends and climb a steep learning curve. So where is your business, what ideas are you generating and how are you using social marketing in your business?
(Summary by Dana Montenegro of SeriouslyCreative: dana@seriouslycreative.com)
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