In the last couple weeks, I've had the privilege to attend a couple trend briefings. One from nVision: Radical Times - Radical Response? And another from LS:N Global: The Wisdom Age. I find trends very interesting and always inspiring. So it's certain my next few posts will be inspired by what I've heard at these events.
One topic that I found particularly interesting was the idea of the trader generation, mentioned at The Wisdom Age. Essentially, this is about everyone being a brand with something to say; we want to contribute and be a part of things we believe in -- the idea of B2B and B2C is long gone. Rather, we are all traders, buying and selling / giving and receiving.
The rationale and strength behind this trend began to make more sense when I went back and looked at my notes from the nVision conference. There, I learned that 70% of people want to learn more, 50% of people want more experience, while only 30% want more stuff. Making it quite evident that people are looking for more self-fulfillment than material objects.
I think this stems from various things, but social networking and shaping our personal brands in very public arenas have played an important role in this shift. People are looking for ways to express themselves and appear interesting, unique and someone with a point of view - much like how we approach positioning brands.
We can see this in a few other stats, like the importance we place on having lots of friends has more than doubled since 2006. And interestingly, yet I'm sure it will come as very little surprise, there has been a 700% increase in the purchase of photo equipment since, I believe, 1980 (I apologise, I didn't capture the exact date range in my notes). And lastly, there has been a 40 point increase, from 21% to 61%, in the desire for personal creative expression, since 1980.
Knowing this, it's fair to say that it's important for brands to give people, more specifically their consumers/fans/ambassadors an outlet to express themselves or get involved with the brand in some way. However, there must be a reward to do so, as 70% of consumers would be interested in contributing ideas to a brand only if rewarded to do so.
The level of the reward obviously depends on the level of involvement, and the type of reward can vary from something that is monetary in value to something that contributes to their daily life.
In fairness, this isn't new. We saw this years ago with the creation of Nike ID or the ability to personalise Kleenex boxes and M&Ms. But it's evolving to be a bit more sophisticated and the benefits aren't just personalised products.
Looking at an oldie but a goodie, Threadless, has done a great job creating a highly collaborative business model that allows users to contribute designs while being able to purchase others. We also, saw this with the Keds Collective, which encouraged people to create their own custom trainers, then put them into the collective market to sell. For every pair sold their would get a percentage of the profits. This idea was then taken to the next level with the release of Kaiser Chiefs' latest album. People were asked to create their own album from a selection of 20 prerecorded songs and then create their own cover art to reflect their selection. For every one of that person's album sold, they receive a pound. Another unique example involving consumer involvement and creativity, is Heinz using Facebook to encourage people to send a personalised call of soup as a Get Well gift to friends.
Brilliant!
We're seeing people's creativity tapped into, which creates the IKEA affect, increasing brand affinity. Not only that, these brands are providing people with amazing stories to share with their community/friends, elevating their personal brand.
So, when thinking about a brand, we need to start asking ourselves, 'What are we going to do to create a creative and/or collaborative partnership with our consumers that will create a meaningful role within their lives beyond its base products and services?'
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