Relevant Macro Trands

Attention Economy

Attention is one of the mostimportant currencies of the 21st century. Our everyday lives are bombarded withdifferent images and stimulations. In order to avoid being completelyoverwhelmed, we prioritise our impressions in real time and learn to filterwhat is relevant to us. This is where the challenge begins for those who wishto be heard. In the out-of-home sector, “wow effects” are still generated byloud, colourful and over-dimensional sensation marketing as well as by othersurprise strategies such as pop-up experiences. However, other factors alsostill have to be taken into account when establishing customer contact. Thebattle for attention is won by whoever adapts their message to the respectivelocations, devices, situations and moods. Greater emphasis is being placed onemotionalisation and added value in order to win the rare asset of attention.Brands are therefore becoming storytellers while adverts provide service deals.Technical tools support the battle for people’s attention with messagesbecoming increasingly customized to the needs of specific target groups.So-called tailored touchpoints help to increase the possibility and quality ofcontacts. In an attention economy, long-term customer approval can also be wonby turning the tables on consumers and listening to their needs and offeringthem more attention.

Tailored Touchpoints

The eternal advertising dream of an effective delivery of advertising messages is becoming a reality, thanks to innovative technologies which identify target group-specific characteristics at brand touchpoints. Using facial and speech recognition, age, gender, emotions and even special biometric data can be identified. Keywords are used as a gate to customised advertising. This allows, for example, young women and middle-aged men to be told apart, and different advertising displayed on digital billboards. This opens us new possibilities for creativity when designing campaigns, and promises, at least in the first few years, huge attention, thanks to its innovative nature.

Experiental Marketing

While Participation Marketing rewards participation, Experiential Marketing is about interaction with the brand through intensive experience. Discourse occurs across all five senses. Applications range from real or virtual experience worlds to installations that incorporate the user's mood, to the olfactory marketing of a new spice at bus stops. Often discoveries in neuroscience are applied. Even the processes behind a customer choosing for or against a product are being researched to draw deductions in relation to the design, colours and messages of marketing communication.

Gravitational Content

Content can be personalised, context-based and reach customers proactively. It not only dynamically adapts to devices, but also to environmental data, preferences, social connections and even mood. Each person becomes the gravitational centre of his or her personalised content universe in which content orbits them and lands at the right time. A success factor for such content is access to user data, in order to be able to personalise it well. Together with self-learning software, media houses and marketeers will become responsible as content orchestrators, personalising messages to the individual universes of recipients.

Social Software

Social Software is the heart of the internet. Social Software enables digital communication and teamwork between people online and is the basis for all networking stages. Most websites have at least social plug-ins, and therefore the possibility to forward content directly to social networks or microblogging sites. The use of platforms is usually free; users pay with their data and receive targeted advertising. The continual development of the game forms of Social Software are also increasing the range of possibilities for brand communication. However, the attribute “Social” could soon be stretched to its limit when it becomes possible to network with others in every website, app and game.

Instant Advisory

Smart apps are capable of solving many of our everyday problsms. The spectrum ranges from complex mathematical tasks to automated restaurant reservations. However, compiling the information or finding the right app is often arduous. On the other hand, AI solutions are unsatisfactory. The need direct expert help returns. A pioneer of this Renaissance of human expertise is trusted distant medical help. Today, many other virtual assistants also offer their services via apps. The number of sensors modern mobile devices have also allows an accurate evaluation of environmental data, in addition to the expert assessment. The service culture of the future will be independent of place.

Intelligent Personal Assistance

Despite human-machine interaction becoming ever more natural, many interfaces are not actually suitable for everyday use. Intelligent assistants help to bring communication into a form humans are used to: conversation. Applications are given a voice or even a face to simulate conversation. At the same time, they flatter us with the feeling of being available to help. Speech recognition and User Profiling ensure a particularly personal user experience. Intelligent assistants are currently mainly used on mobile devices, but in the future will also find use on many end devices.

New Living Concepts

Lifestyles are becoming ever more flexible and unpredictable. Flats and houses have to adapt to them or be changed as required. The living models of the core family is weakening a wide range of concepts: from urban Small Space Living to communal living models in the vein of the large families of the past, to temporarily living in completely pre-furnished spaces. Moreover, the use of living spaces is changing. Space-optimising module solutions and the bath as the new heart of the home are just a few examples. In their advanced years, many people choose to live in communal assisted living groups.

Lifestyle Diversity

Lifestyle is a vehicle for embodying one's own identity. Ever more new lifestyle combinations are appearing as a result of the search for a return on distinction. While subcultures and their associated lifestyles of the past could be allocated to a specific heyday of their existence, now everything exists at the same time and is becoming increasingly flexible and combinable (Patchwork Identities). The most important dimensions are values, opinions, appearance, leisure activities (such as sports holiday destinations) and general consumer decisions and nutrition. From the living room to the wedding buffet, it's either all DIY, minimalistic or Local Heritage. Quantified Selfer, Downshifters, LOCAS, Extreme Sport Lifestyle - new markets are arising around cultural codes and tastemakers.

Personal Design

The desire for individuality will be increasingly expressed in the personalisation of product designs. Companies offer their customers the opportunity to create T-shirts,  shoes and toys according to their own imagination. The creation and ownership of highly customised products will become a new status symbol, providing consumers the feeling of individuality. The adaptation of design to individual needs is also playing an ever larger role. Consumers are able to choose the form a book o