We have seen the future of marketing... Siobhan Adams shares a glimpse of things to come with global trendmeister, Reinier Evers.
"The hardest thing as marketing professionals is to keep yourself out of the equation because even if you don't like it, someone else will," says 36 year old, Dutchman, new dad, genuinely all round nice guy, uber-trendspotter and founder of trendwatching.com, Reinier Evers.
And, Evers should know. Most of his professional life is spent talking to marketing professionals around the world such as at GMR's 7th Gulf Marketing Forum in Dubai last month about current and future trends in consumer behavior and taste.
He opened the Forum by referencing a new reality TV show, The Tribe and immediately I get his point: there is not enough money on the planet to induce me onto a Fijian island packed with 4,999 strangers for a year, much less pay for the 'priviledge'. For some, however, it is literally their idea of paradise and thousands clamored wallets at the ready to sign up.
For, today's marketers now operate within the Consumption Arena, a vast area populated by Global Consumers, governed by the Experience Economy and dominated by Over Abundance.
"How many lattes can you drink, how many 5-stars hotels can you stay in," Evans asks. "If consumers have everything, then what do they really want?" Good old fashioned status not status symbols, mind is the answer. With human beings nothing really changes says Evers, but new developments come along that fill their needs in new ways.
(He is quick to acknowledge cultural influences, however. "We are not ever stating that cultures are global but consumerism is. We don't see differences. Of course there are nuances but there isn't that much difference around the world.")
And, the new route to status clearly via Fiji for some is story telling. Allowing people to tell stories confers status so marketers, therefore, are no longer selling status symbols but an experience that brings the brand or service closer to the new breed of three in one consumer: "me, myself and I". (In fact, it is status and what, in particular, constitutes status that Evers predicts will be the single most important issue influencing marketing during 2007.)
Couple all this experience-hungry, egocentricity with a demand for instant and short lived gratification and the 'Transumer' emerges, a fully paid up member of the transient lifestyle.
"From an innovation point of view you can't go wrong with offering a transient experience," says Evers.
Transumers want quick thrills and have strong commitment issues; they don't want to own one car, they want to try lease different ones; they like pop-up bars the invitation-only Chivas Regal bus here today, gone tomorrow but an experience, a story.
And fickle though they are, today's consumers are no slouches when it comes to brands. Transparency Tyranny rules in the Consumption Arena and every brand can fall victim to this. Online, email, blogs, vlogs or in trend watching parlance, the Participation Arena facilitates real time reviews, uploaded images etc, all of which can damage a brand in a nano second if it has fallen short of consumer expectations.
When Evers is not globetrotting he and his team, back in their Amsterdam HQ, are busily analyzing and collating signs, random bits of information, perceptions, innovations, odd ball stuff in short social or commercial phenomena that could change the way consumers feel about brands, services and media. Evers manages 9,000 spotters across 70 countries who regularly call in with their observations and predictions which, after careful scrutiny, end up on trendwatching.com. The site now boasts some 160,000 subscribers in 120 countries. The cool, funky aspects of his business it was trend watching that coined the phrases 'the meta-verse' and the 'youniverse' and indeed himself, belies a serious, knowledge-driven business, or more accurately, planning service, for marketers.
"We are not cool hunters, nor futurists," he points out, going on to define a trend as a: a statistically significant change in performance measure data which is unlikely to be due to random variation in the process.
"As a marketer, your only challenge is to know your markets, and the needs to be fulfilled, now and in the future, in those markets, which means that you need to come up with innovative offerings, day in day out. To get to those innovations, he continues, "you need to be inspired, to be aware of your customers' changing behaviors, your competitors' moves, and best practices from all kinds of smart individuals and brands from around the world."
"Knowing about and tracking trends is one of the many sources to gain this inspiration, which is what we offer."
And, the link with ROI? "Innovations bring in the money," he says.
Evers has been fascinated with the online business revolution ever since being introduced to the nascent web in 1994 at New York University where he studied Business Policy before graduating from the University of Amsterdam with a Masters in Economics. A two-year spell with interactive agency Agency.com in New York and London (1997-1999), much of which was spent in trend spotting, research, vision development and competitive analysis led, with some inevitability, to trendwatching.com. (He was also co-founder of Urbanbite, an online food delivery portal in UK and the Netherlands which was sold to Lastminute.com in 2001).
GMR's Forum marked his first visit to the GCC. I asked if, in the very short time he spent in Dubai, he had formed any opinions on what would impact the future of marketing in the region?
"I think the Online Oxygen trend living online is going to have a huge impact. The online environment opens up all kinds of opportunities, new ways of looking, new ways of organizing the likeminded, which is a powerful phenomenon in a region that can still be considered a bit more traditional than some Western markets and democracies."
When asked what will be the single most important trend to influence marketing worldwide throughout 2007, he doesn't hesitate.
"We're going to see, especially in Europe, a debate on what constitutes value, status, luxury, and the outcome will be that it is more fragmented and diverse than ever with various kinds of consumers. We've provisionally dubbed this Status Lifestyles."
Status, he says, could be defined through a myriad of experiences and attitudes. "Anything from good old-fashioned consumption of luxury status symbols, to deriving status from leading an eco-friendly lifestyle to enjoying being a creator instead of just a consumer."
Looking specifically at the Middle East he adds: "The impact on Middle East markets, long term, is huge, as the Middle East and Asia for that matter is still mostly about luxury consumption status symbols. It will be interesting to see if they will continue to focus on that and with that serve millions and millions of consumers who, for a long time to come, will be into this or if they will make a shift or add to satisfy other kinds of status-desires as well."
I guess if time doesn't tell, trendwatching.com certainly will.
"Big players will continue injecting more money into the market to protect their business and gain more shares. Small players will die slowly all FMCGs." - Ashraf Abushady, CEO Masafi
"As tempted as I am to talk about progressive marketing, new communication avenues, digital explosion, etc. I hope that 2007 will get us more in touch with our consumers by primarily being able to accurately measure our communication effectiveness ... starting from the basics." - Philip Jabbour, SMG group director - Marketing and New Business Development
"In terms of PR we anticipate more specialization in the health and finance industries. In terms of growth we expect the industry to continue growing at a rate of 20-25% during 2007." - Sadri Barrage, MEPRA chairman
"The branding game is stepping up a notch in the Gulf. We are moving beyond the logo into a new space which is called brand lead business change..." - Hermann Behrens, managing director Middle East, Enterprise IG
"The future shifts and deterioration of cultural norms will result in an opportunity for marketers to fulfill the demands caused by global trends while presenting them with cultural solutions, and that's where innovation of concepts is needed." - Mohammad S. Almojel, BBA in Marketing, American University, Dubai
" I expect the prevailing demand for our businesses to remain strong, both from the UAE resident population and from the increasing flow of tourism, particularly with Europeans benefiting from the weak dollar." - Richard Hollands, CFO, Emirates Leisure Retail
I think the single most predicted change for 2007 is returning to having fun with marketing and taking risks with it. We are noticing more marketing managers and brand managers are taking risks with their communication strategies, which creates ample room for brand differentiation and innovation, and I believe this will generate a more interesting holistic approach to marketing in general, which will, in turn, create higher engagement for consumers. - Dana Adhami, media strategist, Catch Interactive
"The key issues are: managing the "good times"; investing for growth during the economic boom and at the same time "staying fit": HR becoming a major challenge in terms of recruiting and retaining the right calibre of talent: Increasing media heat, putting pressure on the "media planning" of all brands and the quest for "authentic" "original" and "impact full" advertising for the Middle Eastern consumer." - Tolga Sezer, vice president-Marketing, Aujan Industries
"There is a strong drive towards in-bound tourism, which is reflected in hotels, restaurants, tourist spots, airports, malls with crowds of the kind Oman hasn't seen before. This I see as getting stronger in 2007." - Radha Mukherji, DDB Oman
... the most apparent trend evolving in Saudi is the shifting of women's social gatherings from homes to outside venues such as coffee shops, restaurants, malls etc. This is more apparent among the educated women of B,C1,C2 social classes across all ages. - Rawia Al Shabi, researcher and moderator, KSA
"PR will continue to be seen as the necessary evil and will continue to play second fiddle to advertising and traditional marketing. However, sector-focused PR will allow agencies to charge premium such as telecoms, financial, oil & gas etc. Generic PR firms will not be able to withstand this pressure and so will try to create small units within their setups to cater for the need for more specialised knowledge." - Wael Al-Lawati, deputy CEO, The Wave Muscat
"I would like to see more focus on the measurement of a good PR campaign ...Having a more comprehensive benchmark for evaluating the success of PR may eradicate the need for agencies to boast that they offer 'more than media relations'. You don't see other industries including the advertising sister justifying their existence on a daily basis." - Rola Zaarour, Corporate Communications Manager, Intel Middle East and Turkey
We will see some interesting mergers and acquisitions in the media business, i.e. international outdoor agencies looking to invest locally. - Aldrin Fernandes, CEO, Concept Group
"As the market grows, agencies themselves are going to face increased competition from international incomers and local start-ups. The agencies that thrive are likely to be those that can demonstrate full solutions to clients' marketing problems using the best ideas, rather than offering 'just' advertising or design or PR." - Simon Chapman, general manager Saatchi & Saatchi, Kuwait
© Gulf Marketing Review 2007
