This document outlines 10 consumer trends that will shape 2014 according to a semi-annual report. The trends are: 1) Do Something, 2) Power of Purpose, 3) Mainstream Health, 4) Mobile Life, 5) No More Data, 6) Visuals Rule, 7) Too Big to Ignore, 8) Health On-the-Go, 9) Just for Me, and 10) Customer Experience. Each trend is highlighted and futurecasted to help health and wellness clients understand changing consumer needs and behaviors and adjust their marketing plans accordingly.

1. NOW & NEXT
Ten Consumer Trends
That Will Shape 2014
Winter/Spring 2014

2. A semi-annual report highlighting ten trends
which we believe will have a lasting impact on
how consumers will be interacting with brands,
specifically designed to help health and wellness
clients to:
•
PURPOSE
better understand their consumer landscape
•
stay current with consumers’ changing needs,
•
adjust their marketing plans as appropriate
•
seize new opportunities to grow business
desires and behaviors
NOW & NEXT: TEN CONSUMER TRENDS THAT WILL SHAPE 2014 | P 2

3. Explore…
existing consumer research, category-specific
research, industry reports
Pinpoint…
ten important trends that we think will significantly
impact our clients’ businesses
APPROACH
Highlight…
what’s currently happening, and why
FutureCast…
what we think it means for clients
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4. 1. DO SOMETHING
2. POWER OF PURPOSE
3. MAINSTREAM HEALTH
4. MOBILE LIFE
TRENDS
5. NO MORE DATA
6. VISUALS RULE
7. TOO BIG TO IGNORE
8. HEALTH ON-THE-GO
9. JUST FOR ME
10. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
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5. 1
DO SOMETHING
Highlight
The adage, “actions speak louder than words,” has never rung more true. For
too long, brands have raised expectations as a result of their promises and
haven’t delivered. From now on, do what you say or it’s game over.
Consider the findings from this 2013 Arena Media study which statistically
demonstrates that “meaningful brands” outperform the stock market by 120%.
And the sad truth that the majority of people don’t care if over 73% of brands
ceased to exist.1
FutureCast
The new way to win hearts and minds – and to forge deeper connections with
consumers – is to provide true utility by creating marketing that in and of itself,
enhances lives in real and fulfilling ways. Mitch Joel at Harvard Business Review
refers to it as Utilitarian marketing.2
The recipe calls for looking beyond messaging, making promises and
generating transactions by treating customers the way we’d treat ourselves –
focusing on what matters most. The equation is a simple one: more customer
value equals more business value equals more shareholder value.
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6. 2
POWER OF PURPOSE
Highlight
The most successful brands and businesses are aligned around a higher
purpose. Beyond the narrow confines of a business mission statement, purpose
makes clear the organization’s inspirational reason for being – why the brand
exists and the impact it seeks to make for customers and in the world.
Consider the findings from these studies:
•
92% of millennials believe business success should be measured by
•
“ideals-driven” businesses are more profitable than those that just think
•
something more than profits.3
about the bottom line.4
purpose is a definitive purchase trigger as consumers will praise and
punish companies based on their active support of a good cause.5
FutureCast
Purpose-driven brands will be the ones that consumers vote for with their
wallets. But to gain consumer trust, companies must clearly communicate
tangible, measurable actions they have taken, and the results. Look for more
companies to recommit to a core set of values like those of Zappos, Whole
Foods and Chipotle; and health-focused consumer brands to move away from
functional benefits to more aspirational higher-order benefits.
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7. 3
MAINSTREAM HEALTH
Highlight
Health concerns are on the rise across the board. As a result, today’s
consumers approach health and wellness holistically, as an increasing number
integrate more proactive/preventative vs. reactive practices into their daily
lives.6 Following this, they’re looking for products and services to help them
maintain and improve their whole health – physically, mentally and socially.
Consumers are also more aware of the role that nutrition plays in their whole
health, and are increasingly looking for more of the good stuff (e.g. “juicing”,
gluten free, organic, vegan, etc.).7
FutureCast
More and more, businesses that provide new solutions or adapt their products
and services to meet the public’s desire for a healthier lifestyle are poised to
reap significant rewards. Growth of the health and wellness market is also
good news for companies that design, manufacture or sell innovative devices
or services to monitor vital signs or fitness. And as consumers increasingly look
to self-service technologies and channels, the entire healthcare industry has a
tremendous opportuity to reach, engage and interact with today’s empowered
consumer.
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8. 4
MOBILE LIFE
Highlight
We look to our mobile devices to maximize every moment – relentlessly
accessing always and everywhere. No longer merely pieces of equipment,
they’re the means through which we interact with the world around us –
snapping, shopping, scanning, comparing, videoing, looking up, paying. A
megatrend of huge proportions, smartphone subscriptions will grow to 3.3
billion by 2018 from one billion in 2012.8 Their indispensability is underscored
by this survey from Harris Interactive, which found that 63% of female
respondents and 73% of male respondents don’t go an hour without checking
their phone.
FutureCast
In 2014, organizations will need to step back and determine how they are
going to meet the challenge of this life-changing trend. How to adapt strategies
and delivery mechanisms, content and flow of communications to match
the multi-tasking, experience cramming, mobile-loving consumers who are
seemingly one with their mobile devices. Once strategies are in place, look for
consumers, health and wellness businesses and healthcare providers to turn
to mobile and digital communities to connect, learn and engage – opening up
tremendous opportunities across the entire health ecosystem.
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9. 5
DATA NO MORE
Highlight
In 2013, we saw numerous brands including Target, Facebook and Yahoo
suffering ‘privacy breaches’ that revealed customers’ information, as well
as the leaked actions of a government agency. It’s no longer just a paranoid
minority, but a vast majority of consumers, who are concerned about the
82% OF GLOBAL
CONSUMERS
BELIEVE THAT
COMPANIES
COLLECT TOO MUCH
INFORMATION ON
CONSUMERS.
Adobe, June 2013.
amount of data made available every time we use our mobile devices,
particularly as it relates to personal, medical and financial data.
FutureCast
In 2014, consumers will gravitate to brands that offer brilliant service, while
also publicly abstaining from the collection of their personal data. The
challenge for businesses will be finding a balance between the very real
benefits of data collection and utilization (recommendations, cross-selling,
personalization, enhanced ad revenue and more), and earning the trust of
increasingly HACKED OFF consumers.
At a minimum, brands will need to adhere to the 4 C’s of mobile marketing:
• Control (helping consumers understand what will happen to their data)
• Choice (giving them the option of what data to share and what to withhold)
• Compensation (giving them something in exchange for their data) and
• Commitment (keeping consumers’ data totally secure)
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10. 6
VISUALS RULE
Highlight
The most compelling content is increasingly visual. Visual content also
enhances your brand and dramatically increases user engagment and ROI.
Consider that on Facebook, videos are shared 12x more than links and text
posts combined; and photos are liked 2x more than text updates.9 With 40
million photos uploaded daily and 90 million monthly active users, Instagram is
the fastest growing web property on the planet.10 Considering these statistics,
it’s not surprising that businesses are jumping on the visual bandwagon.
FutureCast
In 2014, look for more of your competitors to use short visual content to feed
consumers’ on-the-go consumption. Visual content gets shared more, gets
more engagement on social, communicates information more quickly and
easily than text (to the tune of 60,000 times faster than written words11), and is
worth more in SEO.
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11. 7
TOO BIG TO IGNORE
Highlight
The U.S. economy is powered by Americans 50 years of age and older. They
control 77% of the country’s financial assets, 50% of all discretionary income
and stand to inherit $15 trillion in the next twenty years. By 2017, they’ll
represent 50% of the population. Baby boomers in particular, born between
1946 and 1964, spend more than any other age group on leisure and lifestyle
and personal care products. It’s also a demographic segment that will grow
some 22% over the next decade, while the 18-49 segment grows less than 5%.
FutureCast
Boomers, the consumers who’ve supported your brand for years, are still
valuable on all the dimensions that health, wellness and leisure marketers
value. Brands who know how to help them stay vibrant, connected to what
they care for most in life, and healthy inside and out will be the winners. Win
your fair share of their business by getting beyond the stereotypes that may be
substituting for hard data. They make no ecomonic sense and they’re holding
your business back. Net: figure out a way to maintain their loyalty or to win
them over before your competition does.
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12. 8
HEALTH ON-THE-GO
Highlight
Growing concerns about health, together with development of technology,
have created a new consumer market for health on-the-go. To date, it includes
devices that intelligently track fitness activity via GPS or that track vital signs,
such as body weight, sleep patterns, heart rate and glucose levels. To date,
there are already 13,000 healthcare apps available in the App store.
FutureCast
With so many apps available, consumers, worried about safety, will likely seek
advice from their physicians. In turn, the medical profession can use this as
an opportunity to reduce costs, improve compliance, and monitor patients.
As these digital experiences become even more integrated into everyday life,
look for health plans and health providers to begin including these remote
monitors into their offerings.
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13. 9
JUST FOR ME
Highlight
In 2013, nearly three-quarters of consumers claimed to want personalized
products and services, with personalization deemed to be the most influential
factor in determining value for their dollar.12 Personalizaton also enhances
perception and promotes higher brand loyalty, which in turn increases profit
margins. The rise of digital, social and mobile is directly tied to this growing
trend, as consumers know you have a wealth of data about them and expect
you to use it to customize to their preference and needs. For these consumers,
cookie-cutter approaches hold little interest.
FutureCast
The trend to satisfy the desire for personalized products must be tempered
with the fact that too much choice leads to dissatisfaction and can negatively
impact performance. Procter & Gamble, for example, saw sales of its Head &
Shoulders shampoo grow 10% when it reduced variations from 26 to 15.13 It’s a
delicate balance of offering consumers a high level of personalization, yet not
overwhelming them with unnecessary variety.
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14. 10
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Highlight
Those organizations who not only satisfy, but surprise and delight across
the broad and multi-channel path-to-purchase will reap the reward of more
business. According to Zengage, consider that 40% of people began purchasing
from a competitive brand because of its reputation for great customer service,
while 82% stopped doing business with a company due to bad customer
service.
FutureCast
Given the high stakes, we look for more companies in 2014 to:
•
•
create roles like Chief Customer Officer and Chief Experience Officer
integrate mobile, tablet and social media community management into
overall experience management; along with moving customer experience
management beyond the exclusive purvue of the marketing department
•
see the connection between employee engagement (and their ability to
make suggestions and provide feedback) and customer experience
In their book Outside In, Manning and Bodine believe that over the next decades,
literally every company will compete on the basis of customer experience. In fact,
they already do – most just don’t realize what that really means, what’s at stake, or
how to do it well.14
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15. CREDITS
1. Havas Media
2. Mitch Joel, Harvard Business Review, 11/17/13
3. DELOITTE
4. Jim Stengel and Millward Brown Optimor
5. Edelman GOODPURPOSE Study
6. Hartman Group: Reimagining Health & Wellness, 2012.
7. Datamonitor
8. Ericcson Mobility Report, 2013
9. Simply Measured
10. Likeable Media, 2013
11. 3M Corporation
12. BDC: October, 2013
13. BDC: October, 2013
14. Outside In: Harley Manning, Kerry Bodine, 2012
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16. Read our blog: trajectory4brands.com/blog
Visit us online: trajectory4brands.com
Contact us: eb@trajectory4brands.com
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