With 2012 less than a week away, there is no better time than right now to look at what’s ahead in the world of marketing and branding for the new year. JWT Intelligence released two reports that shed insight into the year ahead: 100 Things to Watch in 2012 and 10 Trends for 2012.
Some of the key trends that JWT Intelligence predicts will be hot for the new year include the following:
- Price Opportunities: Brands will introduce low-cost entry-point products into markets for price-sensitive consumers with “stripped down offerings” and smaller sizes.
- Shared Value: Companies will shift from simply donating money to charitable causes to integrating social causes into brand strategies.
- Interactivity: With a growing trend toward making screens interactive, brands will focus on finding new ways to engage consumers through touch screens and experiences.
- Redefining Age: “Old age” is changing with the term focusing on an older audience than ever and a more active older audience. Brands will find ways to better communicate with and target the aging audience.
- Tangible Add-ons: As more content and products become digital, brands will look for ways to add a tangible, tactile experience to those digital products and services and vice versa.
These trends aren’t ground-breaking or innovative. They’re reactions to how the world is changing and examples of how brands need to adapt to macro- and micro-environmental changes. Brands that don’t adapt will fall behind quickly. However, these trends provide excellent strategic opportunities to leverage the changing world and consumer audience for positive brand growth.
The trick for brands in 2012 and beyond will be keeping up with the changing world and consumer audience. In other words, change always happens, but today, change happens faster than ever. Therefore, brands and businesses must be flexible enough to stay ahead of those changes in order to lead (or at least compete) in the markets where they operate.
Is your brand positioned to navigate through fast-changing consumers and markets in the short-term and beyond? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
Hi Susan – some nice thinking. Thanks for sharing. Agree with much of what JWT are predicting. One notable addition to their predictions that I would make is that whilst they have correctly foreseen the impact of an ageing population, they haven’t mentioned in the list given here anyway the impact of the rise of “femonomics”. I expound here: http://markdisomma.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/gazing-into-the-tea-leaves/. Happy new year.
Mark, You’re absolutely right! Thanks for including that addition to the list.