Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs famously predicted that oil could hit the $200 barrier “within the next six to 24 months.” Now that oil is trading below $35 per barrel, that prediction seems rather removed from reality. While the investment bank may prove right in the long run, making predictions about the future can be fraught with risk.
That explains why we don’t participate in the countless lists of 2009 predictions. Much more insightful is analyzing how society is changing course due to minute adjustments in its booster rockets of social convention:
08-Feb-08 Videogaming Transcends Life
Videogaming continues to blur the boundaries between reality and virtuality. And the most remarkable convergence of life and gaming happened in a most unlikely milieu: physical rehab. The discovery that the Nintendo Wii’s groundbreaking haptic interface could speed the recovery of patients after injuries and strokes resulted in the year’s first big buzzword: Wiihab.
16-Mar-08 Bear Stearns Collapse
If you ever needed proof that the Ides of March can wreak havoc with the best-laid plans, the spectacular collapse of 85-year-old investment bank Bear Stearns should suffice. And for those who still wonder why it all happened so fast, read all about the Time Compression Ubertrend. But every trough has its silver lining, or wrinkle as the case may be: Worry-line removal is bound to become the next big thing.
12-May-08 The New Vocab: Sexting
Passing notes in class is so passé. The teen avant garde sends naked pictures of itself via the mobile phone. Although CBS applied the wrong definition, calling it “sexting” — a term that previously had been assigned to texting for sex, the term stuck. Sexting joins a distinguished line of largely technology-imbued terminology that’s seeping into our subconscious, including pretexting, linkbaiting, sock-puppeting, tappening and high-definition makeup.
The catchiest term of 2008 was unquestionably “fail,” reflecting the frequent bleak assessments that need to be doled out in our increasingly fail-prone times. Propelled by the technocrats, there’s even a blog by the same name, FAIL is best used in all caps, because that underscores the severity of the portayed idiocy, as the above magazine cover shows.
07-Jun-08 The Rallying Cry of Women
Like her glistening eyes, Hillary Clinton’s concession speech sparkled with gems: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before.” The WAF Ubertrend documents the growing stealth power of women. Yet the female ascent needs a visible boost, something Ubercool plans to address in 2009.
10-Jul-08 App Feeding Frenzy
Apple launched the iPhone Applications Store with just 552 “apps” in July. That number has now surpassed 13,000 by our estimates. The App Store has floated the boats of many developers, who besieged Apple with developer applications. The breath of apps is mindboggling. There are now, for example, some 20 “flatulence” apps. But in August we counted just five branded apps out of 1,540 at the time, pointing to a huge untapped opportunity.
30-Sep-08 The New Cool: Tupperware
By Fall, the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. triggered a host of phenomena around the world, including a 36% rise in sales of Tupperware lunch boxes in the U.K., according to CNN. BBC News put it this way: “As the credit crunch saying goes: ‘Staying in is the new going out.’” Kelli Donley, a 29-year-old Tempe, Ariz. executive told The Wall Street Journal that it’s “very cool to be cheap.”
04-Nov-08 An Exponential Trend: Social Engagement
Barack Obama’s now legendary rise from a field of big politico brands ushered in a new era in politicking. From a highly innovative iPhone app that distilled address books into contacts that counted most — those residing in swing states — to YouTube videos and texting en masse, the Obama campaign redefined the future of politics.
With Facebook passing the 140 million member mark, the popular social network continues its inexorable march forward in reshaping the online dialog. But the hottest story of 2008 was undoubtedly Twitter, which proved so popular that “too many tweets” messages frequently showed just how popular micro blogging is.
09-Dec-08 The Clear Picture of Online Video
U.S. Internet users viewed 13.5 billion online videos in October, a 45% jump from a year earlier. A demo by hot newcomer Boxee at SF Newtech underscored the promise that our collaborative video viewing future holds. Boxee, which, like a number of hardware devices can now also stream Netflix, will one day make watching television on a TV seem as archaic as listening to cassettes.
13-Dec-08 Hook Me Up, Baby!
One of the most popular New York Times articles published this week concerns the art of “hooking up.” The author was baffled by a trend that suggest that young people prefer casual, largely sexual relationships over enduring experiences. No surprise really for anyone who has read about the Unwired Ubertrend, or such insights as The New Social Swim or Love, Sex and Maybe Marriage.
14-Dec-08 Bushwacked: Shoe Throwing Catches On
He may be a lame-duck President, but George W. Bush continues to fan the flames of new fads. Already, one Iraqi shoe manufacturer who claims that the shoes thrown at Bush were made at his factory, has seen sales more than double. Meanwhile, shoe-throwing games, like this one, are showing up all over the Internet.
While it’s difficult to predict what will happen in 2009 this much is certain. The new Obama administration will cause new winds to refresh the stale air that has settled over Washington, D.C. Not only will it signify the end of an eight-year long reign of error, but the implicit message of “change that you can believe in” will reverberate throughout the global economy.
Still, as a passive trendwatcher, it’s becoming increasingly clear that global citizens of all stripes are going to have to take a more pro-active role to ensure that our lifestyles evolve as desired. Therefore we’re willing to make the following bold predictions: activism, simplicity and transparency will become dominant themes in 2009. That’s because we are taking an activist stand to help spread these trends.
We confidently predict that 2009 will be a pivotal year for change. Happy New Year!
December 19th, 2008
It’s a sensual ritual that’s repeated daily, sometimes hourly. Highly detailed online videos show close-ups of trembling fingers eagerly yet gingerly peeling away layer after layer. Anticipation builds as the object of desire is finally unveiled: it’s a gorgeous and sexy…new laptop. Welcome to the wonderful world of unboxing, a trend that’s being propelled by a lust for anything digital.
At the MacRumors discussion forum, a topic speculating about “glass trackpads” in Apple’s new MacBooks begins at 34 minutes past midnight on October 14, the day Apple is set to launch its new MacBooks. By 11:44 that same morning the meandering thread has already reached a whopping 60 pages containing some 1,200 posts.
That type of feverish anticipation is simply unheard of in any other consumer market. But then again, this is no ordinary product. Over at NotebookReview, aficionados refer to their laptops as “my lappy.” The computer is no longer merely a productivity tool, it has become an extension of our persona. A marriage between man and machine.
And the bride is becoming increasingly fashionable. Starting today, Hewlett-Packard is shipping its Vivienne Tam Special Edition notebook for $700. We can thank ASUS CEO Jonney Shih for that low-ball price. Shih kicked off the “mini-book” trend last year when he launched the Eee PC, originally promised at $200.
The HP Vivienne Tam Special Edition, which HP calls a “Digital Clutch,” is part of the company’s Mini 1000 line, and features a case designed by fashion designer Vivienne Tam. It is available for $700 and comes complete with a protective Vivienne Tam silk sleeve.
Mini notebooks have galvanized sales because they represent the digital future: one that is continuously downsizing. In Fall 2006, Nokia ran an ad campaign for its newest N95 model with a headline that presciently spoke volumes: “It’s What Computers Have Become.” These shrinking digital violets have already lead to smaller “big box” stores.
Roughly 65% of Best Buy’s U.S. stores measure 45,000 square feet. Yet most of the 90 U.S. stores Best Buy opened in 2007 measured 30,000 square feet or less, according to The Wall Street Journal. The story was the same at floundering Circuit City: 34,000 square feet vs. 20,000 square feet for newer stores.
Apple has created perhaps the most demanding notebook cult. Luckily, the new MacBook, which debuted on October 14, is one of the best notebooks ever made. Its brick-like, precision-machined aluminum construction oozes quality and innovation.
But before we can get to the Star Trek Communicator promised land, we need to shrink the more versatile laptop. And that’s happening fast, thanks to the mini-notebook, or netbook, phenomenon. IDC reported this past October that more than 2 million mini-notes were sold in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) during the third quarter of 2008, equal to 7% of the 28 million laptops and desktops sold in the same region.
Laptop sales, meanwhile, surpassed desktops for the first time in third quarter, says IDC. In 2007, the researcher estimates, worldwide desktops shipments totaled 151 million, an anemic 4% growth rate, while total notebook shipments jumped 26%, to 137 million units shipped worldwide.
By 2009, IDC predicts laptop sales will, for the first time, exceed sales of desktop computer for the entire year, with desktop sales expected to reach 163 million, compared to 171 million notebooks. Now, that’s a lot of unboxing.
Ubertrends: Digital Lifestyle
Value Propellants: Mobility, Connectivity, Convenience, Convergence
December 4th, 2008
Last week’s victory by President Elect Barack Obama unleashed a global groundswell of positive vibes. Most of the emotional outpouring was directed at the striking achievement of this U.S. election, but it might as well have been a moving tribute to the powerful advances in social engagement marketing, as deployed by Obama’s campaign.
Beginning with his February 2007 meeting with Netscape founder and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, Obama has displayed an impressive ability to harness the forces of burgeoning new social media. Quite remarkable, because Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were barely a glimmer in their founders’ eyes during the 2004 election.
Not that this year’s election was lacking in publicity stunts. The world was spellbound by images of Hillary Clinton shedding a tear in New Hampshire; transfixed by the YouTube antics of Obama Girl; and amused by NBC’s Saturday Night Live comedy skits, culminating in the hilarious portrayals of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by Tina Fey.
In fact, Palin’s appearance drew 14 million viewers, the highest Saturday Night Live audience in 14 years. Yet, the same skit was watched more than 15 million times on NBC.com and a site partly owned by NBC, called Hulu.com, aptly displaying the growing power of online video.
The Obama campaign did a superior job covering the Internet’s hottest new hangouts. His MySpace page, pictured above, shows that beautiful pages can be designed in this popular social network. Obama has nearly 1 million friends in MySpace and more than 3 million in Facebook.
Leveraging a suite of leading-edge social engagement tools, including the aforementioned Facebook, texting, googling and e-mailing, Obama’s campaign was able to raise a record-setting $750 million from 3.1 million donors, while galvanizing an army of 10 million supporters.
These results were particularly outstanding considering Obama’s 20-month conversation with his constituency began with virtually zero brand awareness. Other than his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and two books, Obama had little name recognition. But this was all changed by the deft use of new-media tactics:
- Web presence – BarackObama.com was well designed and optimized, ranking highly on Google for many election-related keywords. The transition URL, Change.gov, loudly communicates a new era of voter engagement. The campaign used online marketing firm Blue State Digital, which conceived and designed Obama’s digital outreach, including its primary site.
- Search engine optimization – The first Google results page for “Obama” displays seven results that were created by his campaign team, including central theme sites, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages, plus Obama’s healthcare issues page. The campaign’s marketing team used targeted key phrases and paid search ads to ensure high visibility on Google.
- Social media – The difference in campaign tactics was pronounced in social media. On MySpace, Obama has 921,413 friends, compared to 223,542 for John McCain. The Facebook results are even more dramatic because McCain did not maintain an official Facebook page, giving free rein to Obama’s 3,121,439 supporters on the popular social network.
- Online advertising – As of September, Obama’s campaign had spent about $5.5 million on online advertising with the bulk going to Google, suggesting a sizable paid search budget, further boosting organic results.
- Text messaging – Obama’s texting tactics received widespread coverage, particularly the poorly timed announcement of Joe Biden as Vice Presidential candidate, which reached most recipients in the middle of the night, long after the details of his selection had been leaked by the press. Obama’s VP text message reached 2.9 million people, Nielsen reported, but as the Los Angeles Times remarked, “no data on how many were awake when it arrived.”
Text messaging proved to be an especially powerful way for Obama’s campaign to communicate with its constituency. Nearly 3 million mobile-phone users signed up to receive text messages from Obama, a historic first but certainly not the last word in political texting.
The Obama campaign did not invent anything new. But by bolting together popular social engagement tools, Obama’s campaign was able to defeat both the Clinton and Republican machines, not an inconsiderable feat judging by recent election history and his zero brand awareness. Now that’s change we can really believe in.
November 13th, 2008
The economy may be wreaking havoc with your investment portfolio, but what’s far worse is that endless anxiety about your stocks’ performance could be adding numerous worry lines to your face. As history has repeatedly shown, now is a good time to start planning a big comeback for the brand of “you.”
Luckily, the field of cosmetic dermatology and aesthetic surgery is not exactly sitting still. And the biggest action is in wrinkle removers. Botulinum toxin injections, better known under the brand name Botox, are the fastest growing cosmetic procedure with more than 4.6 million performed in 2007, up 488% from 786,911 in 2000, according to Medical News Today.
Earlier this year, Irvine, Calif.-based Allergan reported that Botox sales in 2007 totaled $1.2 billion with 2008 sales expected to reach about $1.4 billion. The facial rejuvenation market is being propelled by a shift towards less invasive and safer procedures, which has spurred both the facial filler and botulism markets.
Riding the wave of a major facial rejuvenation boom, global botulin procedures reached a record 4.6 million while generating $1.4 billion in revenues in 2007 for Allergan’s Botox, the market’s dominant player.
But Allergan’s tremendous success has attracted a host of competitors. More than 50 competing products and alternative treatment options have surfaced, which is bound to considerably heat up the marketplace in the next few years.
Several competitors claim to be “purer” than Botox. This differentiation strategy is pursued by Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Mentor, which is set to bring Puretox to the market around 2010, once clinical trials prove successful. Also on the horizon is Xeomin from Frankfurt, Germany-based Merz Pharma, which claims to be “free of complexing proteins,” eliminating, among other benefits, the need for cool storage. Xeomin is currently licensed in most European countries, plus Argentina and Mexico.
Allergan’s biggest competitor in facial fillers is Phoenix, Ariz.-based Medicis Pharmaceutical, which has acquired the rights to market Reloxin in the U.S., a botulin sold in Europe under the brand name Dysport and licensed from Paris-based Ipsen. Reloxin is said to “spread” more under the skin, which could prove helpful in treating larger areas. Unfortunately, the FDA refused to accept Medicis’ application in January because the application “lacked enough information.”
You know that things are dire when Beverly Hills surgeons advertise “botox specials” to their affluent clientele. That $450 price shown for three areas is rock bottom. In 2005, the national average cost of a Botox injection was around $375 per area injected.
But the biggest news yet could be a new vanguard of topical botulins, being developed by Newark, Calif.-based Revance. The company is working on a proprietary targeted delivery method, dubbed TransMTS technology, which allows large macromolecules to cross skin and other membrane barriers. Given that more than 20 million Americans suffer from blenophobia, the fear of needles, that could be a major advantage indeed.
While current market conditions make it hard to predict how wrinkle removers will perform in 2009, suffice it to say that the ingredients for a major boom sit waiting in the wings. And now that the fear of needles may soon be addressed in a marketable solution, it’s high time for you to begin smiling more and reducing your worry lines.
Ubertrends: Fountain of Youth
Value Propellants: Rejuvenation, Reinvention, Renewal
October 30th, 2008
They were first spotted in that ahead-of-the-curve state, California, some time during the late 70s. No, not yuppies but bumper stickers proclaiming, “Happiness is being single.” Whoever conceived the slogan was clearly riding a wave that’s reshaping society, as it’s abundantly clear that America, and the rest of the world for that matter, is becoming a nation of singles.
In October 2006, The New York Times somberly declared that “married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority.” As the chart below shows, this trend is accelerating with 49.7%, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 made up of married couples today, according to the Census Bureau.
With more competition from other ways of living, the proportion of married couples has been shrinking for decades. In 1930, they accounted for about 84% of households. In 2006, the figure dipped below 50% for the first time.
The trend is fueled by a number of contemporary phenomena. More women in the workforce means decreased dependence on financial support. Out-of-the-closet gays have also had an impact. But the biggest force is the Unwired Ubertrend, which is producing an “unhooked generation,” one that treasures freedom, underscored by a growing “control freak” syndrome.
One example of this phenomenon is the surge in personal ads that seek partners “specced” in well-nigh impossible to satisfy terms. In April 2006, one particularly demanding woman ran this personal ad on Craigslist:
“Fabulous Femme Foodie - Seeking Similar Gastronome - 34 (pacific heights). So, if you know the difference between Thai and Laotian, Basque and Tapas, Afghani and Indian, or El Salvadorian and Mexican; know or are willing to believe that the same dish cooked in a clay pot, a cast iron pan, a Le Creuset pot, and a stainless steel one will in fact taste different…”
The difficulty of pleasing women was further illustrated by a Florida Atlantic University survey released last March, whose author concluded that “What it boils down to is that a [beautiful] woman who has it all, wants it all.” Did we really need a survey to confirm that?
The naked truth is that our indulgent culture has made everyone far more exacting. Hollywood’s flitting about ways are rubbing off on Joe Six Pack, leading many to think that “the next one” will be better. And while they wait for that better one, many men and women just end up living alone.
The trend is global. Australia’s 2006 Census found a 10% increase in the number of Australians living alone in the past five years. The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that the number of people living alone will jump from 1.8 million in 2001 to as many as 3.7 million by 2026, a 105% increase.
The situation is particularly acute in such big cities as New York and London, where large numbers of singles congregate to find work and relationships. In Paris, for example, 50% of dwellings are inhabited by just one person.
The control freak impact on relationships extends to Japan where 54% of Japanese women in their late 20s are single, up from 31% in 1985. And about half of single women ages 35 to 54 have no intention to marry, preferring to pass on the challenges of catering to husbands who refuse to shoulder the household burden.
Our growing solitude goes beyond single households. A December 2004 Knowledge Networks study reported that 45% of primetime viewers now watch TV by themselves, versus 31% a decade ago. In fact, researchers now consider familial television viewing so remarkable that they’ve coined a new term for it: co-viewing.
And dating singles will soon be replaced by a generation whose life experiences have already eclipsed theirs. In the U.S., the median age for pre-marital sex has dropped to 17.6 among 15-24-year-olds, compared to 20.4 among 55-64-year-olds. Austrians lose their virginity at an even younger age, 17.3, according to a global survey by condom maker Durex.
Meanwhile, more than half of teenagers ages 15 to 19 engage in oral sex, including nearly a quarter of those who’ve never had intercourse. Among those interviewed by the National Survey of Family Growth in 2002, 95% of adults reported they had had premarital sex; 93% by age 30.
Not that there’s anything wrong with marriage. Despite their new-age attitudes, most young people still aspire to marry and settle down. But the reality is that more and more appear to conclude that being single and waiting for that better next one is a preferable pastime with far-reaching results.
Ubertrend: Unwired
Value Propellants: Freedom, Control, Individualization, Privacy
October 9th, 2008
The power of blogs to change public opinion was on full display this week, helping doom the outcome of the U.S. Congress’ “Wall Street bail out” vote. Fully 43% of blog visits center on news and politics, reports comScore MediaMetrix, including such stalwarts as Daily Kos, FreeRepublic, Huffington Post and Wonkette, and the total number of blogs has reached a cumulative total of 133 million, notes Technorati’s just released State of the Blogosphere.
Washington got a firsthand taste of the power of the Blogosphere, because blogs — a contraction of “Web logs” — are the fastest-growing form of online publishing, skyrocketing from nowhere in 1999 to 78 million unique visitors in the U.S. in August 2008, according to comScore MediaMetrix.
The drama surrounding the U.S. presidential elections, has dramatically lifted the visibility of political bloggers, with mainstream media now relying on blogs not only to aid in research but also as a publishing platform.
About 43% of visitor traffic goes to blogs that cover news or politics, equivalent to 34 million monthly visits in the U.S. alone.
A survey released by Brodeur in January 2007 found that blogs are considered helpful by 75% of reporters. And journalists are increasingly active participants in the blogosphere. One in four reporters (28%) have their own blogs and nearly one in five (16%) have their own social networking page.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama says he follows the Daily Kos, which, according to Wikipedia, receives between 14-24 million visits each month. Yet, the Daily Kos is only the ninth most influential blog according to Wikio, which lists The New York Times’ The Caucus Blog as the most influential political blog. Technorati notes that Arianna Huffington’s The Huffington Post is the most authoritative blog with 27,958 inbound links.
According to U.K. Web monitoring firm Netcraft, the number of Web sites around the world now stands at 181 million, all using inconsistent interfaces that quite often befuddle visitors. Not so with blogs. All blogs use a simple metaphor, called the “blogroll,” which displays stories arranged from new to old. Unlike sites, which are flexible and free-form but can also be complicated, blogs are simple, real-time affairs with updated entries, or “posts,” organized chronologically.
Another challenge, as any webmaster will attest, is keeping sites up-to-date. Large enterprises tackle the problem with content management systems (CMS) that replace hand coding with automated procedures. But CMS software is expensive and usually falls outside the purview of most publishers. Blogging tools on the other hand make it simple to add, modify and distribute content dynamically, explaining their big success.
Finally, blogs are deemed “Web 2.0” because they address a new-found love for interactivity. Blogs provide an easy means for readers to comment, providing a dialog that feeds our conversation economy. Still, most people just scan blogs, barely lingering for a minute with little time left to comment. Among journalists surveyed by Brodeur, 48% say they are “lurkers” – reading blogs but rarely commenting.
The blogging world has developed its own set of tools of which blogging tool WordPress, created by Matt Mullenweg at Automattic, is widely considered the best blogging platform. WordPress’ popularity is due not only to its slick interface but also because it’s infinitely extensible using WordPress plug-ins.
The number of people creating blogs in the U.S. will exceed 35 million by 2012 – or roughly 16% of the Internet population, predicts eMarketer. That same year, more than 145 million people – or 67% of the U.S. Internet population – will be reading blogs at least once a month. That’s up from a readership of 94 million in 2007, or 50% of Internet users, according to the eMarketer report “The Blogosphere: A Mass Movement from Grass Roots.”
Buoyed by “massive levels of consumer engagement,” U.S. blog advertising will reach $746 million in 2012, up from $283 million in 2007, forecasts eMarketer. In 2006, blogging network Federated Media reported it sold more than $10 million in advertising for about 90 Web sites, including many blogs. The sound of money jingling in the digital pockets of bloggers has the media and venture communities looking for deals.
In 2004, AOL acquired Weblogs Inc. for a reported $25 million. That was the Blogosphere’s first megadeal. According to TechCrunch, blogs and blog networks attracted $8.5 million in venture money in 2006. Last year, that figured tripled to at least $25 million, including such high-profile deals as The Huffington Post ($10 million), Sugar Inc. ($10 million), Blogher ($3.5 million) and GigaOm ($1 million).
Top 10 Blog Valuations by 24/7 Media
|
Blog
|
Valuation
|
Estimated Traffic
|
|
The Gawker Media
|
$150 million
|
30 million monthly unique visitors
|
|
MacRumors
|
$85 million
|
544,000 visitors
|
|
Huffington Post
|
$70 million
|
4 million unique visitors
|
|
PerezHilton
|
$48 million
|
10.1 million unique visitors
|
|
TechCrunch
|
$36 million
|
3.2 million unique visitors
|
|
Ars Technica
|
$15 million
|
800,000+ visitors
|
|
Seeking Alpha
|
$15 million
|
400,000 visitors
|
|
Drudge Report
|
$10 million
|
1.1 million visitors
|
|
Mashable
|
$10 million
|
5 million page views
|
|
GigaOm
|
$8.4 million
|
225,000 visitors
|
In March, 24/7 Media valued the 25 largest blogs based on a somewhat optimistic CPM-based (cost per thousand; a marketing cost measure) revenue scenario. Reproduced above are the top 10 most highly valued blogs based on this traffic/revenue parameter.
Remarkably, AOL dominates the blogging world. Of the top 10 blogs in the U.S. this past February, AOL owns five, four of them among the top five. The most popular blog in the U.S. is TMZ, a gossip joint venture between AOL and corporate sibling, Warner Telepictures. The rest are from AOL’s Weblogs acquisition: Autoblog, travel blog Gadling, fitness blog Thatsfit, and the biggest of them all, Engadget, a blog for digital lifestyle addicts.
The cool image of blogs has attracted the attention of marketers, who are beginning to use them as “viral marketing” platforms. When Nescafé launched its Dolce Gusto coffee maker in 2007, it turned to bloggers. Nescafé, a division of Swiss food giant Nestlé, placed an ad on French site BlogBang.com, which has a community of more than 2,000 bloggers.
The site sent a message to its members telling them about the ad campaign, an interactive game, and bloggers were asked to put a link to the game on their sites. In return, Dolce Gusto’s home page posted links to the blogs that joined up. Centralized marketing sites like BlogBang represent the future of marketing as the conversation increasingly shifts from a brute-force impression world to one of social engagement.
Blogging is the way that Web publishing was meant to be, simple, easy and fast. And the legions of people who have joined the Blogosphere are proving to governments all over the world that they’re a force to be reckoned with.
October 2nd, 2008
Revlon founder Charles Revson’s once said: “In the factories we make cosmetics, in the stores we sell hope.” Revson would have enjoyed this week’s press coverage of “high definition” makeup, which ignited the media as if someone had tossed a compact filled with pressed gunpowder in the newsroom of the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.
Still, you couldn’t ask for a more outstanding example of the influence of the Digital Lifestyle Ubertrend on our voracious consumer culture. High definition has captured the consumer’s fancy because it delivers faces good enough to withstand the microscopic scrutiny of high-definition television.
Understandably, this trend starts with the celebrity set, which has entrusted its countenance to the expert hands of makeup artists who have been using airbrush guns for years. Now the airbrushed look has a host of hi-def makeup suppliers, including Cargo, Christian Dior, Kett, Makeup Forever, Obsessive Compulsive, Smashbox Studios and Temptu.
The business was propelled by Dina Ousely, whose role in Shampoo opposite Warren Beatty helped launch her career as “the original airbrush makeup artist to the stars” in 1981. While the movie industry has been using airbush systems since the days of MGM’s movie classic Ben Hur, Ousley’s company, Dinair, mainstreamed the technique.
But it was HDTV and its revealing 1080i resolution that pushed airbrush makeup into the limelight. Now consumers are lining up at department store counters worldwide to lay their hands on a tube of high-definition primer or bottle of HD foundation.
Canadian makeup company Cargo has launched a high-definition product line, called blu_ray, that borrows a page from the HDTV market. A one-ounce bottle of Cargo’s Hi-Def S/B makeup, which can be applied by airbrush or hand, costs $25, not much more than Clinique’s Perfectly Real foundation ($23). Shown: blu_ray High Definition Mattifier ($26).
The high-definition phenomenon has floated the boat of the cosmetics industry, helping maintain sales momentum despite a soft economy. Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz Jr. reported in a note to investors that sales of color cosmetics rose 1.2% year-over-year for the four-week period ending August 10.
According to Euromonitor, global color cosmetics sales reached $37 billion in 2007, up 5% over 2006. Despite the rise, color cosmetics lag the industry, with only the commoditized bath and shower category and depilatories recording lower growth in 2007.
One promising area is makeup containing natural ingredients. In 2007, global sales of natural and organic cosmetics were estimated at $7 billion, driven chiefly by North America and Europe, which accounted for most of the $1 billion sales increase last year.
While lagging in growth, color cosmetics remains the most fashion-forward sector of the beauty industry, influencing the consumer market through extensive catwalk exposure. Eye makeup, at $10 billion the largest color cosmetics segment, enjoyed another year of category-leading growth at 6% in 2007, according to Euromonitor.
Dramatic, smoky eyes combined with nude lips was the “mod” look that dominated the trendy visage of fashionistas worldwide. But the Generation X-tasy Ubertrend continues to push the makeup envelope, as exemplified by the Japanese “eye wig” phenomenon.
Factors that positively influence the cosmetics market, such as high-tech ingredients for professional results or faster and improved application, a growing priority for time-compressed consumers, bodes well for the color cosmetics market, particularly its high-definition niche.
As consumers connect high definition with best-performing makeup, category sales will surge. The airbrush home appliance looks very promising based on developments in related categories. Already, airbrush technology has spilled over to tanning devices, like GlowFusion.
At Amazon.com, buyers report glowing results from using a Clarisonic ($160) power cleaning device that earned a “Best of Sephora 2008” award. Neutrogena recently joined the fray with the Wave Power Cleanser ($15).
The Uslu Airlines Air(o)pak 2.0 (€533; $757) is an elegant, second-generation portable airbrush system that shows the direction of future makeup appliances, albeit at a much lower cost of course.
In 2010, global cosmetics and toiletry sales will top $300 billion, predicts Euromonitor. Of this figure more than half will be generated by the fastest-growing sectors, cosmetics and personal care. Driven by the Fountain of Youth Ubertrend, skin care will top $35 billion that year. And the widespread acceptance of HD makeup among the Hollywood and fashionista crowd will continue to fuel cosmetics sales growth, which is a beautiful thing to see.
Ubertrends: Digital Lifestyle, Fountain of Youth, Generation X-tasy
Value Propellants: Aspiration, Beauty, Convenience, Convergence, Experience, Indulgence, Innovation, Reinvention, Renewal
September 20th, 2008
Each March, a pilgrimage of sorts takes place as more than 40,000 people trek to Miami’s South Beach to attend the Winter Music Conference — a gathering for DJs, dance club owners, music producers and promoters – to celebrate dance music or electronica, a derivative of the early 70s music of Kraftwerk.
Electronica and its contemporary phenomenon, “clubbing,” have greatly impacted drinking establishments. In Chicago, there were nearly 7,000 taverns in 1947, a figure that has declined to just 1,321 today. While other influences also drive this trend, like America’s growing infatuation with wine, nightclubs have redefined the entertainment experience.
And music lies at the heart of that change. First came the disco wave of the 60s. The 70s brought Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, who greatly influenced the techno sounds that began emanating from Detroit in 1979, pioneered by such DJs as Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. The second electronica vein, house music, began pulsing in Chicago in 1983 and was based on the groundbreaking work of Frankie Knuckles and Kool Herc, nicknamed “the godfather of house.”
The Spanish island Ibiza is widely considered to be the Mecca of progressive music and its holy shrine is Space, a club that features an open terrace complete with the roaring sound of airliners passing overhead.
In 1989 the new musical genre received its own festival, Berlin’s Love Parade, which at its peak drew more than 1 million electronica fans, making it by far the world’s largest musical extravaganza.
The rise of electronica has spawned a bewildering array of sub-genres, including chill, house, jungle, breakbeats, drum ‘n bass, industrial, electro, Goa, trance and ambient, requiring a trained ear to be able to detect the great variety of nuances. This also means this music might seem oddly foreign to the casual bystander.
Yet nowhere is the influence of Time Compression more evident than in that popular social convention of dancing. The speed of dance is a perfect proxy for the acceleration of life. In the late 17th century, people enjoyed the minuet, which was the most popular dance among Europe’s aristocracy until the late 18th century.
Dance is not only evolving into a faster activity, but a parallel singles trend is leading to more solitary dancers, who all face the DJ, in a true deference to the new religion (Photo courtesy of Mynt, South Beach).
It was a beautiful, stately dance, and mirroring life, languidly executed. Today, dance clubs move to a frenetic beat, as electronica ups the pace to as many as 170 beats per minute. That fast beat has made dance music popular in gyms and stores: It encourages clientele to exercise and shop faster.
The high energy found in nightclubs has made fellow drinking establishments feel drab by comparison. According to Research First, the total number of U.S. drinking establishments stands at 50,000 today. Based on an earlier analysis by Answers.com, an estimated 9%, or about 4,500, are nightclubs, while 12% (6,000) are cocktail lounges.
Mintel reported in 2002 that one third of adults visited nightclubs at least once in the past year. This explains why the line between bars, taverns and nightclubs is increasingly blurring as bar owners seek to tap into the rich vein of clubbing. On a Friday night in Zürich, we counted 56 DJ-hosted events, a far cry from the yodeling image Switzerland typically elicits.
The DJ revolution has led to a flood of products and services – from DJ books to schools and now the world’s first portable DJ mixing console, the Tonium Pacemaker ($800), which lets DJs create their own remixes on the run.
Clubs, meanwhile, are upping the velvet rope ante, both in admission fees and prices they charge for “bottle service” – an overpriced euphemism for a reserved table. To give an idea of the scale, in 1998, the last year for which we found data, there were 15.7 million U.K. club attendances costing £10 ($18) or more, equal to a minimum of $275 million.
Research First estimates that drinking establishments take in about $15 billion in annual revenues. But the industry’s biggest pitfall is its extreme dependence on labor, with the average annual revenue per worker estimated at just $45,000.
More than 40 years after the birth of disco, the terms dance music and electronica have become imprecise synonyms, overlapping without quite matching up. So next March, pack up your iPod nano or iPhone and head to the WMC to check out emerging vestigial beats that typify this music’s growing diversification.
Ubertrend: Generation X-tasy
Value Propellants: Indulgence, Experience, Exclusivity, Prestige, Quality, Service
September 12th, 2008
This week Barclays Wealth and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released a report based on a global survey of 2,300 high-net-worth individuals worldwide with between £500,000 (€615,000; $888,000) and £30 million (€37 million; $53 million) to invest, which discovered that developing market investors were far more likely to see the current market volatility as an opportunity rather than a hindrance, while western investors were more likely to look to methods of preserving their capital.
Specifically, the report shows that risk appetite is highest among wealthy investors in China and India, with 41% of Chinese and 40% of Indian respondents currently more likely to increase risk levels in their portfolios while only 27% of Italians, and 29% of U.K. and Spanish respondents, respectively, looking to do so.
Rounding out the biggest risk takers were Singapore (39%), the U.S. (36%) and Hong Kong (34%). The Barclays study is a proxy for the changes taking place in global wealth creation, and the attendant shift in market focus by the leading luxury brands.
PPR, whose Gucci group includes fashion design houses Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron and Stella McCartney, reported that sales rose nearly 12% to €9.6 billion ($13.5 billion) in the first half, from a year earlier. Pictured above are Bottega Veneta’s Sfera earrings in white gold.
As emerging countries generate more wealth, luxury manufacturers are witnessing a tectonic shift in consumer make up. As The Australian reported on August 20, China, Russia and India are keeping luxury makers busy as luxury sales growth stalls in developed countries.
In addition to China, which has become “luxury’s great wall of revenue,” Russia is fueling the luxury market due to its capital, Moscow, boasting more billionaires per capita than New York. To provide more ready context for the global wealth explosion take The Wall Street Journal’s November 2005 effort to determine just how much money was sloshing around globally ready to invest in the next boom.
The Journal gave up north of $46 trillion, a figure provided by International Financial Services, London, or IFSL, a group that promotes the British financial industry, which estimated the global money supply in insurance, pension and mutual funds held globally as of 2004. That figure was up 29% from $36 trillion in 2000.
While the global economy has negatively impacted sales at Burberry and Gucci, some brands, like LMVH, whose stable includes Dior, Louis Vuitton and Veuve Clicquot, saw a rise in both profits and sales, propelled by a 25% jump in revenues in Asia. Shown above are crocodile-print leather ankle boots by Louis Vuitton.
China, which had 415,000 millionaires last year, is on the verge of overtaking the U.K. and its 495,000 millionaires, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini released this summer. As one might expect, the U.S. remains the richest country and is home to 3 million of the world’s 10 million millionaires.
Driven by market capitalization growth in emerging economies, the wealth of the world’s high net worth individuals (HNWIs) has increased 9.4% to $40.7 trillion in 2007, says the 12th annual World Wealth Report, released on June 25 by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.
Fueled by this explosion in global largesse, the luxury market has blossomed into a $270 billion market this year, according to Bain & Co., which ratcheted its forecast down to a 2% rate of growth for the year due to the credit crisis that has finally impacted luxury sales.
While prime retail space in New York leases for as much as $2,500 a square foot, one of the highest rates in the world, Giorgio Armani is opening a 40,000-square-foot space at 56th Street. Like any other business, it’s all about location. Avenue Montaigne, Paris’ deluxe street address, features a Jimmy Choo store.
Not surprisingly, the mostly resilient Asian economies fared best. Sales of luxury goods in Asia, excluding Japan, jumped 100% over the past 10 years, increasing from $14.7 billion in 1997 to $29.4 billion in 2007. But yet despite that rapid growth, Asia only accounted for 12% of global luxury goods sales in 2007, only slightly more than 11% in 1997.
The surging luxury market has also propelled another trend, dubbed “Superpremium” – a fancy term for severely over-priced products. But however one might describe this surge in economic exuberance, it’s abundantly clear that luxury is reaching a whole new state of mind.
Ubertrend: Generation X-tasy
Value Propellants: Indulgence, Experience, Exclusivity, Prestige, Quality, Service
September 3rd, 2008
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week, two dozen solar-energy firms demonstrated their home-energy wares in a Coors Field parking lot to convention delegates. They were there because the Democratic National Committee promised to make this the “greenest convention ever.”
Heightened awareness of the green movement is reflected in a study conducted by Forrester Research this year, which found that 60% of the 61,000 U.S. and Canadian residents polled are concerned about the environment, while 45% worry about global warming.
But going green is not easy. The “Green Attitudes Don’t Guarantee Green Actions” survey also found that while 63% recycle paper, bottles and cans, and 57% have bought energy-efficient light bulbs, just 14% took toxic materials to a community recycling center, while only 11% recycled their last TV or PC.
Del Forte Denim, founded by San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur Tierra del Forte, is one of a growing group of companies that cater to the emerging green class with jeans made from 100% organic cotton.
In other words, as is the case with most things, consumers choose the road less hassled. Yet, as the automobile industry has discovered, the market can turn on a dime. Americans are not only passing on their cherished SUVs, with sales down 21% in the first half, but they’re also driving significantly less, 12 billion fewer miles in June alone.
The shift in America’s green attitude is palpable. A Harris Interactive poll of 2,392 adults surveyed in September 2007 found that 79% of organic food buyers believe it tastes better and is worth the extra cost. The KPMG 2007 Annual National Shopping Behavior Survey reports that 60% are willing to pay more for such items, and 55% say they make a special effort to patronize retailers with a “green” reputation.
Relying on a technique called “biomimicry,” imitating palm trees in this instance, the Envision Solar Grove turns parking lots into solar farms. Originally created for Kyocera Solar, the Solar Grove should find a ready market in our nation of parking lots.
Fact is consumers are going to have to learn to live with paying more for less. Take packaging for example. This holiday season many consumers will be struggling to open large, unwieldy gifts that waste precious resources in the name of branding and retail optimization. Sites that track this new environmental ethic include TreeHugger, which reports on a wide range of sustainability topics.
The rising cost of oil will greatly dampen wasteful practices. The same forces are reshaping the energy field where a plethora of wind generators and solar panels are starting to address the world’s eternal thirst for energy. Germany has become the poster child for renewable energy with some 7% of the nation’s electricity generated by windmills.
As those renewable energy cheerleaders in Denver are discovering, the winds are truly in their sails. You don’t have to be at the Convention to imagine this rising chorus: “What do we want? Solar energy! When do we want it? Now!”
August 27th, 2008
The opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics will always conjure up vivid images of 2,008 volunteers drumming in perfect harmony in an event that vividly captured the imagination of all viewers. But if anything, this Olympic event was a coming out party for light-emitting diode, or LED, lighting technology.
A huge scroll displaying China’s 5,000-year civilization was an LED screen 147 meters long and 22 meters wide, consisting of 44,000 LEDs. Tiny LED beads were also embedded in the costumes of performers who fanned out to create a starry sky.
The Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies featured a giant 44,000-LED “scroll” display that replayed China’s history with dazzling images.
Propelled by such high-profile showcases, the global, general LED lighting market grew 60% in 2007 to $330 million, according to the Taiwan Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center. This market is expected to reach $1.4 billion by 2012.
The main appeal of LED technology is energy efficiency. In traffic signal lights, a strong market for LEDs, a red traffic signal light containing 196 LEDs draws just 10 watts compared to an incandescent light bulb that consumes 150 watts.
LEDs also offer architects and designers a rich color palette with millions of colors, which is why they’re increasingly showing up in window displays and building light shows. In addition, they’re incredibly small, last a dozen years and don’t put out much heat.
No wonder LED lighting has rapidly achieved cults status in the staid $3.2 billion lightbulb industry. Meanwhile, researchers are taking LED to the next level, working on designs that could positively affect moods and even health.
As they become better and cheaper, LEDs are quickly replacing neon lights and the U.S.’ 4 million traffic lights. Recently, the City of Los Angeles Police Department chose the Pelican 7060 LED ($120) as the standard flashlight for all its officers. And now they’re even invading the home, as exemplified by such products as the Koncept Z-BAR LED lamp.
The Koncept Z-BAR ($130) features 66 LEDs that generate 100 lumens, enough to help it win an I.D. Magazine “best of category” design award.
In June 2007, Toronto’s 1,815-foot CN Tower was lit with more than 1,300 color-changing LEDs. Meanwhile, automobiles such as the 2008 Cadillac CTS feature both interior and exterior LED lights. Hotels, like Las Vegas’ Bellagio, use LEDs from Space Cannon to provide exterior color accents.
London’s Moorfield Eye Hospital features RGB-color-changing LED lighting designed and supplied by Lightscape Projects and Tryka, working with architects Penoyre & Prasad.
To prove how valuable the market has become, Royal Philips Electronics acquired Color Kinetics for $688 million last year. Color Kinetics is a decade-old Boston company that, among others, designed the CN Tower’s new lighting and holds patents on systems to control LED color and brightness.
The LED trend may have received another shot in the arm when Australia announced in February 2007 that incandescent bulbs would be completely phased out by 2010 to be replaced by more fuel-efficient lighting, such as fluorescent bulbs. LED lighting could clearly play an important role in this historic conversion, a change that future LED scrolls might document for generations to come.
August 21st, 2008
If you need any proof that our social dialog has changed, some say for the bad, you need look no further than a new service called Slydial, which allows you to leave a voicemail on a mobile phone user’s number (but not landline), while avoiding any direct interaction.
Slydial media coverage honed in on the subterfuge this particular approach to consumer interaction might entail, although most reporters acknowledged that Slydial would come in handy for breaking up, or other difficult communication tasks.
But Slydial is just another twist in a long line of technology solutions that since the early 70s have provided consumers with a convenient way to avoid contact. In 1971, Phonemate launched its model 400 answering machine. By the time voicemail caught on in the 80s, office workers were already well-versed in the habit of leaving messages at hours they knew no one would be able to answer the phone.
Today, the world revolves around social networking, which has ushered in its own set of social swim rules. How does one deal with curious ex-boyfriends or -girlfriends who poke their nose into your profile and make snide comments about your social life?
Or what is the proper etiquette for dealing with that endless stream of “friend” requests? And what should you, or should you not, write on someone’s “Funwall” to avoid any pretext? In fact, wasn’t “pretexting” a term that surfaced in that infamous HP boardroom spying case?
As the “Social Swim” movie used in the above video illustrates, things have changed markedly since the 40s or 50s. And our social networking-propelled human interaction is bound to change yet further as the rest of the world joins this pervasive trend.
The new social swim has engendered a set of definitions that now litter the pages of Wikipedia, like Social Engineering (computer security), which explains terms like “phishing” — the act of fraudulently obtaining information by parading as someone else.
And if you like to “phish” for rich people, it’s called “whaling” — revealing a streak of techie humor not lost on creative writers. Our dialog is evolving to keep pace with a fast-changing culture, much like such new terms as “rip off” popped up in the 70s, mirroring an anti-capitalist fervor that ruled society then.
But the changes in social articulation are not limited to words. The online chat revolution has brought an ingenious device that adds a new flavor to electronic conversations: emoticons, or “smileys” as they’re best known. As The New York Times reported a few weeks ago, the emoticon was first used by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Scott Fahlman in 1982.
A survey of 40,000 Yahoo! Messenger instant-message users discovered that 55% say they use emoticons every day, with nearly 40% of respondents noting they first discovered emoticons within the past five years. One has to feel sorry for that 45% that doesn’t use smileys often enough, or at all.
The emoticon after all is a very important human interaction tool. That’s why it’s surprising that the ultimate design control freak, Apple CEO Steven Jobs, has let the Mac community be encumbered by some of the ugliest smileys this side of MSN. He clearly belongs to that 45%.
Then there’s that other phenomenon. The one that has job applicants adding smileys to their correspondence, to the consternation and disapproval of job counselors. We say get used to it. Because if the evolution of our written dialog is any indication, thou hast no reason to refuse i wud ♥ to work 4u!! ;), lest thy wasteth away.
Just call it an acute case of contraantidisestablishmentarianism.
August 14th, 2008
On Tuesday, Paris Hilton released a political viral video. The two-minute video received a lot of air play. In part, the video was symbolic of the shift taking place in society: Our standard of communication has devolved into short assemblies of fleeting imagery, ideal for mass consumption in a multitasking world.
Similarly, social networks are also contributing to a sea change shift that is inundating the online world. Small snippets of code have already invaded the realms of Facebook and iPhone, quickly showing that small can be beautiful. Apple’s Application Store already features more than 1,550 applications, nearly a month after the release of iPhone software capable of adding these “apps.”
Facebook, which opened its architecture to developers in May 2007, has more than 25,000 applications that can be added by the user. The avalanche of these small software apps is guaranteed to turn into a flood as marketers and users alike begin to realize the ease with which these “widgets” can be created and unleashed.
Of the more than 1,500 applications available for the iPhone only a handful promote brands, like the above Chanel application. That’s bound to change as marketers begin to realize that this community of 10 million trendsetters is worth reaching.
Last night, more than 240 people attended SF New Tech’s “Widgets Up The Wazoo” event in San Francisco. The organizer of the event, Myles Weissleder, added a second monthly meeting focused on this topic after June’s event on the same subject quickly sold out.
The crowd was not disappointed. Like our previous report on last year’s Facebook’s Developer Garage, it’s becoming clear that the wave of the future are small, vertical apps that quickly and easily deliver fairly narrow results. The impact will not be lost on Madison Avenue. Already some brands are discovering the branding opportunities that these applets offer.
Facebook boasts such brands as Ben & Jerry’s, Coca-Cola, Crocs, GAP, Mars, McDonald’s, Neutrogena and Starbucks, among others. Some online marketing outfits, like LiveWorld, are helping marketers mobilize the social network space. LiveWorld’s LiveEngage Widget Series 1.0 is being used by Neutrogena set up widget shop in Facebook.
Facebook realized early on that aggressively recruiting developers to add widgets to its social network was key to its success. To that end, the company has established the fbFund to encourage application developers to come up with new Facebook winners.
The iPhone is still virgin territory, so few brands have discovered its potential: British Airways, Chanel, Carling Breweries and Hotels.com are all we found. Yet, there’s no question that due to the heavy use of Macs among advertising creatives this void will be filled rapidly.
One key challenge of widget building has been met conclusively by iWidget, which offers a drag-and-drop service to build your own Facebook or MySpace application.
The SF New Tech demos showed just how quickly one can build and distribute applications on both Facebook and MySpace. Audience favorites included Gigya and iWidget, which let you distribute and build your own widget, respectively.
Gigya claims that its distribution network counts some 142 million widget users. iWidget, meanwhile, features a very simple, visual-based widget builder that can turn any relatively sophisticated technosexual into mainstream widget builder.
We’ve seen the future and it’s small.
August 7th, 2008
You know things have changed when you tune into the evening news and see a senior citizen, ahem “active adult,” playing with a Wii videogame. The trend is called “Wiihab” and it’s casting a whole new light on an activity once reserved for trigger-happy teens.
The videogame wave is huge. By 2012, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts, video playing will be a $68 billion business. And companies riding the wave are scoring big. Last September, Reuters reported that Nintendo had become the second most valuable company in Japan behind Toyota, with a valuation of 10 trillion yen, or $85 billion.
In April, Nintendo announced it had sold a whopping 25 million units of its hard-to-find Wii videogame, which began shipping in 2006. By comparison, Microsoft has sold 15 million X-Box consoles, while Sony’s PlayStation 3 has only found 11 million global gaming fans.
The most cutting-edge trend in the $42 billion videogame industry is the growing reliance on videogames, like the the Nintendo Wii, which features an innovative ”haptic” interface, to help patients rehabilitate faster, a trend that is tongue-in-cheekly called, “Wiihab.”
The staggering figures help explain why, in one week last May, Grand Theft Auto IV generated more revenues than any movie premiere ever has, ringing up more than $500 million in sales. As of June, NPD says, retail sales of Grand Theft Auto IV in the U.S. have surpassed 4.2 million units.
That’s on top of the 70 million units the series, which one observed described as an “interactive Sopranos,” has sold so far. But Grand Theft Auto is no game for the timid. A few years ago, GTA caused an uproar when a hidden graphic of two game characters having sex surfaced to the consternation of parents and the amusement of players.
Will all this violence and sex negatively influence future generations? The evidence is contradictory, but a Psychology, Crime & Law study concluded that violent videogames affect juveniles in differing ways, based on the subject’s inherent personality. Here are key trends sweeping videogaming:
Sony sold more than 120 million PlayStation 2s worldwide, but its successor, PlayStation 3, has garnered just 11 million in sales, proving that software is the name of the game.
- Wiihab – Nintendo’s Wii is fast gaining a major role in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries. The popular game console’s unique, motion-sensitive controller requires body movements similar to traditional therapy exercises, but patients become so engrossed they’re almost oblivious to the workout.
- Virtual Training – The trend started in 1998 with “Dance, Dance, Revolution” – a novel interactive game that had players losing weight. The May launch of the Nintendo Wii Fit is likely to take virtual exercising up to a new level. The popularity of Wii Fit has forced Nintendo to up its production of Wii consoles to 2.4 million units a month, up from 1.8 million. Already, New York’s Le Parker Meridien has added Wii Training to its repertoire. And Nintendo’s Brain Age game for the DS, which is designed to help fight memory loss, is a huge hit, with 17 million copies sold.
- MMORG – WOW stands for World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORG), that has attracted some 10 million subscribers, a Guinness record for paid, subscription-based games. But that’s nothing compared to South Korea’s Nexon, whose MapleStory has attracted some 85 million players globally. Nexon charges players anywhere from 30 cents to $25 for virtual “accessories,” from souped-up vehicles to wacky hairstyles, for their in-game characters. Closely held Nexon reported a $75 million profit on $230 million in revenue in 2005, the last year the company released sales data. Suffice it to say, Nexon earns a lot more today.
Nexon’s “MapleStory” is the world’s biggest online role-playing game with 85 million users globally, of which 5.9 million are registered in the U.S. MapleStory players assume identities of warriors, magicians and thieves and collectively fight monsters.
- Flattening demographics – The average Nintendo Wii owner buys only 3.7 games a year, compared with 4.7 for Xbox 360 owners and 4.6 for PlayStation 3 owners, reports Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter. That’s because the Wii has “flattened” the marketplace, attracting a broader-spectrum consumer rather than just hardcore gamers.
To see how tightly meshed the videogame world has become with reality, one has to revisit 2001, when a mysterious slogan cropped up that was lifted from a popular videogame. To this day, the odd, and grammatically incorrect, saying is regularly used in online discussion forums, “All your base are belong to us.” It does seem at times that all our bases belong to them, so buy a Wii today.
Ubertrends: Digital Lifestyle
Value Propellants: Entertainment, Experience, Connectedness, Immersion
July 10th, 2008
Studying teenage behavior reveals a lot about the future. While teens tend to be replicants of their parents, it’s their unconventional, non-biased nature that makes teenagers so appealing to marketers. So, are they truly the multitasking, non-brand-loyal, technology-savvy neo-conservatives as everyone paints them to be?
We know that kids are growing up faster. Mattel coined the term “KAGOY” – Kids Are Growing Older Younger” – to describe this phenomenon. That’s why so many news reports focus on the early ages at which teens begin to use cosmetics or dress “inappropriately.”
The latest teen malapropism? Taking naked pictures of themselves on their cellphones and sending them to boyfriends and girlfriends. Last year, 18 students at a Castle Rock, Colo. middle school sent around nude photos of themselves. Other cases have been reported in New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut, notes USA Today. Here are a few more contemporary, young-adult phenomena:
- DWT – A Liberty Mutual study of more than 900 teens released in July 2007, found that nearly 50% of teens admit to driving while texting. And with about 73% of teenagers owning cell phones as of 2007, according to Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report, expect the incidence of DWT to merely rise in the future.
MyDeathSpace, a tribute to deceased members of MySpace, features a growing number of examples of teen victims of “DWT” – driving while texting. More than 50% of teens report texting while driving, although a growing number of states are outlawing the practice.
- Multitasking – On average, teens perform about three to four other tasks while surfing the Internet and two to three others tasks while watching television, a study commissioned by Yahoo and the OMD ad agency reported in 2005. Some 73% of TV-online multitasking kids are engaged in “active multitasking,” defined as content in one medium influencing concurrent behavior in another, a 33% increase in active multitasking since 2002, notes a 2008 Grunwald Associates social networking study.
- Neo-Conservatism – U.S. teens appear to be more conservative than many of their global counterparts, including teenagers from India, China, Germany and France, according to a February 2006 Energy BBDO GenWorld Teen study. About half of U.S. teens qualify as “Red Teens” with strong conservative views, while the remaining half, Blue Teens, emphasize individuality and tend to reject tradition. Red Teens are more likely to believe in God (89% vs. 55% globally) and that abortion is never justified (40% vs. 12%).
- Advertising – Cultural differences also influence marketing. The Yahoo/OMD study found that teens in developing countries are more receptive to advertising than teens in developed countries. More than half of teens surveyed in Mexico and China and 68% in India agree that advertising is a good way to learn about trends and things to buy. Thirty-five percent or less of teens surveyed in France, Germany and the U.S. think so.
- Sexual Practices – In 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics released the U.S. government’s most comprehensive survey of sexual practices and found that more than half of all teenagers ages 15-19 have engaged in oral sex, including nearly a quarter of those who have never had intercourse.
If the names no longer sound familiar to you, you’re too old. Zac Efron, the star of Disney’s megahit, High School Musical, is the current female teen heartthrob. Miley Cyrus, Disney’s Hannah Montana star, displayed her teen spirit in a Vanity Fair photo that created a publicity storm, Britney-style.
- Alcohol/Drug Use – A 2007 National Institute on Drug Abuse annual survey found that the proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the past 12 months was 13% in 2007, down nearly half from 24% in 1996. But by the time teens become 10th graders, drug use rises to 28%, although that figure is down from 39% in 1997. Among 12th graders, drug use rises to 36%, a decline from a peak of 42% in 1997. There was a significant increase in the use of OxyContin among 12th-graders, with 10% of 12th-graders reported using the painkiller Vicodin, while 6% reported using OxyContin in the past year. Also noted was the significant increase in the use of sedatives and barbiturates among 12th-graders since 2001. Nearly half of America’s 5.4 million full-time college students use drugs or drink alcohol on binges at least once a month, according to a March 2007 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. Alcohol remains the favored substance of abuse on college campuses by far, but the abuse of illicit drugs, rose from 31% in 1993 to 37% in 2005.
- Cigarettes – The good news is that cigarette smoking among teens is down. But who has time to juggle a cigarette when you have to update your Facebook profile, shop online, play videogames, or use your iPod while IMing on your phone?
- Social Networking – A survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Fall 2006 found that 55% of teens ages 12 to 17 used social networking sites. The survey discovered that older girls are most likely to have used social networking sites, with 70% of teen girls, ages 15 to 17, maintaing profiles on social networking sites, compared with 57% of boys in that age bracket. More than one in four (27%) of all students surveyed are heavy users of social-networking sites and services, reports a Grunwald Associates social networking study. That same study found that 71% of online tweens and teens connect to a social network at least once a week.
Three in four teens and tweens own at least one console or portable gaming system and plan to buy 3.1 games in 2008, up from 2.5 last year. The videogaming world is becoming tightly meshed with teen reality, making pop-culture icons out of such as videogame stars as Nintendo’s Super Mario.
- E-commerce – Nearly six out of 10 U.S. teens surveyed have made a purchase online, according to a June 2008 study conducted by OTX and The Intelligence Group. Responding online buying teens said they spent an average of $46 every month. Total spending among 13-to-21-year-olds was estimated at $120 billion in 2007, according to Harris Interactive. Apparel can be an important focus for status-conscious teens. Some of the most popular apparel sites visited by MySpace users are American Eagle, Hot Topic and Hollister.
- Texting – Several studies suggest that heavy-texting teens are more prone to disrupted sleep, restlessness, stress and fatigue. Meanwhile, the report “Writing, Technology, and Teens” shows that 38% of high-school-age students have used abbreviations like ‘LOL’ in school assignments, notes Richard Sterling, professor at the University of California Berkeley and contributor to this report.
Is it any surprise that our future social dialog will be heavily influenced by text messaging? David Crystal, a University of Wales language historian, believes that the written language will resemble text messages by 2020. “The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language. It’s the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the written language,” says Crystal. Leave it to our tech-savvy offspring to take us there first.
Ubertrends: Time Compression, Digital Lifestyle, Unwired
Value Propellants: Multi-Functional, Speed, Convergence, Connectedness, Freedom
July 3rd, 2008
In January, researchers at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford business school reported that people ranked the taste of a $45 wine higher than the same wine priced at $5. The same was true when a different wine was compared at $90 and $10.
The study discovered that higher priced wines sent more blood and oxygen to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity controls pleasure. Perhaps that explains why over the past few decades, prices for consumer goods and services have gone “where no man has gone before,” to quote Startrek.
In June, a London Burger King announced it was serving a $190 burger made from Wagyu beef, topped with white truffles and Pata Negra ham and served in a bun topped with organic-white-wine-and-shallot-infused mayonnaise, pink Himalayan rock salt and Iranian saffron.
American excess. In 2003, New York restaurateur Daniel Bolud launched the $50 DB Bistro Burger Royale, made with boned short ribs, truffles and foie gras. Move over Bolud, a London Burger King now offers a $190 burger that makes yours look positively plebeian.
While many pricing tactics like this are aimed at generating PR, there are numerous sectors where pricing has long been used as a yardstick for product sophistication. The audiophile business caters to “golden ears” – consumers who do not blink while spending $6,000 for audio cables or $70,000 for a pair of Wilson Watt Puppy speakers.
That was then. A scan of the current audio scene shows that there are at least 53 speakers priced over $100,000, according to HigherFi. And while the jewelry business has long enjoyed the vagaries of eye-popping prices, there’s no question that the superpremium market spread outside its rarified audiophile atmosphere and infected other consumer categories.
In June, a jumbo black watermelon was auctioned in Japan for a record $6,100, the most expensive watermelon ever sold in that country. This after a pair of Yubari cantaloupe melons fetched a record $23,500 in May. In November 2007, Guerlain introduced a lipstick priced at $62,000. And we’ve already reported that Japan’s Fillico markets a $100 bottle of water in our “What’s Tappening” story.
French excess. This November, Guerlain launched a $62,000 “Kiss Kiss” lipstick, bejeweled with Swarovski crystals – a perfect complement for that Louis Vuitton Tribute handbag ($45,000), designed by Mark Jacobs, which sold out before it even hit retail stores.
Music mogul David Geffen reportedly sold his Jackson Pollock painting “No. 5, 1948,” for a record-breaking $140 million in 2006, exceeding the $135 million that cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder paid for Gustav Klimt’s “Adele Bloch-Bauer” that same year.
At least with art prices there’s the intrinsic value of rarity that may merit overpaying. But can the same be said for a $2 million Bugatti Veyron sports car? The trend – which acquired its “superpremium” nomenclature from the alcohol business, where bottle prices are setting similar records – does owe its logic to one phenomenon: the growing millionaire class.
The number of millionaires has exploded over the past decade. Figures released by the 12th Annual Merrill Lynch and Capgemini World Wealth Report in June shows that India and China are the fastest-growing millionaire generators. People whose net assets are valued at $1 million or more increased 23% in India, to 123,000 individuals, and 20% in China, to 415,000.
Indian excess. Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, is building a 27-story mansion in the heart of the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai. Total cost of the home is expected to reach $1 billion, equal to the average annual income of 1.5 million Indians.
These two countries are followed by Brazil, whose 19% yearly growth rate raised its millionaire population to 143,000. Meanwhile, Barclays Wealth noted in May that 41%, or 436,000, of Singapore’s households would have assets of at least $1 million by 2017, compared with 39% in Hong Kong and 28% in Switzerland.
Is it any surprise then that USA Today reported that the Louis Vuitton Tribute bag ($45,000), designed by Marc Jacobs, sold out so quickly? Other people may not be able to tell that my handbag costs more than their car, but my medial orbitofrontal cortex tells me otherwise.
Ubertrends: Generation X-tasy
Value Propellants: Indulgence, Exclusivity, Prestige, Experience
June 30th, 2008
As the Digital Lifestyle engulfs society, the convergence between fashion and technology will accelerate. The e-wear and smart fabrics market is estimated at $400 million today and is projected to reach $700 million by 2010, according to Venture Development Corp.
But Venture Development hastily adds that the market is “fragmented, unprofitable…and may reach $700 million in break-even or marginally profitable revenue by 2010.” That sounds like a terrible assessment of a potentially lucrative market as this analysis shows.
Smart fabrics refer to textiles that use technology to create trendsetting benefits, like no-iron shirts, the ability to deflect knives, or anti-bacterial and deodorizing apparel. Products like this have already been introduced by TAG Apparel (Hong Kong), Nihon Uni (Japan) and Mizuno (Japan), respectively.
E-wear pushes the technology envelope one step further by integrating electrification, GPS, human interfaces or media into textiles. These “electro textiles” rely on fabrics with electronic media woven in, so current passes through the fabric instead of through wires.
Few consumers understand the benefits of e-wear. One reason is that most manufacturers in this segment do not have high consumer awareness. The major players that did launch e-wear entries merely experimented, providing products with little marketing support. GAP, for one, apparently cancelled its product line before it even arrived in stores.
GAPKids introduced the Hoodio, developed with San Francisco’s Wild Planet, in 2004. Priced at just $68, it featured cable channels and speakers in its hood. The Spyder Limited Edition iPod Ski Jacket (right; $2,200) promised a built-in iPod and integrated sleeve touch pad.
Levi’s only marketed its “anti-radiation” Dockers in the U.K. – trousers that featured a mobile-phone pocket lined with a radiation-reducing material called MDF. The MDF pocket promised to protect the wearer from potentially harmful cellular-phone radiation.
Mobile electronics have triggered a flood in demand for clothing and accessories compatible with popular digital devices. The reason is obvious: on-the-go professionals carry as much as 10 pounds (5kg) of tech tools, most added during the past 20 years.
As more people tote notebook computers, PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras and maybe an iPod or GPS device, expandable, soft bags have all but erased sales of leather attaché cases, once the mainstay of business executives.
While the iPod accessories market is estimated in excess of $1 billion, marketers of all stripes are jumping on the digital lifestyle accessories bandwagon, as exemplified by this Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons Sony PSP case ($35,000), a pure gold case encrusted with seven carats of diamonds.
The trend has spread to women’s handbags, which have markedly grown in size. And many big, expandable bags are getting wheels so consumers can lug even more stuff. In May, the Travel Goods Association announced another record sales year, with U.S. consumers spending a record $22.2 billion in 2007 on luggage, backpacks, travel/sports bags, business cases, computer bags, handbags, personal leather goods and travel accessories, largely fueled by our growing digital arsenal.
But this activity is just a warm-up for the next generation of e-wear that will literally electrify you. So-called “textronics” will allow clothing to be made with enough conductivity to power mobile phones and MP3 players without nary a power brick in sight.
And if you’re worried about getting lost in the digital future, DuPont is producing textiles that can be detected by global positioning satellites, allowing Alzheimer’s sufferers, for example, to be tracked, or to provide the precise location of wilderness trekkers in an emergency.
In 2006, designer Isaac Daniel introduced a limited-edition GPS shoe, complete with built-in distress button. GPS shoes join Nike running shoes capable to transmit your jogging performance via Bluetooth to an Apple iPod player for realtime exercise feedback.
The popularity of blue jeans and t-shirts as a global fashion uniform clearly says that consumers want easy-to-wear-and-care-for clothing. The $200 billion U.S. apparel industry has changed markedly over the past 50 years, but the market is virtually stalled with anemic annual growth. Once apparel makers discover this magnetic growth engine, e-wear and smart fabrics will electrify their business.
Ubertrends: Digital Lifestyle
Value Propellants: Convergence, Convenience, Time-saving
(more…)
June 28th, 2008
The texting revolution is reshaping the social dialog. Americans already send 30 billion text messages each month. In first quarter, Verizon Wireless delivered nearly 58 billion text messages in the U.S.
AT&T reported that a record 78 million text messages were sent during this season of “American Idol.” Globally, some 7 billion text messages are exchanged each day. As the conversation shifts to this burgeoning communication medium, trends are emerging:
- DWT– Remember that old joke about walking and chewing gum at the same time? The modern version is sending text messages, or checking e-mail for that matter, while driving. Unfortunately it’s no joking matter. DWT is the new DUI (“Driving While Texting” has become the new “driving under the influence”), reports The Wall Street Journal. A bill halfway through the New York State Legislature would make it illegal to type, read or send text messages while at the wheel. New York would join two other states, California and Minnesota, that have introduced similar legislation. These DTW efforts picked up steam in the U.S. following the release of a Nationwide Mutual Insurance survey that found one in five drivers texting while driving.
The DWT trend is not limited to the U.S. In the U.K., Rachel Begg, 19, entered prison on July 20 for four years after causing the death of Maureen Waites, a 64-year-old grandmother. Begg used her phone nine times during a 15-minute ride before ploughing into Waites’ car at 70mph.
- Text robbers – San Francisco once again became a trendsetter when two robbers who had stolen a mobile phone, texted someone in the stolen mobile phone’s address book and then robbed the text recipient’s iPhone.
- Medical texting – The NBC Today Show reported on June 5 that patients are now being reminded to take their medicine via SMS.
The Boston police department now accepts anonymous crime tips via SMS. Expect more services to be delivered via text message.
- luv ur nam – Some parents are inspired by cool SMS and e-mail spellings, and are naming children with unusual abbreviations and hyphenations.
- SMS capital – The Philippines is the SMS champion of the world. Fifty million Philippino subscribers sent 1 billion text messages each day in 2007. By comparison, China, with more than 10 times the texting fans, sent 1.6 billion text messages daily last year.
Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style someti
