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10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2013

December 11, 2012

Photo from trendwatching.com

I came across an article titled 10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2013: How will YOU deliver on consumer expectations in the next 12 months? and found it particularly interesting. Some of the trends mentioned in the article point to direct implications to the design industry. As problem solvers and option providers, it is critical to see how market and consumer expectations are evolving.

According to trendwatching.com, the overview of the 10 crucial consumer trends mentioned in the article (in random order) includes:

1. PRESUMERS AND CUSTOWNERS
“Presumers love to get involved with, push, fund, and promote products and services before they are realized. Custowners: consumers who move from passively consuming a product towards funding/investing (if not owning a stake) in the brands they buy from.”

2. EMERGING2
“While the last two decades were about developed markets catering to emerging ones, and emerging markets increasingly catering to developed ones; now get ready for an explosion in products and services from emerging markets for emerging markets.”

3. MOBILE MOMENTS
“The next 12 months will see an explosion in MOBILE MOMENTS: products, services and experiences that will enable mobile-loving consumers to embrace (seamless) lifestyle multi-if-not-hyper-tasking.”

4. NEW LIFE INSIDE
“One sign-of-the-times eco-trend for 2013: the phenomenon of products and services that quite literally contain new life inside. Rather than being discarded or even recycled (by someone else), these products can be given back to nature to grow something new.”

5. APPSCRIPTIONS
“Digital technologies are the new medicine, as doctors and physicians turn to health apps and services to improve health outcomes.”

6. CELEBRATION NATION
“Emerging markets will proudly export and even flaunt their national and cultural heritage in the next 12 months.”

7. DATA MYNING
“To date, the ‘big data’ discussion has focused on the value of customer data to businesses. Now, increasingly savvy consumers will start to reverse the flow:seeking to own and make the most of their lifestyle data, and turning to brands that use this data to proactively offer customers help and advice on how to improve their behavior and/ or save money.”

8. AGAIN MADE HERE
“In 2013, manufacturing is coming home, that is, if ‘home’ is a mature market. Driving this trend: the perfect storm of consumers’ ever-greater NEWISM, the expectation of getting just the right product (and NOW!), eco-concerns and the desire for more interesting STATUS STORIES, all combined with the spread of new local manufacturing technologies such as 3D-printing and make-on-demand.”

9. FULL FRONTAL
“So what’s next for the mega-trend of transparency? Brands must move from‘having nothing to hide’, to pro-actively showing and proving they have nothing to hide, and go beyond uttering lofty statements on ‘values’ or ‘culture’ to real, unambiguous and clear evidence, or statements about actual results.”

10. DEMANDING BRANDS
“Switched-on brands that are embarking on the much-needed journey towards a more sustainable and socially-responsible future will demand that their customers also contribute, and in doing so earn the respect of even the most hyper-demanding of consumers.”

All of the information above is taken directly from the article and there is plenty more to read about each trend for 2013. You can check out the details here.

Submitted by: Nikhil Mathew, Design Strategist, Beyond Design, Inc.

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