Trendwatching made a list, and my favourites in it were #9 and #10 – “Full Frontal” and “Demanding Brands” respectively. The first was about brands moving further on the transparency curve and proactively showing they have nothing to hide as opposed to merely reacting. The second was about brands getting their consumers to contribute to their sustainability and socially-responsible endeavours.

Branding Strategy Insider made 2 lists – Brand and Digital & Media. In the first, I found #5 – ‘The Known and the Branded’ – a very intriguing thought. Brands being thought of as category placeholders, stuff that doesn’t really stand for anything. Understandably, brands will find it harder to differentiate themselves. In the second list, again #5 – omni-channel marketing is something I have written about earlier while on the subject of cohesive experiences.

JWT has their annual 10 trends list as well, and I thought #1 “Play as a competitive advantage” and #9 – “Going Private in Public” were particularly insightful. The reason I look forward to the JWT list is because while they deal with the immediate, they also come up with a couple of nuggets which are really far out. But the thing is, I can instinctively connect with them and am sure that even if not this year, these are inevitable somewhere down the line.

This year, I also found Next Generation Media’s list quite interesting, especially because of their ‘implications for brands’ after each trend. My favourites in this list were #9 and #10 – “New Currencies” and “The WOW factor” respectively. I like the direction of the former, but would have liked it to be pushed further, but that’s mostly because of a more (personal) philosophical perspective on us having no alternatives to money as a currency. “The WOW factor” – related to ‘The Known and the Branded’ I mentioned earlier in the post, and the writing is pretty much on the wall for brands!

Update: Came in late, but Simply Zesty’s list is a must-read as well!

until next time, hope y’all have an awesome 2013.

The buzz has been there for quite a while now. To take a few recent examples, JWT’s 100 things to watch in 2011 had at least a couple of obvious manifestations – F-commerce (35), Group Manipulated Pricing (4) and more in terms of enablers and related items. (come to that in a bit) Trendwatching’s May 2011 trend is The F-Factor – “that’s F for friends, fans, followers who influence consumers’ purchasing decisions in ever more sophisticated ways”, in which they classify this further into discovery, rating, feedback, together, and ‘me’, the last one about curation itself becoming a product/service.

There are several technologies that will aid this trend in various capacities. Again, to refer to JWT’s deck everything from Automated Checkins (6) to Micro Businesses (51) NFC (56) to Personal Taste Graphs (67) to Tap To Pay (88) can play a direct or indirect part. Add to this increasing smartphone penetration and its impact on purchasing behaviour (check out a study by Google) and interesting services like Localmind, which uses 4sq check ins and location to help users engage in Q&A, or LocalResponse, that uses tweets and check-in data to create a marketing platform for brands to target consumers in real time. and this is sure to be an interesting space with plenty of $$ involved.

That (obviously) explains why the usual suspects are making strides – Facebook with its check-in deals and Social deals and more importantly increasing the scope and penetration of Connect, Open Graph, Instant Personalisation (though), Google with its Latitude, Offers, expansion of Product Search to more countries (via) and even its fashion shop, Amazon with its new membership-only fashion sales site and so on.

But more than these services, the applications that interest me are from the ‘real’ products that I come across. Levi’s remains one of my favourites. And the one that excited me much was Pepsi’s Social Vending Machine. It allows a user to buy a drink for your friend and add a personal video message while at it. After you provide the friend’s name and number, he receives a text message with a code which he can redeem at the nearest vending machine and watch that video you made. (via) Probably a gawky start, some would say, but think of the potential applications.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJaEVEoEETA

It’s not that there won’t be challenges – privacy is the obvious one. Brands will also have to be careful about their natural tendency for broadcasting and aim to be relevant in time and other contexts. They will also have to integrate offline and online well. But despite these and more that might crop up, I think this will be fun with its synergy with Social CRM and its perspective on the answer to that omnipresent social media ROI question.

Bonus read: Paul Adams on How your customers’ social circles influence what they buy, what they do and where they go

until next time, social bill sharing?

PS: Interestingly, Coke had a friendship machine of its own too

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3QLLTFDX8

We’ll begin with JWT’s ‘100 Things to Watch in 2011’. (via Surekha on Reader) While there are many things in this that you might already think is a trend, what I liked about it is its thinking outside of any specific prisms – brands, technology etc, but still managing to capture the  essence of trends in human behaviour, culture, consumption, the shifts happening therein, and thus, a good reckoner for marketers.

The second one I’d like to share is Edelman’s ‘Digital Trends to Watch in 2011’. Though there are a few commonalities with the JWT deck, this seems more focused. While this is definitely quite a sensible thing to do from a client perspective, I missed the “completely out of the blue, but damn, why didn’t I think of it?” moments that I usually associate with its creators. But that’s just a testament to my high regards for Armano and Rubel, more than anything else. What I liked most about this was the trend + best practice combining, that layering gives excellent perspective.

The last one I’d like to share is Rohit Bhargava’s ’15 Marketing & Social Trends to watch in 2011′ (via Gauravonomics). There might be some overlap with the other two, but again, the idea of examples with each trend makes it a must-read, in addition to the overall quality of insights.

While its easy to see that there are commonalities in these, I also noticed an interesting thread of thought that  resonated most with me.

‘There’s an app for everything everywhere’ is perhaps the underlying theme in #3 (Apps Beyond Mobile), #7 (Ubiquitous Social Computing, more specifically its best practice) and #9 (Appification of the web) in the JWT, Edelman and Rohit presentations. We then move on to ‘production of consumable content and experiences across platforms’  that connects #93 (Transmedia Producers – faint connection), #4 (Transmedia storytelling) in the JWT and Edelman presentations respectively. And at last, we move on to how it can scale which is brought out through #3 (Developer engagement) in Edelman’s presentation and #7 (Crowdsourced innovation) and #11 (Employees as heroes) in Rohit Bhargava’s presentation.

While I may not endorse a brand strategy only basis tools, the ‘appification’ across platforms actually throws open the door for marketers to not just satisfy their ‘short head’ consumers in better ways, but explore the ways to reach the ‘long tail’. It allows them to blend or distribute their ‘story’ across platforms and if done well, raise the interest level of their consumers. And an agency or brand manager cannot do it alone. While the idea of crowdsourcing is looked down upon by many, there are enough examples to show that if targeted well and executed with clarity, it can deliver results. More importantly, here, the ‘crowd’ is not consumers, but developers who can re-create the brand’s experience on multiple platforms, and employees who can create a human story that will resonate with others.

If these possibilities for 2011 don’t excite you, I’ll try again next week, but I really don’t have any more of these awesome presentations to back me up.

until next time, slide rules!