The Innovation Group of J. Walter Thompson intelligence has published their annual Future 100 report. Described as a “snapshot of the year ahead,” the report discusses 100 trends that brand marketers and retailers should know about. Print-service providers that serve brand marketers and retailers should be aware of these trends too.
According to Lucie Greene, worldwide director of the The Innovation Group, “2018 looks set to be the year in which 5G and augmented reality (AR) drive massive change in our interactions with the internet — we’ll be able to shop from our cars and visualize furniture in our homes before deciding to buy it. And, rather than being described as ‘the future’ at tech conferences, this will happen en masse.”
Here are some other trends noted in the report:
Transcendent Retail
Voice technology, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence will transform the retail industry. Customers will expect retailers “to link their online and offline worlds to create a seamless, intuitive customer experience that makes buying products quicker, easier, and more enjoyable.”
Pared-Back Retail
Not all retailers will follow the trend toward overblown, immersive experiences. Some brands will choose to pare it back to appeal to consumers who dream of a simpler, cleaner life. Some brands will adopt no-frills, black-and-white packaging that is more functional than promotional.
Staffless Retail
Some retailers are testing staff-free convenience stores that enable shoppers to purchase products without any human interaction.
URL Goes IRL: E-Commerce Comes To Life
Some e-commerce brands are testing ways to make their brick-and-mortar stores look like the physical embodiment of a lifestyle blog. Like WeWork for retailing, owners of brick-and-mortar stores might rent out temporary physical space in their stores to independent online brands.
Death of the Beauty Blue Chip
The power of blue-chip beauty brands is giving way to startup, indie beauty brands that know how to generate a lot of excitement on social media. In response, some big beauty brands have started acquiring new young brands and offering them the scale of sell niche offerings on a global level.
Brandlessness
Disruptive new companies sell premium beauty, personal care, and groceries at a fraction of the cost of branded equivalents. These direct-to-consumer goods are designed to appeal to digital-first Millennials who are less susceptible to traditional branding and advertising.
Manufacturing 2.0
Hyper-personalized manufacturing is set to transform the way we shop. According to the report, the highly automated Adidas Speedfactory in Germany is designed to quickly produce small-batch designs for specific markets. By cutting production cycles from months to a single day, manufacturing can catch up to the speed of online ordering.
Virtual-Reality Theme Parks
Virtual reality experiences will breathe new life into theme parks and other entertainment venues. Munich-based VR game developer Holodeck VR is targeting shopping malls, sports halls, and casinos.
The trends in the 200-page Future 100 report are group in categories, including lifestyle, culture, retail, tech and innovation, travel and hospitality, brands and marketing, beauty, food and drink, luxury, and health.
If you serve customers in any of these fields, it can be useful to know what trends they are following.
About the Innovation Group
The Innovation Group is the futurism, research, and innovation unit of J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. The Innovation Group charts emerging global trends, consumer change, and innovation patterns and translates these patterns into insights for brands.