Insights: !Social Demographic TrendPublication!Culture of Future has captured influential western demographic trends driving consumption to date, showing how the marketplace is shifting radically into an exciting opportunity-scape for brands.!

Contents!The challenge and tension for brands today!

The biggest Macro Trends of today!

What do people expect from brands?!

What top brands are doing to address their end users!

Generational thinking!

Demographics and their engagements with brands!

Conclusion, next steps!

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Today.!!New jobs are emerging old ones are fading. New ways of working are rampant with demands for differing skill sets and newer sets of tools. New generations are entering the workforce with different expectations and influences shifting the scope. Entrepreneurial businesses tip the scales; new manufacturing, new ways of funding, new ways to innovate and new ways of getting the word out the front door challenge old structures. !!Education is shifting to lifelong learning with content streams emerging to address economic challenges and the need for new skill set content. The balance of male female shows more women in college in primary subjects in the US and Europe than men. Aging generational demographics, new family constellations and the increase of the single demographic all influence the marketplace broadly. Digital natives are driving the family decision making purchase power younger and younger while their generation has not yet even been defined, named or tagged. !!These changes influence the focus of design, innovation and media communication in the current to future marketplace.!

Tension Today Wide, SweepingChange!Shifting Populations.!

Growing Life Expectancy.!

Gender & Cultural Rebalancing.!

Economic Challenge & Transformation.!

Globalization & Localization.!

Climate Changes & Challenges. !

Generational Upheavals.!

Tension Today ConsumersDisgruntled!Robert Montgomery, The Concrete Poet of London shows here a style of graffiti known as Brandalism. The advent of web and mobile social media has given voice to the consumer; people are turning to each other in a consumer-led market of reviews, innovations and influences. It’s a time of the inventive entrepreneur and the solopreneur whose passionate ideas and solutions that serve people well guides and directs the future marketplace.!!

!!!Word On The Street!!People are no longer buying into brands; rather brands have to find new ways of buying into people.!!LMGTFY (Let me Google That For You)!In an app-sourced world, the consumer understands more and more what is going on behind the scene. This makes the local, agile company better suited to meet the needs of the interested and invested modern consumer – that is unless the larger companies adopt new behaviors aligning their passions with the passions of their end demographic.!Read on.!!!

It’s a HumanlyCrafted World!

It’s a Digitally Networked World!

MacroTrend Solutions – Reinvention.!The tension between the crafted and digital worlds is creating a dynamic reinvention marketplace across demographics.!People are on a path of reinvention, drawing on successful past ways of living, combining into modern lifestyle solutions.!Crossing lines and borders, people are manifesting lifestyle choices in unexpected ways, pinning/blogging/tweeting the resultschallenging and growing each other and the brands that serve them.!Brands that support investigative reinventions find connection to what matters most to end-users today.!

What Do People Expect From Brands?!Brand is the storyteller of commerce; it is what we rely on to know what is available in the marketplace. Today brands can call us to be better versions of ourselves… if they know how to be better versions of themselves. Brand PR and marketing cannot be rote today or say one thing and be another.!

A brand today is no longer seen as just a logo or a ‘mark’. A brand that connects and conveys its true passion purpose finding where it aligns with the passion of its demographic end-user is on the road to meeting needs and expectations authentically.!

Everything is amplified, best not to try and control it, open up, converse and contribute in an ongoing relationship build. Ride the wave with everyone else, exploring what you are good at, adding it into the mix. !

For brands to do well they need to realize the power they have today to create and recreate industries anew. With the walls of the past coming down and dissolving into integrative ideas of wide spread innovation, brands have more freedom than ever before to return to a more authentic exploration ignition. The end user today defines the modern brand in this light.!

How are brands responding to this?!!

The Emerging Ecosystemof Consumer Habitats.!Whether creating a full range of innovative products, experiences and services or buying up agile beta-styled startups brands are addressing needs of the end-user through collections of niche services.!It is no coincidence that Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft compete at generating just such habitats.!

A life in reinvention is less focused on the perfect solution and more on the experimental process that gets us there. New brand products, services and experiences are being provided to support lives in reinvention. Digital genius Tim Leake of Hyper Island Digital School calls it, LIVING LIFE IN BETA. !

To build the perfect habitat that addresses and meets the needs of today’s end-user an understanding of the social demographics of the day is crucial. !

Read on.!

AppleiTunes, Passbook, AppleTV, iPhone FaceTime,App Store, Newsstand iBook, iCloud,Apple Store, ipad, Mac air, laptops / towers!

GoogleGoogle Play, Google Plus, Google Hangout, Google Now, Google Drive, Google Maps,YouTube (working now on retail, hardware)!

AmazonAmazon Instant Video, Web Services, Media Group, Digital and Hardbound Book Publishing, Product Marketplace Aggregate!

MicrosoftBing, MSN, Skype, Xbox Live, SkyDrive Kinect!

FacebookFacebook Social, Facebook Data Services,Instagram!

An integrative mind emerges.!!New tools of connectedness combined with crafted living, ask the brain to fire right AND left in an integrated fashion.!!You might say the social brain that is required today is not industrial left brained or creative right but functions with a mix of both. A combination of demands ignites cross thinking and being and is literally a reinvention mind.!

Generational Analysis –Generational Thought!How we use the brain is socially driven.!

“I believe you have to HAVE money to make money to DO what you love and BE who you are supposed to be. I am about building a legacy.”!

“BE who you are now, DO what you love today and from there define what HAVING is to you. I am about being legacy, sharing my best now and today.”!

Boomer Ever Bigger Life !

Gen XA More Intimate Life !

Gen YCreatively Engaged Life !

Next GenAn All of the Above, Integral Life!

LEFT BRAIN HIERARCHY!Industrial, Hierarchy, Working Hard, /Striving!

RIGHT BRAIN CREATIVE!Rebels to Overworking Parents Culture, into Senses/Experience!

LEFT + RIGHT TOGGLING !Social, Connected, Creative, Loves Vintage and New!

FLOW & INTEGRATION!Seeks Value, Sharing, Leading Family Digitally!

IDEALISTIC!Self-Determined!Conforms!Buy It!Killer Job!TV!Surfing the WWW!I have tech!Album/Mired Tapes!Outcome Focus!Ownership/Credit!

CYNICAL!Self-Reliant!Rewrites Rules!Discover it!Killer Life!Internet!The Internet!I use Tech!Compact Disc !Experience Focus!Want Engagement  

OPTIMISTIC!Socially Reliant!Creates Own!DIY-Make It!Killer Lifestyle!Mobile!Getting Online!I share Tech!MP3/MP4 playlist downloads!Community Focus!Want to be Seen  

IDEALISTIC / REALISTIC!Personally Inventive!Works With What is!Hack it!Killer Value!Ubiquitous!Connecting!I am Tech!Live, iCloud/SkyDrive, Spotify!Contribution Focus!Want to Make/Create Value  

Generational Analysis –Western Behavioral Demographics.!Each generation creates social behaviors to address challenges of the times. Generation gaps were first noted in the west in the 60s;today worldwide gaps are emerging between elder non-digital natives and younger digital natives. Future reports will address theseevolving global generations with a focus on BRIC countries.!!Of note, social speculation models exist for abstract understanding of broad social waves; no human can fully fit into a category. !Not shown here are the ‘between’ generations who have their own behavioral influences that broaden the behavior list considerably.!

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Boomer COLLECTIVE ME !

Gen XUS, THEM!

Gen YEVERYONE, WE!

Next GenALL IN!

BRANDS: IDENTITY!BRAND CONNECTION - !Social badges, expression of self,identity builder!Go to the brand for info on the brand!

BRANDS: ANTI!BRAND CONNECTION !Don’t commodify life!Cool design kids!Limited edition finds!Secret content!

BRANDS:EXPERIENCE!BRAND CONNECTION !Support engagement!Support partnering with a good idea!

BRANDS: INVENTIVE!BRAND CONNECTION!Creates shared solutions!Supports hacking!Startup accelerator!

TODAY’S CONNECTION !Helps in reframing self!Reinvents with you!

TODAY’S CONNECTION !Leader via design!Makes you an insider  

TODAY’S CONNECTION !A seen contributor !New skill sets share  

TODAY’S CONNECTION !Supports passions in learning, creating, reinventing the world  

The Applied Marketplace!!In retail the older model was to providecurated products brick and mortar style.One person entered and another sold,this could be called The Touch of One.!Enter the Touch of Many. With currentdigital story building tools brands now have story engaging options. Socially connected products, experiences and services allow brands to create a long- term build and track with social impact.!End users are now providing curationstories of what they love through unique online retail tools. Pinning becomes apoint of pride, a point of identity building,!a way to communicate to your community a vital connectedness to brands.!!Tracking social demographics helps brands engage in living conversations.  

Generational Analysis –Social Brand Behaviors!

Generational Analysis –Understanding Brands Within Specific Industries!Nike and sports within social demographics.!!Boomer Era – A focus on the iconic symbols of sport.!Athlete as hero, leader, something to aspire to but not necessarily attain. Jordan era. !!Gen X – Design engagement in sport.!Limited edition sneaker culture, specialty finds, hidden stores, urban design house experiences. !!Gen Y– Communal contribution in sport.!Democratized appeal – everyBODY is an athlete; everyone can be motivated and inspired to move and engage. Lance Armstrong Benefit Bracelet era, community running, addition of cross fitness categories from golf to yoga to dance.!!Next Gen – Inventiveness in sport. (digital+craft)!Inventing better tools to live by and with, elevating community connected wellness. Nike+ Fuelband tech inventiveness, personal/communal connected wellness tracking and motivation, accelerator programs.Nike Fly Knit sustainable material invention, Fly Knit Collective London, crafted art performances of the product innovation pillars. !Integration of Xtreme Sport into mass categories.!  !

Conclusion.!Each generation, country, family or friend group is a social demographic in the making; each has their own social soup that drives their choices and behaviors. To understand your end user, we invite you to swim in their cultural soup.!We have taken a look at western social demographics, their origins and directionalinfluences inspirational to brands, their cultural soup. But this is not the full story. !Of note is the reinvention focus that emerges across generations begging for new approaches, new insights and new applications.!For that feel free to contact us. We look forward to working with you in expanding this story to suit your needs.!!!!!!!JodyTurner@CultureofFuture.com +1.310.584.1021!ACKNOWLEDGMENT: We thank HUB COLLECTIVE for their design contribution.!!

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Continue the Conversation!One Fee, Three Reports –!If you liked our intro report, purchase our TRI-ANNUAL publication featuring:!A continuation of the report with in-depth global content & how-to trend specifics.!Branding secrets of trend application through process insights & charting.!Analysis and application across industries of wellness, health, beauty, design, sport, fashion, banking, technology, media and social digital.!Uniquely, each report focuses on the track and flow of trends over time helping you know how trends break, peek and recede.!WE PROVIDE A RESOURCE TOY BOX FOR YOU TO PLAY WITH, A GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!!!!!!!!!FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT JodyTurner@CultureofFuture.com.!!

Report 1 October 2013!

Report 2 January 2013!

Report 3 April 2014!

We provide brand anthropology, marketplace insight and future trend strategy to enliven global brands. !!Culture of Future is an ongoing insight partner with trendwatching.com London and Hyper Island Digital School Stockholm/NY. !!Founder Jody Turner drives Culture from the West Coast, USA.!wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Turner!!WORK TIMELINE INCLUDES:!BMW GAP NIKE APPLE MICROSOFT SAMSUNG FAST COMPANY STARBUCKS YALE ADIDAS STANFORD SOCIAL INNOVATION REVIEW HGTV P&G IDEO SUSTAINABLE BRANDS ISTANBUL and others … !To learn more contact us.!jodyturner@cultureoffuture.com!+1.310.584.1021.!

© 2013 Jody Turner. For wide use of this content, please contact Jody Turner.!

 

Culture Of Future Provides Social Demographic TrendsBringing Strategic BrandInsight Into Application.!