Trends for 2015

photo: Bonita S

PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS MONTHLY BRIEF: DECEMBER

Every month we look at a couple of inspiring initiatives to track how

brands and organizations are engaging with people in the conversation

age. This month, we picked new initiatives that are indicative of

larger trends that will unfold over 2015.

We’re seeing campaigns from people, activists, brands and

governments to change the way we consume – live, shop, eat and

engage. Technologies are maturing and governments are trying to

shape the new world, with quite some friction between the two.

Overall, there’s a demand that brands and tech companies behave

more responsibly.

Here’s an overview of what to expect in 2015:

• Stories about Climate Change. Skype opened the gates with its

story about Kiribati, an island that could be one of the first victims

of rising sea levels. 2015 will be filled with demonstrations, stories

and pledges of action as governments convene to create a new

agreement on climate at the UN’s COP21 next December.

• “Eat less. Move more.” gets replaced with “Eat different.” In

earlier issues of People’s Insights, we covered initiatives by the US

and UK governments to tackle the growing epidemic of obesity.

Now a new documentary, “Fed Up,” urges people to reduce their

consumption of sugar.

• Governments ‘versus’ Innovation. Governments worldwide have

been criticized for taking action against companies like Uber and

Airbnb… but are simultaneously expected to safeguard people’s

safety, privacy, jobs and the larger economy. As this continues in

2015, can governments overcome the perception of being ‘anti-

innovation’ and be seen as ‘shaping a better future’?

• One-hour delivery. Amazon just announced one-hour delivery for

Prime members in parts of New York, with plans to expand to more

cities in 2015. Other retailers will have little choice but to offer

similar services.

• More brands on Instagram. Instagram recently announced it has

more than 300 million monthly active users, surpassing Twitter’s

284 million. The platform can certainly be used for major brand

activations, and we expect more brands to get on Instagram in

2015.

• Insurance for crowdfunding. Crowdfunding platform Indiegogo is

testing a new feature – people can purchase insurance on projects

they choose to fund. Will this sense of security encourage more

people to back projects, with higher investments?

• Digital releases for movies. With theatre chains shying away from

Sony’s The Interview, the studio decided to releasethe movie at

independent theatres - and online. Online sales totaled an

impressive $15 million in the first few days. Can we expect more

digital releases of blockbuster movies?

Let us know what you think at @PeoplesLab on Twitter. We look

forward to your feedback and comments, and hope you enjoy this

issue.

Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani

Director – Research and Insights, MSLGROUP

• Skype’s Turning the Tide

• Fed Up

• Governments ‘versus’ Innovation

• Amazon Prime Now

• Instagram’s 300 million

• Indiegogo’s Insurance Trial

• The Interview

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South Bend Voice on Flickr

2015 will be a significant year for

the movement to address climate

change. This past September, over

300,000 people participated in

the People’s Climate March in New

York, demonstrating to

governments and corporations

that climate change is high on

their priorities. The last few

months have also seen world

leaders and lawmakers proceed in

their negotiations to find an

agreement that governments can

sign at the next UN conference on

climate change (COP 21) in

December 2015.

We expect more companies and

brands to join the conversation,

to announce their support for the

movement or highlight their

efforts to protect the

environment.

together.skype.com/en-us/kiribati

A great example is Skype, which

shared a powerful story of island

nation Kiribati which is on the

“front line” of climate change. In a

video called “Turning the Tide,”

Skype follows journalist Anna

Therese Day and photographer

Gianluca Panella as they

investigate the effects of higher

sea levels on the people of Kiribati

and the government’s dual efforts

to preserve the islands and

relocate the population.

The connect to the brand? Skype

helps Day and Panella, a “modern

mobile news team,” “get to the

heart of the story quickly.”

Simple, subtle, powerful.

Watch the video

Follow the duo’s coverage of

Kiribati on CNN and Mashable

fedupmovie.com

Obesity and diabetes rates

continue to increase globally.

According to WHO, 1.4 billion

adults (2008) and 42 million

children (2013) are overweight or

obese, and 347 million people

worldwide have diabetes (2011).

Anti-obesity programs launched by

governments and the food &

fitness industries usually revolve

around eating less or moving

more. A new documentary, Fed

Up, argues that the problem lies

in what people are eating and

targets sugar consumption.

Fed Up makes a dramatic impression, throwing facts, numbers and

simple-to-understand visuals at audiences. It also features prominent

figures – the executive producers are American TV host Katie Couric

(who also narrates the film) and Laurie David who also produced An

Inconvenient Truth. The film also includes a brief interview with Bill

Clinton.

The trailer has received 5 million views on YouTube; and 90,000 likes,

960,000 shares and 15,000 comments on Facebook. It has received

high ratings on IMDB and Amazon, and conversations around the film

on social media reveal that it’s making people scrutinize the sugar

content of the food they’re consuming. On the documentary’s website

itself, 55,000 people have pledged to go sugar free for 10 days.

LA Weekly’s Amy Nicholson predicts that “Fed Up is poised to be

the Inconvenient Truth of the health movement.”

Watch the trailer

It’s increasingly common to hear people complain that governments

are slow, archaic and ‘anti-innovation,’ especially when the

conversation turns to legal action against ‘new age’ companies like

Uber and Airbnb. Uber users tout the convenience of the mobile app,

availability of Uber rides and occasional freebies (water, magazines,

mints etc.). Airbnb users highlight the wide range of affordable

accommodation and community feel, and Airbnb hosts appreciate the

added income (in some cases their primary income).

Governments are not so thrilled.

Apart from complaints by taxi unions and hoteliers, they also have to

consider public safety and legal & economic implications. For

example, many city and national governments have acted against

Uber for non-compliance with license regulations, unfair competition

and insufficient background checks. The list includes cities in the

U.S., Brazil and India, and the countries Belgium, France, Germany,

Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Colombia and Canada. Airbnb users, on the

other hand, tend to get in trouble for breaking local laws, rental

agreements, insurance terms and even tax collection.

City Hall San Francisco Rally for Passing

the Airbnb Law (photo: Kevin Kreji)

The way the two companies (are perceived to) have responded is

vastly different. Uber’s position is that governments must update their

laws to cope with current technologies. Airbnb is more collaborative,

publishing studies about the benefit of Airbnb on local communities

and negotiating arrangements with governments. For example, Airbnb

now collects taxes on rentals in Portland, San Francisco and

Amsterdam, and is working to simplify local renting laws.

Governments do benefit from some press in their favour, but don’t

seem to have sufficiently addressed the accusation that they are

“anti-innovation.” As Airbnb and Uber use online petitions to rally the

pro-sharing economy audience, governments may have to start taking

control of the way they are perceived.

airbnbnyc.com,

action.uber.org/illinois

Same-day delivery has picked up in the last few years, with same-day

services offered by Amazon, Google, eBay, Walmart and startups like

Instacart, in select cities. The companies typically offer their own

range of goods and have partnered with chains (like eBay has) or local

stores and restaurants (like Amazon has) to provide people with daily

essentials, groceries, electronics and more.

People pay a fixed amount or subscribe to a service to qualify for the

speedy delivery. But critics doubt the services create a profit, let

alone break even. In fact, eBay slowed down its plans to expand its

eBay Now service and may have shut it down altogether, choosing

instead to focus on in-store pick ups.

So it’s an interesting time for the deep-pocketed Amazon to shake

things up with its new one-hour delivery offer. Will Amazon dominate

the instant delivery market in 2015 and attract more local partners?

Will competitors ramp up their investments to compete? Will one-hour

delivery become the new norm for urban dwellers?

youtu.be/ODLp4ZGQwzk

Amazon Prime Now is an extension

of Amazon’s Prime membership

($99/year) which includes free

two-day delivery and unlimited

access to an online library of

content. Members can download

the Prime Now app and browse

items available for delivery at

their location. They can opt for

one-hour delivery for $7.99

(there’s no minimum order), or

two-hour delivery for free –

between 6am and midnight, seven

days a week.

Prime Now is currently available

only in Manhattan, with plans to

expand to other cities.

Watch the video

Check out what users are

saying on the Google Play

store and at iTunes

In December, Instagram

announced it has more than 300

million monthly active users,

helping it cross Twitter’s 284

million.

The platform is already popular

among top brands, who use it to

share images and videos of

products, celebrities, behind-the-

scenes photos, promote

campaigns, regram people’s

photos, engage with influencers,

sell products (through platforms

like like2buy), advertise and so

on.

2015 will see even more brands

embrace Instagram.

Check out the GlobalWebIndex

infographic at allfacebook.com

Here’s why.

Instagram has a large number of users…

• 300 million monthly users (2014)

• 75 million daily users (2013)

….including the prized teens and millennial audience…

• 41% of users are young adults (16-24) (2014)

• 42% of US teens (13-17) use Instagram (2013)

…who are very active.

• 70% of users log in at least once a day (2013)

• 20 billion photos shared (2014); 70 million a day (2014)

• 1.2 billion likes/day (2014)

For more stats, visit: expandedramblings.com

indiegogo.com/projects/olive-a-wearable-to-manage-stress

Even as crowdfunding grows

(Kickstarter records over $1.5

billion pledged by 7.6 million

backers), the risk of fraud has not

been addressed sufficiently. The

person raising funds is not liable to

anyone. Instead, the burden lies

solely on the backer to do ‘their

own homework’ on the starter’s

credibility and the soundness of

their project.

While platforms like Kickstarter are

relatively stricter about the

crowdfunding process, others like

Indiegogo are more flexible and

perceived as being more risky – even

though both platforms have had

their fair share of ‘scampaigns,’

delays and defaults.

In this context, Indiegogo’s

experiment to offer insurance is a

good move.

The experiment seems to have covered only one product to date – the

Olive stress management band which is available for $129 on

Indiegogo. For an additional $15, backers can purchase insurance

which secures them a full refund if they don’t receive the product

within three months of the estimated delivery date. Indiegogo offered

insurance on up to 25 bands only, cutting their own risk in the

experiment.

The surprising part – despite all the coverage the insurance offer

received in online news sites, only three people paid for it.

This could mean any number of things… backers felt more confident

after seeing Indiegogo back this particular product… they were

confident in their decision to back the company… they were unwilling

to shell out more money… and so on.

Time, and more experimentation will tell if insurance will have any

impact on people’s trust and the size of their investments.

What do you think? Tweet us at @PeoplesLab

After the cyber-attack on Sony

Pictures, major theatre chains

were wary of releasing the

controversial the movie The

Interview on Christmas Eve.

This forced Sony to consider

alternate ways to distribute the

movie. The studio decided to go

ahead with independent theatres

and made the movie available

online on YouTube, Google Play,

XBox, iTunes, Crackle and a

standalone website. Viewers in

the US and Canada could rent

(stream) the movie for $5.99 or

purchase (download) it for $14.99.

The Interview raked in $15 million in online sales in its first four days,

as compared to $3 million from the independent theatres. While $15

million isn’t really comparable to what larger theatre chains would

bring in, it did help the movie set the record as Sony’s highest online

grossing film of all time.

Inspired by the initial success, Sony is now expanding distribution of

the movie to its Playstation Network, to cable television through US

pay-per-view network In Demand, and to Walmart’s video-on-demand

service Vudu. As the studio continues to experiment with its release

strategy and see more signs of success, could we expect to see more

movies launched simultaneously across theatres, TV and online? It

would definitely be more convenient for viewers, and perhaps quite

profitable for studios as well. But not so for theatres, and therein

could lie a problem.

twitter.com/TheNationalUAE

People’s Insights is a collection of inspiring initiatives, insights and

foresights shared by MSLGROUP’s SPRINTers – our global team of 100+

strategic planners, researchers and insights experts.

We feature the best of these initiatives as People’s Insights monthly

briefs, and original insights and foresights – from our SPRINTers and

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People’s Insights covers the latest trends in engagement on both

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