Consumer Trendscape 2010
Finally, the year we’d love to forget but can’t is over, and new influences are coming into focus that promise to make marketers’ lives even more challenging. From skincare advances to Ka-Boomers’ growing market clout, the Trendscape continues to morph at an accelerating pace.
Here’s a flash-forward on what’s in store:
Skincare: The Next Fast Food
Many current skincare products — even the natural ones [m] are loaded with chemicals and metals, which our bodies absorb on a daily basis while our drains deposit the residue into our water supply.
The consumer push-back that began with tobacco and more recently has focused on fast foods will soon be aimed at leading cosmetics companies and faux organic/natural lines as consumers realize their potentially harmful impact on body and environment. Brands like Joshua Onysko’s Pangea Organics are leading the charge to a new age of natural, effective and sustainable skincare lines.
Personal Care Marketers Beware
Personal care marketers need to be prepared for the oncoming consumer rejection of parabens, petroleum, ammonium sulfates and other chemical “baddies” as they did with trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup and MSG in packaged and fast foods.
Once the social networks are mobilized against these ingredients, companies need to be ready (soon!) with natural and efficacious alternatives. As fast-fooders from McDonald’s to Taco Bell have been compelled to post ingredients and caloric totals while developing more balanced menus, so too will personal care brands be forced to heed the growing consumer demand for transparency, accurate labeling, resourcing data, efficacy claims, etc., while true organics will continue to gain market share.
Ka-Boomers
Boomers have always had a major impact on marketing and they are about to have another huge impact on the marketplace. Why? Marketers are starting to realize the benefit of targeting products to the 50-plus demographic.
And why not, they’ve been marketed to their entire lives. They like to shop and spend, have the money, and are open to all product/service categories that will help them “Live Younger Longer.” Many 60-year-olds are healthier than 35-year-olds, so watch this market boom over the next 10 years.
Ka-Boomer wants extend well beyond medicinal and financial services offerings to: energy, indulgence, Better for You (BFY), fashion, and fun categories that leverage their inherent optimism. This trend could challenge AARP to reinvent itself and marketing as it is currently practiced. It doesn’t make sense to stop marketing to people at 40 or 45 when they will likely live well into their 70s and beyond.
Here’s a flash-forward on what’s in store:
Skincare: The Next Fast Food
Many current skincare products — even the natural ones [m] are loaded with chemicals and metals, which our bodies absorb on a daily basis while our drains deposit the residue into our water supply.
The consumer push-back that began with tobacco and more recently has focused on fast foods will soon be aimed at leading cosmetics companies and faux organic/natural lines as consumers realize their potentially harmful impact on body and environment. Brands like Joshua Onysko’s Pangea Organics are leading the charge to a new age of natural, effective and sustainable skincare lines.
Personal Care Marketers Beware
Personal care marketers need to be prepared for the oncoming consumer rejection of parabens, petroleum, ammonium sulfates and other chemical “baddies” as they did with trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup and MSG in packaged and fast foods.
Once the social networks are mobilized against these ingredients, companies need to be ready (soon!) with natural and efficacious alternatives. As fast-fooders from McDonald’s to Taco Bell have been compelled to post ingredients and caloric totals while developing more balanced menus, so too will personal care brands be forced to heed the growing consumer demand for transparency, accurate labeling, resourcing data, efficacy claims, etc., while true organics will continue to gain market share.
Ka-Boomers
Boomers have always had a major impact on marketing and they are about to have another huge impact on the marketplace. Why? Marketers are starting to realize the benefit of targeting products to the 50-plus demographic.
And why not, they’ve been marketed to their entire lives. They like to shop and spend, have the money, and are open to all product/service categories that will help them “Live Younger Longer.” Many 60-year-olds are healthier than 35-year-olds, so watch this market boom over the next 10 years.
Ka-Boomer wants extend well beyond medicinal and financial services offerings to: energy, indulgence, Better for You (BFY), fashion, and fun categories that leverage their inherent optimism. This trend could challenge AARP to reinvent itself and marketing as it is currently practiced. It doesn’t make sense to stop marketing to people at 40 or 45 when they will likely live well into their 70s and beyond.