Wunderman Thompson, a WPP agency, announced today the launch of its annual Future 100 report, lifting the lid on trends shaping the coming 12 months. The report is developed by Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, the agency’s futures think tank and innovation unit.
These wide-ranging trends look at creative innovations set to go mainstream along with shifts in consumer behaviours, across 10 different sectors. It also features 20 opinions from experts including Brenda Milis, principal of creative and consumer insights at Adobe Stock and Don Stein, CEO and founder of Teooh, Mark Reid WPP, among many others.
The one hundred trends are drawn from the culture, technology, travel, branding & marketing, food & drink, beauty, retail, health, business and finance sectors. For the first time, the report also looks at work trends, as the dual forces of a mass shift to home working and the rise in unemployment fueled by the pandemic, change our professional lives dramatically.
Mel Edwards, Global CEO, Wunderman Thompson commented, “At a time when gaining a competitive advantage has never been more important, the Future 100 report reveals the key trends that will shape consumer behaviour and define the way ambitious brands engage with their customers during the coming year. These insights will help marketing leaders inspire growth for their organisations and move forward into 2021 with confidence and optimism.”
Developments under the spotlight include:
Micropreneurs: Move over side hustles, there is a startup boom in the making, fueled by the pandemic and rising unemployment, driving more and more people to make entrepreneurship their next career move
Immunity wellness: The world has never been so interested in how our immune systems can be boosted and the coming year will see numerous experts telling us how; from ancient treatments to DNA research
Unbiased banking: Another industry where inclusivity is on the rise is banking – specifically the online-only neobanks, including Simba and Greenwood, which address the frequently overlooked needs of minority groups
Cloud gaming: As video games become the latest media to get Netflixized, major players, including Amazon, Google, Tencent, Microsoft, Sony and Facebook, are betting big on cloud gaming
Multigenerational travel: Extended families, forced to spend so much time apart in 2020, are increasingly likely to opt to vacation together – often a practical choice as well as a caring one
Ethical scoreboard: A rise in the number of platforms which monitor corporate behaviour, as more people make purchase decisions influenced by brand purpose
Ghost kitchens: Influenced by the growth of delivery-first dining, this new restaurant concept sees off-premises dining prioritized
Foraged ingredients: Not another food trend, but a beauty one, with the emergence of new skincare brands made with wild-harvested plants and promising potent result
Intersectional beauty: in an industry where diversity has been sorely lacking, independent brands are now leading the way in championing intersectional beauty, such as LGBTQ+ advocate We Are Fluide and indigenous-owned Prados Beauty
Live commerce: Retail-tainment is moving online with engaging, tailored shopping experiences using video streaming to demonstrate and sell products and interact with customers in real time
2021 brands & marketing highlights include:
Big brands go circular – Brands are acknowledging that the second-hand market is key in the circular economy. Playing an active role in the fashion recycling business means they can weed out fakes and keep resale values buoyant, which in turn shores up first-sale prices.
Fan fidelity – Sports are enhancing digital fan engagement, ushering in a rich new era that prioritizes experience and immersion across multiple digital touchpoints, offering brands a new playbook for consumer engagement which could hold the key to long-term loyalty.
Brand academy – Lockdowns have pushed 1.5 billion students home from school, causing barriers to learning but an opportunity for brands to help. While branded education is not new – McDonald’s founded its Hamburger University in 1961 – companies are now looking to train not just future employees, but future generations.
TikTok ads – TikTok is building advertising and e-commerce functionalities that will see the platform mature into a powerful social commerce tool as well as an epoch-defining creative hub. Having a rival like Triller snapping at its heels is not a bad thing either.
Branding together – A new class of leadership means that brands are putting aside competition and instead collaborating to tackle social and environmental challenges, demonstrating that change requires collaborative effort.
The visual language of connectivity – Scenes of clustered crowds and large gatherings remain inappropriate in 2021. Brands and advertisers are opting instead for smaller group settings and capturing intimate moments to convey a feeling of community
Ethical scoreboard – Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement and a fraught political atmosphere. Consumers are taking strong stances in terms of their values, and are demanding that brands do the same.
Flexperiences – From cinemas becoming restaurants to airport runways turning into drive-ins, innovative companies are finding new ways to repurpose empty venues, sparking joy in tough times and highlighting the role agility and collaboration can play in adjusting to change.
Brand safety – Brands are realising that they must do good by their communities to protect their reputations. The communication of a brand’s values goes far beyond its products; it includes everything from brand actions to treatment of employees to the context in which its ads appear.
Campaign: uplift – In these days of sickness, poverty and hardship, brands and marketers are trying to uplift people, particularly around major holidays. While vaccines give hope, campaigns will continue to highlight how in uplifting others, we are ourselves uplifted.
Halsey for about-face 
Emma Chiu, Global Director at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, said: “Few of us will have experienced quite as much drama on a societal and global level as we did in 2020 and the fallout from that is more new trends than we’ve seen since we started publishing The Future 100, and behaviors which had been evolving slowly thrust into the mainstream. Knowing which of these trends matter and why has never been so important for marketers at a time when the very survival of many brands depends on adapting at pace.”
Download the full report here: https://www.wundermanthompson.com/insight/the-future-100
Source: Wunderman Thompson
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