Beyond Branding blogger and fellow Medinge Group director Stanley Moss posted me this link today from the International Herald–Tribune, on trend-spotting. The interesting remarks are at the end, with one agency predicting growth in the consumer movement—something that strikes a chord with us. Another says that consumers want to be instructed and led.
   In this pluralistic, highly segmented world, the journalist concludes that they both may well be right.
   It might be right from the point of view of regular people. There are some people who operate better when given stringent guidelines. There are others who prefer having the absolute freedom to choose. But even the former have choices—just among a narrower mindset.
   Before you got your driver’s licence, you still had free will—but you just weren’t permitted by law to get behind the wheel of a car.
   However, I can’t see a reversal of the consumer movement, or a trend that might go against it in some fashion.
   Some consumers might well want to be informed to make a certain choice, and expensive, old-style mass marketing can persuade them. But ‘to be led and be given authoritative rules and guidelines’, predicted by DDB, seems slightly far-fetched. Plus, mounting such “leading” campaigns makes progressively less sense, unless you’re very sure of your chances. In today’s world, fewer and fewer of us are, when we hear ‘personalization’ and ‘customization’ frequently. posted by Jack Yan, 1:01 PM  permalink