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The Trendwatching site exercises a periodic, gruesome fascination for me. The latest briefing (com: February 2007 trend briefing | TRYSUMERS) tells us that companies now want us to try out, their products sorry, brands rather than just buy them and that consumers are smart and savvy enough to settle for nothing less. They don’t just want to have a relationship with us – they want to provide a 360 degree total experience. You won’t just take a leak and wash your hands, you’ll experience the Charmin restrooms.
It’s the usual murky mix of breathless techie enthusiasm (still trying to convince us that Snow Crash is just around the corner – ” Next will be 3D versions of the real world instead of just real people, turning everything into a TRYSUMER playground.” Er, Second Life, anyone? We’ve met the future and it’s the Sims. Except with less personality) and occasional nuggets of insight:
Since advertising is as trusted (or appreciated) as a certain president with two more years to go, performance is once again becoming increasingly relevant. (Forrester reports that only 13% of US consumers admit that they buy products because of their ads, and a paltry 6% believe that companies generally tell the truth in ads.) So trying out and sampling may well become the new advertising.
Leaving aside the fact that the notion of the ‘trysumer’ is probably not news to anyone (not infrequently female but occasionally male) who’s ever bought an over-priced pair of glamorous shoes, what we’re talking about here is still “premium brands” working to part people from their money. For consumers who believe that all companies are essentially peddling snake oil, we buy an awful lot of Calvin Klein perfume. Or Dan Brown novels. It also feels a bit like these companies are stalking us – one example shows Sketchers set up in the middle of nowhere in the Irish countryside trying to get passers by to try on their shoes.
Is there a moral? Beware brands bearing gifts. Oh, and Google Sketch looks pretty cool.
Filed under: marketing | Tagged: brands, Google Sketch, Trendwatching, trysumers
Reading things like the Trend briefing just makes my head ache!
Urg. These things just kill me:
“Freed from the shackles of convention and scarcity…” Oh, I feel so wonderfully light and free now that I can over-consume with impunity!
“Niche of course being the new mass, as consumer societies are now about standing out, not conformity.” Uh, yeah. Like anything made via manufacturing is anything but “mass”. The sweater I’m knitting for my husband is “niche”.
“Trying new things is the decadent alternative to ownership and permanency.” So decadent to be completely wasteful and transient.
“Our senses have been dulled – things have become too easy and boring. We’re always asking, ‘What’s new?’ ‘What’s fresh?’” Sorry, am I supposed to LIKE living like this?
Well, I generally react by laughing like a drain :)
I do like google sketch though.
“not infrequently female but occasionally male”
Your cough-political-correctness is entertaining. :)
Hey – when you’re a forty something male working in an organisation where the boss is a woman, most of the managers are women and actually, nearly all the staff are women, you learn fast…