• Login
    • Join
  • Subscribe Free
    • Magazine
    • eNewsletter
    Checkout
    • Magazine
    • News
    • Formulary
    • Exclusives
    • Top Companies
    • Raw Materials
    • End-User
    • Packaging
    • Directories
    • Events
    • Jobs
    • More
  • Magazine
  • News
  • Formulary
  • Exclusives
  • Top Companies
  • Raw Materials
  • End-User
  • Packaging
  • Directories
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Current / Back Issues
    Features
    Columns
    Editorial
    Digital Edition
    eNewsletter Archive
    Our Team
    Editorial Guidelines
    Subscribe Now
    Advertise Now
    Top Features
    Shape Up!

    Connecting To The Consumer

    Enhancing Cosmeceuticals Via Phytonutrients

    Building on Its Strength

    Pardon the Disruption
    Online Exclusives
    Association News
    Breaking News
    Financial News
    Industry News
    International
    Marketing News
    New Products
    News Front
    Packaging News
    Patents
    Personnel
    Regulations
    Snapshots
    Top News
    Live From Shows
    Top News
    Charkit Names Lang President

    Kline Takes Deep Dive into HI&I

    Burt's Bees To Present Rosacea Data at AAD Meeting

    Makeup Sales Rise for Valentine’s Day

    Valmont Celebrates Art
    Blog
    Online Exclusives
    Infographics
    Podcasts
    Whitepapers
    Videos
    Expert's Opinion
    Surveys
    International Top 30 Report
    Top 50 Report
    Top Companies
    14. Church & Dwight Co.

    50. Herbalife

    3. Henkel

    4. SC johnson

    20. Puig
    Actives
    Functional Ingredients
    Pigments
    Polymers
    Preservatives
    Surfactants

    Kline Takes Deep Dive into HI&I

    ACI Cleans Up in Orlando

    A Thing of Beauty in Panama

    Kiehl's Launches Cannabis Sativa Seed Facial Oil

    Croda Supports Panama Beauty Project
    Air Care/Environmental Fragrance
    AP/Deo
    Color Cosmetics
    Disinfectants
    Fine Fragrance
    Hair Care
    Household Cleaning
    I&I Marketplace
    Laundry Care
    Oral Care
    OTC/Medicated
    Packaging
    Personal Cleansers
    Skin Care
    Sun Care
    Testing

    Kline Takes Deep Dive into HI&I

    Burt's Bees To Present Rosacea Data at AAD Meeting

    ACI Cleans Up in Orlando

    Clairol Rolls Out New Color Blending Gel

    Moberg Pharma Sells OTC Business
    Lab Equipment
    Mixing
    Packaging
    Testing

    Method Unveils Spring Limited Edition Line

    More Eco Options Roll Out in Laundry Space

    The Art of Working with Artists

    Lush Gets Naked

    Henkel, P&G Founding Members of New Alliance to End Plastic Waste
    Contract Manufacturing / Private Label Directory
    Buyer's Guide
    Add New Company
    Corporate Profiles
    International Buyers Guide Companies
    Ashland

    Siltech Corporation

    Croda

    Sabinsa Cosmetics, a division of Sabinsa Corporation

    CIE
    Live From Shows
    Meetings
    Webinars
    Snapshots
    • Magazine
      • Current / Back Issues
      • Features
      • Editorial
      • Columns
      • Digital Edition
      • eNewsletter Archive
      • Subscribe Now
      • Advertise Now
    • Breaking News
    • Formulary
    • Directories
      • Buyer's Guide
      • Contract Manufacturing / Private Label Directory
      • Corporate Profiles
      • Add Your Company
    • Raw Materials
      • Actives
      • Functional Ingredients
      • Pigments
      • Polymers
      • Preservatives
      • Surfactants
    • End-User
      • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance
      • AP/Deo
      • Color Cosmetics
      • Disinfectants
      • Fine Fragrance
      • Hair Care
      • Household Cleaning
      • I&I Marketplace
      • Laundry Care
      • Oral Care
      • OTC/Medicated
      • Packaging
      • Personal Cleansers
      • Skin Care
      • Sun Care
      • Testing
    • Packaging
      • Lab Equipment
      • Mixing
      • Packaging
      • Testing
    • Top Companies
      • International Top 30 Report
      • Top 50 Report
    • Online Exclusives
    • Experts Opinion
    • Slideshows
    • Videos
    • Podcasts
    • Infographics
    • Blog
    • Whitepapers
    • Surveys
      • R & D Salary Survey
      • Sales & Marketing Salary Survey
    • Job Banks
    • Events
      • Industry Events
      • Live from show Events
      • Webinars
    • About Us
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Advertise With Us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms of Use
    Expert's Opinion

    FutureProofing

    Toniq's Craig Swanson explains the proper use of trend analysis.

    Craig Swanson, Toniq05.01.12
    The future is calling. Are you listening? It isn’t difficult to do. With a bit of awareness and focus, signals from the future can be found all around us. When it comes to brand innovation, renovation, and new product positioning, the thing to do is put your antennae in the air and sensitize your radar. These cultural signals can mean the difference between a brand that’s set for today and a brand prepared for tomorrow and beyond.

    “FutureProofing” is a process of trend analysis specific to a product or category, highly tuned to specific timespans (e.g. 2 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years), consumer segments, cultural movements, and other sociological factors. The key aspect — the part that puts the “proof” in FutureProofing — is the brand integration that occurs at the end of (or in conjunction with) the analysis. There are any number of smart firms providing exceptional informatics on everything under the sun. But what do you do with the data once it’s collected?


    Here are three elements of this integrative process. While hardly exhaustive, they provide starting points for a methodology to prepare your brand platform for future growth.


    1. Dial-In: Everything is connected. Given a timeframe of 2 to 5 years, many of the factors that make up the future are already hard at work right now. And plenty of trend-hunters are reporting them. Whatever “channel” you want to view, whether the fields of fashion, art, music, science, or medicine, to name a few examples, we can know with a relatively high degree of certainty what creative developments are in process and what is coming down the pike. Trends move in a consistent way from the creators to the outliers (or early adopters) to the media to the mainstream. Depending on the field, these rates of motion are fairly consistent.


    Processes to gather this information are all part of the channeling experience: moving headlong into search expeditions that discover what’s over the horizon. Some ideations to consider:
    • Workshops with domain professionals and category experts (preferably after exhausting their social media outputs through dialogue)


    • Industry reports and white papers from the trade


    • Field excursions to a location uniquely relevant to the topic of enquiry


    2. TrendMapping: As with any project, identifying the challenge correctly — salient details and relevant scope — is no small thing. Indeed it’s key to ensuring results meet objectives. Though that seems basic arithmetic, it’s to this day not given appropriate weight even by the smartest among us. (It’s a matter of focus, not intelligence.) The right brief gives us the opportunity to use TrendMapping: a one-to-one correspondence between cultural elements from our exploratory phases against relevant brand contexts. A generic example: given research that shows or confirms an “authenticity trend”, how far can we push a particularly novel product or ingredient or lifestyle before it goes beyond authentic toward the faddish? Or the other way: before its authenticity breaks the brand’s ability to support it? Such questions of context are useful in scoping brand futures.


    The goal is to look for obvious and non-obvious signals “under the radar.” Accumulating enough detail yields broader themes to fit brand benefit spaces. For example, attempting to emphasize a “skin benefit” we would need bio-friendly visual, environmental, health, or other cues which ladder specifically and intuitively to skin. These cues can change or evolve based on the trend signal in question.


    3. Culture Panels: No matter what you’re trying to track, the closer you get to the source the more confident you can be that the information has weight. Culture Panels are a way of zeroing in on sources directly relevant to your research. For example, a project requiring “quick read” response to design directions intended for a foreign market, or product formulations for an “extreme” demographic. These are not full-blown quantitative or even projectable qualitative results. Quickly assembling respondents (local or global) via grapevine or at-hand resources, polling based on written questionnaires, Skype interviews, or other communications yields swift turnaround. Notwithstanding what may seem off-the-cuff, these results can be invaluable, both for internal teams and your client too, in pointing to hidden elements (gotcha!) that couldn’t be found otherwise except through expensive and time-consuming research. Strong micro-cultures are often the source of the next macro-thing.


    There are many roads to the future. (All of them, in fact! No one’s yet found one that goes to the past.) But just as with terrestrial traffic, some routes are faster than others, some more reliable, some hidden, some under construction. Getting to know the rules of these roads is important to your brand’s future. There may beslightlymore to it then learning red/yellow/green, but there are plenty of tools and techniques available if you turn up the sensitivity meter and start listening.



    About the Author
    Craig Swanson is Creative Director, Partner of Toniq LLC. Toniq is a brand strategy firm dedicated to creating "brand effervescence." Mr. Swanson and the Toniq staff bring life, energy and dimension to brands by blending marketing with anthropology, sociology, the psychology of symbolism and innovative consumer research techniques. Email:craig@toniq.com, Tel:212-755-2929 x218Website: www.toniq.com
    Related Searches
    • men
    • challeng
    • form
    • spa
    Related Knowledge Center
    • OTC/Medicated
    • Packaging

    Related Expert's Opinion

    • Color Cosmetics | Fine Fragrance | Hair Care | Packaging | Packaging | Skin Care
      The Art of Working with Artists

      The Art of Working with Artists

      Cosmetics brands can successfully partner with artists. Vault49 co-founder Jonathan Kenyon explains how.
      Jonathan Kenyon, Co-founder, Vault49 01.28.19

    • Functional Ingredients | Laundry Care | Packaging | Packaging | Polymers | Surfactants
      Light-Weighted Laundry Care

      Light-Weighted Laundry Care

      Less can be more when the full product lifecycle is considered.
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 09.03.18

    • Packaging | Packaging
      Cleaning Up Clean Beauty

      Cleaning Up Clean Beauty

      TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky on improving end-of-life scenarios.
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 07.23.18


    • Laundry Care | Packaging | Packaging
      Encouraging Laundry Care Bottle Recycling

      Encouraging Laundry Care Bottle Recycling

      Creating green opportunities can drive value for brands.
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 09.25.17

    • Hair Care | Packaging | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care

      Uncommon Sense

      Multi-sensory appeal in packaging creates consumer engagement.
      Michelle Leissner, H&H Graphics, LLC 08.01.17

    • Color Cosmetics | Hair Care | Oral Care | Packaging | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Polymers | Skin Care | Sun Care
      Does Your Recycled Content Tell a Story?

      Does Your Recycled Content Tell a Story?

      "Storied Plastics" differentiate your brand and command a premium.
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 06.05.17


    • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance | AP/Deo | Color Cosmetics | Disinfectants | Fine Fragrance | Hair Care | Household Cleaning | Laundry Care | Oral Care | OTC/Medicated | Packaging | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care | Testing
      Tips for Designing a Proper Shelf Test

      Tips for Designing a Proper Shelf Test

      Quality research and actionable insights begin with good test design.
      Kirk Hendrickson, Eye Faster 03.27.17

    • Hair Care | Packaging | Packaging
      Recycled Materials Connects with Consumers

      Recycled Materials Connects with Consumers

      TerraCycle signs a big deal with P&G.
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 02.20.17

    • Color Cosmetics | Hair Care | Packaging | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care
      Recycling Adds Value To Beauty Packaging

      Recycling Adds Value To Beauty Packaging

      Companies get rewarded for their efforts, says Tom Szaky of Terra Cycle
      Tom Szaky, TerraCycle 01.01.17


    • OTC/Medicated | Skin Care
      A Positive Spin on Negativity

      A Positive Spin on Negativity

      Consumers gravitate toward upbeat messages.
      Scott Garrison and Paul Janssen, Skim 07.28.14

    • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance | AP/Deo | Color Cosmetics | Disinfectants | Fine Fragrance | Hair Care | Household Cleaning | I&I Marketplace | Laundry Care | Oral Care | OTC/Medicated | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care
      Color Blind Is Short-Sighted
And Blurs Your Potential

      Color Blind Is Short-Sighted And Blurs Your Potential

      A new generation is very cool and comfortable with color.
      Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, Walton Isaacson 11.25.13

    • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance | AP/Deo | Color Cosmetics | Disinfectants | Fine Fragrance | Hair Care | Household Cleaning | I&I Marketplace | Laundry Care | Oral Care | OTC/Medicated | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care | Testing
      Safer Consumer Products for California?

      Safer Consumer Products for California?

      Nearly three years after the deadline, the regulations become effective.
      09.30.13

    • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance | AP/Deo | Color Cosmetics | Disinfectants | Fine Fragrance | Hair Care | Household Cleaning | I&I Marketplace | Laundry Care | Oral Care | OTC/Medicated | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care
      Expanding into Emerging Markets?

      Expanding into Emerging Markets?

      Chris Humberstone says first you must answer seven key questions.
      Chris Humberstone, Humberstone International 09.10.13

    • Air Care/Environmental Fragrance | AP/Deo | Color Cosmetics | Disinfectants | Hair Care | Household Cleaning | I&I Marketplace | Laundry Care | Oral Care | OTC/Medicated | Packaging | Personal Cleansers | Skin Care | Sun Care | Testing

      Agile Selling

      Take the indirect channel model to the next level.
      Robert Wollan, Naveen Jain and Michael Heald, Accenture 05.21.13

    • OTC/Medicated | Skin Care
      Targeting An Unsightly Skin Problem

      Targeting An Unsightly Skin Problem

      What is milia and how can you treat it naturally? Suki Kramer explains.
      04.29.13

    Breaking News
    • Charkit Names Lang President
    • Kline Takes Deep Dive into HI&I
    • Burt's Bees To Present Rosacea Data at AAD Meeting
    • Growing Demand for Moss-Based Cosmetics
    • HCPA Calls for PRIA Authorization
    View Breaking News >
    CURRENT ISSUE

    February 2019

    • Shape Up!
    • Connecting To The Consumer
    • Enhancing Cosmeceuticals Via Phytonutrients
    • View More >

    Cookies help us to provide you with an excellent service. By using our website, you declare yourself in agreement with our use of cookies.
    You can obtain detailed information about the use of cookies on our website by clicking on "More information”.

    • privacy policy
    • term and condition
    • about us
    • contact us

    follow us

    Subscribe

    magazines

    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image
    Image

    Copyright © 2019 Rodman Media. All rights reserved. Use of this constitutes acceptance of our privacy policy The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Rodman Media.

    AD BLOCKER DETECTED

    Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
    Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.


    FREE SUBSCRIPTION Already a subscriber? Login