Business today is overwhelming. You’re facing a constant avalanche of new products, services and campaigns – from competitors and non-competitors alike. Meanwhile, customer expectations cycle ever higher. It’s overwhelming. How can you keep up?

We have a couple of thoughts ;) Here’s a step-by-step overview of our approach when it comes to staying ahead of the curve.

Trend-Driven Innovation

The not-so-secret secret to spotting trends?

Trends provide powerful answers to the huge question you’re wrestling with: ‘what will my customers want next?’

And if we have one secret, it’s the counter-intuitive insight at the heart of our trend methodology. To anticipate what your customers will want next, don’t simply ask them (faster horses anyone? ;). Don’t feel you have to study them obsessively (who has the time or money to do that these days anyway?). And don’t just crunch their data (no matter how ‘big’ your data, it’s best used for validation and optimization rather than to inspire truly disruptive leaps). Instead, look at the innovations – new products, services, campaigns and more – that consumers are lavishing attention on now.

Yes, that’s right. The key to actionable foresight lies in looking at the overwhelming onslaught of innovations that now whiz past our eyes and across our screens every day.

But how can that be true? Why does watching innovations lead to foresight on what your customers will want next?

The answer lies in the expectations those innovations are creating. When an innovation serves a basic need in a new way, it sets new customer expectations. And then the really important part happens: expectation transfer. Once created by a game-changing innovation, these new customer expectation spread across markets, industries, product and service categories, and demographics. And thanks to the global brain, they spread faster than ever. Eventually, they’ll spread all the way to your door!

That’s why any customer today riding in a car expects the entertainment system to be as intuitive as an iPhone. It’s why customers primed by streaming digital content (Napster became iTunes became Spotify) now expect instant access to a limitless range of physical goods, from cars to clothes. It’s why the one-touch, geo-located, cashless convenience of Uber isn’t confined to hailing a taxi, but becomes the expected level of customer experience and service no matter what the context.

And it’s why watching innovations – and interrogating them for the new customer expectations they create – is the key to powerful and actionable foresight on what customers will want next.

But wait, we can already hear your next question: ‘but how do we process the thousands of innovations out there?’ Well, it helps to have a Trend Framework…

Trend Framework

The 16 mega-trends that define the future of consumerism.