Financial IQ Philippines Quick Hit(s):
How do you beat every day stress? One way is to be grateful for things that are happening to us... even the smallest one like waking up, to be able to walk, etc. :)
This year’s trends focus on play as a competitive advantage. Other key trend drivers are: the super-stress era, intelligent objects, predictive personalization, the mobile fingerprint, sensory explosion, everything is retail, peer power, going private in public, and health and happiness.
In a nutshell, this year’s trends focus on the rise of new technology and the increasing awareness of the impact of stress and the shift of people’s inward movement to search for well-being and happiness.
BusinessMonday starts the countdown with three defining trends: the effects of stress on modern life; data analysis as a more proactive model to pinpoint consumers’ habits; and the premium price of privacy in this age of social media.
The worst health epidemic
Stress ranked No. 2 in this year’s Top 10 trends. It is no secret that life is filled with stress-inducing factors. From the commute to work to beating deadlines, even shopping has become a stressful ordeal for many.
According to the Top 10 trends report, “the World Health Organization has called stress the worst health epidemic of the 21st century. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, nearly 85 percent of human illnesses and diseases can be attributed, at least in part, to stress, and two-thirds of all doctors’ visits are due to a stress-related illness.”
In response to a call to de-stress and relax, many brands have come up with different approaches to tell people to slow down and smell the flowers.
“In China, for white-collar workers in megacities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the drive to succeed has led to intense pressure and long working hours in sedentary day jobs. [This is why] Outdoor brand The North Face created a campaign advocating that people escape—if only for a weekend—to nature. In the United Kingdom, [an advertisement by] Thomson positioned a vacation as a way to escape the always-on culture,” according to the report.
In the local setting, “campaigns like McDonald’s ‘Hooray for Today’ remind us to ignore the ‘stressors’ that we encounter every day.”
The trend of promoting spa treatments and weekend getaways as a way to de-stress is commonly seen in the local industry.
“Going strong are home service massages and spas that cater to those who don’t want to be bothered by the hassle of leaving the comfort of their homes. Resorts and spas are now tailoring their services to those who are in need of a little R&R and detox,” the report says.
Tough to tackle
Stress is like a giant who is tough to tackle, and recent studies show that stress is here to stay for the long haul. This may lead to serious physical and mental ramifications. A concrete example of the after-effect of stress is obesity.
Marketers can build around this stress epidemic by offering a different approach “to communication and content or new variations on products and services.”
To help relieve their consumer’s everyday stress, “marketers can create useful content (how to avoid traffic, how to stop a baby from crying, etc.) … Brands can also reframe messaging to acknowledge consumers’ heightened stress and provide ways to combat it. Consumers will be seeking more balance in their hectic lives, and brands have the opportunity to help find it,” the report adds.
http://business.inquirer.net/109313/stress-privacy-issues-define-consumer-trends-in-13
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