Winning in this environment requires being at least one step ahead – catching a trend as it is just emerging, and sometimes addressing a need that consumers did not even realize they had.
A key component of this process is tracking macro consumer trends and assessing what these trends mean for your business. To that end, this report identifies eight emerging trends that will deliver new growth potential for CPG manufacturers and retailers over the next year and beyond.
Savvy marketers who effectively tap into these trends have the opportunity to create the new rules, not simply react to them.
Selected Findings
- Eight emerging consumer trends will deliver new growth potential for CPG manufacturers and retailers in 2008 and beyond; capitalizing on this potential will require early market entrance, a new level of consumer education, and close collaboration among industry partners
- Growing consumer knowledge and shifting attitudes are re-defining expectations in mature categories, opening entirely new growth avenues: food as health solution, everyday pleasures in mundane tasks, frozen foods as the “new fresh”
- Consumers want easier access to “specialty” products, including green, fair trade and natural, driving a transition from niche to mainstream, and forcing a re-evaluation of space allocation, optimal assortment and product development priorities
- CPG purchases are evolving from “low involvement” to “considered”, requiring effective, efficient communication of benefits on packages, in-store and via word of mouth; manufacturers and retailers who do this right will enjoy sustainable differentiation
- Each of the trends individually deliver distinct growth potential, but the real “sweet spots” will be in the convergence of trends – addressing multiple consumer needs and extending appeal across consumer segments