Report: How brands can create a meaningful future

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Highlighting 2023 as a moment of cultural and environmental transition, the report explores a collective desire to reimagine, reinvent and transform the world around us.

The report is a call for brands to help create a future that matters for people and the planet. It summarises findings from a three-part proprietary study that culminated in quantification with 15,000 consumers in 17 markets in November 2022.

Highlights include:

• The top trend across the globe was 'Adaptable Essentials' – reflecting a desire for more purposeful, affordable products and services in a future facing resource constraints.

• 'Life Rewilded' – a trend that focuses on bringing nature and wildness into daily experience – ranks second for guiding everyday behaviour, meaning that many people are acting upon this trend already in their lives.

• The cultural conversation around health continues to grow and diversify, with the trends 'Interconnected Well-being' and 'Social Health' ranking second and third in terms of importance for providing meaning to our lives.

• ‘I think we should be thankful for what we have now, instead of what we have lost’ was the most agreed with statement in the study – reflecting a focus on preserving and growing moving forward, rather than getting lost in crises.

Lily Charnock, director at Space Doctors (part of InSites Consulting), who led the study, comments: “Our aim with this study was to move beyond a standard trend report to something that speaks to our collective imaginations and societal imperatives, while being grounded in what people need. The next step is of course applying this to drive action. Behind the report we have rich and diverse data that we can’t wait to explore for specific client challenges, categories and cultural contexts.”

Niels Schillewaert, co-founder and head of solutions at InSites Consulting explains the value of the report to brands that want to make a positive difference in the world: “The trends we’ve identified should inspire brands to put people – and what matters to them – at the heart of product and service innovation for 2023 and beyond. We hope to inspire brands to explore what their role as a changemaker could be.”

Read the full report here.

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