Trends and Insights .1

Over the next few days I'll be posting ideas dreamed up. Some ideas have potential, some seem incomplete but can always be improved on. We'll start with a kind of obvious, but still interesting one. This trend seems to be taking off (see what I did there?) in the USA at the moment. Did you know that UK police force helicopter pilots are contracted, and so do not have the power to arrest perpetrators? Can we think of a faster, more mobile and cheaper option? During this time of increased austerity, I expect this trend to become ever more prevalent, and more desirable for national governments seeking to cut costs, whether we like it or not.

People still dismiss using drones under the grounds of privacy invasion. But at the end of the day, both civilian drones and police helicopters are the same thing - people looking at people from the air. It all depends on the integrity of the pilot, whether they're on the ground or not. Technology is merely a facilitator.

As wallets tighten, another trend that may prove big in 2012 is hypertargeting. If a brand isn't somewhere, it's nowhere. Take a brand to the people.

Lowest Common Denominator.

Has the bottom line in branding become lower in recent years after a spate of brand message butchery? Loveable old favorites like ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ and ‘Probably the Best Beer in the World’ have been chopped into vague singulars, bent on reaching as many demographics as possible. The worst part is that many of these new straplines aren’t ownable for the brand in question - regardless of how pure the intentions. BMW cannot own the word ‘joy’, much like Coke can never own the word ‘happiness’ – they’re simply too indistinct and ubiquitous. The watering down of a message affects its ability to perform. Will future brand messages be nothing more than a single word? Will the magic ever return?