2022 Trend Report Webinar - 2022 Trends, Opportunities & Consumer Insights

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this is going to be the most unique opportunity in your career and when i say something like that
i mean there will be a specific period of two to three years in the next decade that will be
the greatest period of time for someone studying the trends the clues for what happens next and
that's because we're about to enter a period of chaos induced recharting let me explain first
of all chaos creates new opportunity it does so by changing the rules reshuffling the deck
and switching who's in the lead and here is how it works consider a lesson in history the
renaissance period emerged from the bubonic plague the roaring twenties emerged from the spanish flu
and now with Covid-19 finally showing us a light at the end of the tunnel the roaring
20s are coming back and this period of chaos is about to repeat itself this historic pattern
where afterwards people emerge from their shells they try new things they make up for lost time
this is going to be the greatest period of opportunity in your lifetime and i know this
because i study chaos i study chaos and i want to leave you with a couple thoughts before we dive in
to the top 20 trends for 2022 the first is that normally and for the last decade we're
in a period of path dependency where we repeat all the past decisions in our organizations we
put in rules policies structures procedures brand standards to repeat whatever led to last year's
harvest if you try to come up with something new you might be told we're not big enough to
do that or we're not small enough to nimbly entrepreneurially try your idea you might be
told this isn't related to us we can't do that we need focus we need to hit goals we want results
normally what happens is we stick to the path that we're on and we miss out on a
new opportunity but then when we go through a period of crisis like the bubonic plague like the
spanish flu and now like covet 19 while rules policies structures they just don't seem to
matter anymore people instead try to figure out how to survive within their organizations
yet during this time period consumer needs are changing by the minute because people don't know
what they want anymore if anything you can't even read it perfectly because they're on the bottom
rungs of maslow's hierarchy of needs looking out for their physiological needs and their safety
but then then we get to the light at the end of the tunnel the period that we're in now which
is a moment of chaos and opportunity a period that will last one or two years as people emerge
we will learn what your competitors were working on behind closed doors for the last 18 months as
they figured out what new ideas products services and partnerships they needed to survive in a new
normal you'll figure out what your competitors and others thought the new normal was going to be and
meanwhile consumers will make up for lost time and show us what they're actually seeing that is the
period of chaos and chaos is actually predictable if you're a regular trend hunter follower you know
of our six patterns of opportunity and chaos and our mega trends and today we're going to
dive into how those have evolved through copit i'm going to give you a very high level thought about
it and then armita scano our chief inside officer will show you her read on 20 of the most exciting
insights from our 2022 report out today the first megatrend i want to talk about is simplicity
after a year and a half of chaotic times at home at work in life people start looking
for the simple answers the simple messages and for marketers simplicity emerges from all of the noise
when it comes to experience another mega trend we were watching if you rewind two years ago we were
talking about augmented reality virtual reality and all the different multiverse expansions of
our world and yet so much of that was put on hold because we were working from home now we
make up for lost time next up naturality coveted 19 topped the world where little tiny people
in a giant planet that still has so much control and ability to completely change our lives
and that's caused a resurgence particularly among the younger generations who think
the parent generations must cove it up a resurgence among the younger generations and
that drive for eco and sustainability and it means that as we get out of this world where everything
needs to be triple packaged and double masked up as soon as we get out of that people will be more
conscious of the brands the services the products that actually have an e equal component from a
technology perspective we've seen many records being pushed throughout the last year in fact
this was a record-breaking year for artificial intelligence and technology did not stop even if
human connections did next up hybridization this mega trend is about how the competitive lines
change it used to be there were tech companies and grocery stores but then you see the merge and you
see things like amazon a tech company buying a grocery store that's called hybridization
and it's about people completely jumping into new product markets and what you've seen in
the last year is many brands struggling for their survival started to jump into different industries
the little restaurant down the street became a bottle shop a takeout service a cooking class
whatever it might be and now you're about to see after 18 months of your competitors working behind
closed doors what new markets they plan to get into as well finally many to many while there's
been a lot of supporting the largest ecommerce retailers in the world and now you're going to
see that return to shopping local to support those local businesses those are some of the high level
mega trends but we've launched our 2022 trend report which gets a layer deeper to give you a
hundred different insights and about 500 examples you'll all get the link to that right after this
if you didn't download it already and we're going to go through 20 of our favorite trends from there
from uh with an interview with armeta ascano again our chief insight officer now just a little note
on the methodology everything that you're looking at is fresh data-driven research based on our read
of what we're seeing the crowd actually interested in we have a couple hundred thousand people and
millions of fans all around the world that submit in their articles we have a database
of about half a million articles and ideas and then we mine that using the patterns of traffic
the people that are actually navigating our site so far we've measured about 230 million people
and three billion of their choices to come up with fresh data-driven insights that we
mine with humans and with artificial intelligence we did about two or three thousand custom trend
reports during covid so we spent a lot of time working with yourselves and your competitors
to figure out what's next and today with this report we're revealing some of what we've seen
as the higher level more consistent patterns if you want to dive deeper after this connect with us
our most common service is fast custom research the idea that you use one of our researchers on
our team who gets to know you and delivers a report every week or every month for you but
we're also happy to be there to help you with innovation workshops getting your people back
in office and bringing that zest and excitement for innovation back to your team finally we do
a lot of different work with our assessments our tools our e-learning and we're happy to
find ways to get that to you if there's ways that would help you win in 2022. with that being said
it is my pleasure to introduce armida askano our chief content officer armenia great hello everyone
thank you for joining us uh yes so my name is armeta escano i am the chief content officer
here at trend hunter and essentially what that means every piece of content that comes out of
trend hunter from our micro trends on our online magazine to our insights which is what we're
about to show you to of course our frameworks regarding those larger trend opportunities like
micro generational study retail trends all sort of funnels through myself and my teams
now as jeremy said today we're going to be talking about the top trends of 2022 so of course that
report is available for download we also have a video that's being released what we're doing today
is specifically showing you the best of each of our categories within these top trends of 2022 so
we'll be focusing on key areas such as social good we'll be looking at retail we'll be looking at
many different categories all within which we'll be highlighting the most exciting most
interesting trends that we've found through our database so jeremy let's kick it off
with culture trends culture trends yes so as we move into obviously this exciting but unknown
era this return of the roaring 20s what are some larger behavioral shifts that you're most excited
to see sure well i find culture has been a category in trend hunter that was always
important and i think we got what culture was like in the last year which was being pent up from home
but i feel like culture is truly the category that will exude this idea of the roaring 20s and people
making up for lost time in in so many different categories but it's also one that for most of our
clients suddenly if it was never really a place people asked a lot of questions
now they're asking a ton because there's a lot of curiosity about what will the lives look like of
you me and most importantly are our consumers so why don't you dive in and show us what the data
has taught us for sure i mean consumer behavior is sort of what's at the core of all culture trends
right and as you mentioned a lot of this has to do with people sort of reflecting on their own worlds
and thinking of uh what their priorities should be during this this time now as jeremy referenced we
are looking at the return of this sort of roaring 20s but that comes after a period of a bit of a
dip in society in terms of you know consumer behavior perhaps in terms of the economy and
of course over this past year we saw that crisis of the pandemic now during that time we all became
quite attached to the super computers stuck in our back pockets at all times and we could turn to our
smartphones these super computers and connect with what was essentially bad if not at least
uncertain news and you know a lot of us fell into this pattern of constantly doom scrolling which is
the act of constantly you know looking at your phone scrolling through it and looking for that
bad news now after a couple of years of that we're seeing the trend of anti-doom scroll here we see
brands and designers launching initiatives to help create sort of distance between people and their
phones they're bad news machines so we see limit setting mobile apps we see tech disconnection
publications we see anti-doom scrolling websites that specifically only highlight good news and we
see joyful travel websites which kind of curate specifically content that is meant to make you
happy now i'm ready for this i'm sure many of you are but before we move on to the next trend i want
to point out our scoring on the bottom sort of row there of your screen so as you can see anti-doom
scroll receives a score of 6.2 out of 10 which we find by leveraging popularity which is the sheer
amount of clicks eyeballs that this article has received activity which is all about engagement
are people starting a conversation around this trend are they sharing it to their various
social media feeds are they leaving comments and freshness which speaks to its level of newness
all right so let's keep it moving into our second trend within culture which is nature novice now
this ties to the mega trend jeremy talked about of simplicity this idea that during this time people
have sort of re-prioritized and thought about what is actually important to them how can they
live lives that are a little bit less complicated and many are quite literally turning to nature
as the sort of source of true simple pleasure here we see adventure tourism brands offering
more slow-paced trips for those who are looking to get into this sort of naturalistic approach
to vacation in a way that's you know offering a beginner's pace i am someone who is definitely
looking more for a hike that is easy something i can do you know with my parents maybe as opposed
to something that's a little bit more intense so we see beginner-friendly adventure trips japanese
moderate adventure tours slower paced cycling trips and irish adventure tourism companies
and perhaps the most exciting of all of the culture trends maybe one of the most divisive is
psychedelic expansion so here we see researchers and entrepreneurs exploring the benefits of magic
mushrooms now the reason why i thought it was interesting to include this trend among our
culture section is because over the past couple of years we've seen a transformation of people's
relationship with the alcohol industry people's relationship with the cannabis industry so the
question is what comes next especially during a time when people are looking to reprioritize
what it means to live a fulfilled life perhaps they're entertaining this idea
of psychedelic exploration and this isn't as odd as it sounds now we're not necessarily suggesting
everyone who is watching right now needs to explore the world of psychedelics
but it is telling of how people are thinking of what's accepted in the mainstream during
this roaring twenties era so we see legally harvested magic mushrooms we see three-day digital
psychedelic conferences we see tie-dyed mushroom sandwiches and boundary pushing wellness shows
now that wraps us up for our culture section up next we have technology jeremy how have you seen
technology transform in the crisis in chaos era and what do you think that'll mean for
the recharting well in the keynote and workshop side we've done a lot of work with brands like
cisco or ibm microsoft who are working behind the scenes with a lot of the consumer facing brands
and it's been interesting to sort of be implanted in what they're all actually working on from a
technology standpoint i think what happened over the last year is that as ceos started wondering
if they have the right products services and consumers they started expanding the consideration
set for what types of technology could be explored so we've actually seen new commitments
to technology expanding into services that you wouldn't see yet because it takes a year to
to get anything decent size actually implemented but i would say that there's been a much higher
tolerance of risk and consistently when we look at the time periods that have emerged from global
crisis there are higher periods of risk because people are trying to increase their optionality
for whatever might happen in the future so i think that technology companies are happy
to see much larger commitments and budgets to trying new things and we're about to see that
actually play out and and that's the company side on the simple side this year everyone's
grandma and everyone's aunt and uncle and nephew figured out not just zoom but whatever apps were
being used for the families to play games so i feel like the world just upgraded its tech skills
absolutely and it's interesting because it's completely out of necessity right i think that
uh one of the things about technology is that although we have as a society come to rely on
it quite a bit this past year was a question of safety right technology enables physical
distance technology enables lower touch points in industries where typically you need many physical
touch points so we saw a lot of that i'd say in crisis and chaos as well and you'll see some of
that of course in the trends that i've selected now first off i want to talk about metaverse
expansion this takes that idea of technology enabling distance but still providing a sense
of experience to that next level for those who are unfamiliar metaverse is a term that refers to
essentially the internet as we know it however in a way that's more parallel to the way we actually
interact with each other on a day-to-day basis so within a metaverse you're able to integrate
more person-to-person interaction the virtual you're able to integrate perhaps more attention to
virtual clothing which is the first example we see within metaverse expansion essentially metaverse
expansion is about different brands investing and developing metaverse products and experiences and
you know even calling metaverse products products is still something that's so new now as i said our
first example is actually within the fashion space and it's blockchain based virtual sneakers so this
is a sneaker that does not actually exist in the physical world but it does exist in the metaverse
we have user-owned virtual real estate so similar to what we see with the virtual sneaker this is
real estate that does not exist in the ver in the real world but rather strictly in the virtual
world we see futuristic second earth concepts this idea of taking earth to a virtual space
and we see long-term metaverse visions now it's interesting because i think a smaller
scale versions of the metaverse that we're all perhaps more familiar with are most typically
seen in video games fortnite is a metaverse uh minecraft is a metaverse roblox is a metaverse uh
so it's really interesting to see how that expands outside of this industry and of course this is a
very popular trend as you can see with the score so a lot of attention being paid to this one
now taking things back to the actual tangible physical world we have robot retail now you
know just then jeremy and i both talked a little bit about this idea that uh technology needed to
be applied across many different industries for safety purposes and and really what we saw in
these industries where typically we had been asked about technology for them for years and years now
is an acceleration of ideas they already had in the pipeline but hadn't paid that much attention
to that's exactly what we see with robot retail here we see the pandemic accelerating the use of
robots in retail specifically in north america now this was something that was quite normal to see
in asian countries uh you know this idea of having this sort of human free convenience
store for example is a trend that we actually saw on trend hunter back in 2018 which was from
china but now we're seeing an expansion for north american retail companies who are looking to use
robots as a way to enable a sense of safety for consumers and look to cut costs as well
now that is a great segue specifically into our retail trends now retail of course is perhaps one
of the most impacted industries over this past couple of years and inevitably it will continue
to change but what changes do you predict for retail in 2022 jeremy well for those of us that
tuned into our future festival world summit one of the things i opened with was showing the list of
500 brands mostly retailers that went into chapter 11 bankruptcy protection now that doesn't mean
that you're gone but it means that you're in a restructuring period and among those include many
of the shopping mall operators a lot of the big box stores and and what's interesting is at the
very same time the end consumer purchased so often from the big boxes or the uh amazons and walmarts
and then saw their actual street sides get decimated in terms of release signs and
stores coming up so i think what's interesting about retail is that uh you have to approach it
by thinking of the large companies as well as the little guys the mom and pop shops in many
countries usa and canada included there were also a lot of initiatives pushed by brands or companies
like shopify to help the little retailers actually get online and have their own on online shop
so actually in canada the most valuable company on our stock market that's shot past all of the banks
and oil companies is actually shopify because so many entrepreneurs saw that as their lifeline
thousands millions of entrepreneurs literally had that as their lifeline so i think what
you're going to see is that previously the large companies had an online component and then had
to win in the store and then they went in online because you went to the big brand that you went to
but now you're going to see all the mom and pop shops return but freshly armed
with an online website maybe an expanded product suite that they started adapting to during covid
and so what i think that you're going to see that's that is talked about less than it should be
is a proliferation of where competition is coming from and and i think you'll see the support for
the individual consumers to say yeah i want to shop at the mom and pop shop which is not
the news that a lot of our brand retail clients want to actually hear hey you have a million new
competitors now but i think that's the reality of what to prepare for for sure i you know i spending
so much time with our insights have a tendency to come at all industries from this sort of consumer
behavior mindset first and what i find interesting is that though it is true there is this push
um to get more sort of technologically advanced in the retail space i think consumers will have
this sort of push and pull between a desire for that convenience that they've become accustomed
to and a desire for that sort of technological advancement up against a desire for retail
experiences up against this desire to feel more of a human connection when you go shopping
especially in an era where although we're trending toward more safety in so many parts of the world
i think for many individuals it's if i'm going to go out shopping the actual experience of
shopping needs to be worth it to get me out of the house right and that's a lot of what
we see in the trends that i've put together for this so first off we have retail escape
here we see opportunities for very creative presentations of products being more abundant
in virtual environments so this is a sort of compromise between what i was saying
that push and pull of very convenient very safe uh technologically advanced retail versus this
desire for that experience and this humanization so what we see is yes virtual spaces where you can
shop that are presented in these very artistic manners so perhaps it's a very high-end fashion
brand that is inviting you to a beautifully designed boutique that you can tour virtually
but it's also a shoppable space perhaps it's a digital fashion house where you have a sort of
studio for an exclusive designer and you can click in and see details on the specific
fabrics being used and the processes meet the seamstresses but still it is a shoppable website
one of my favorite examples and not just because i was playing the video game quite a bit is we're
seeing a lot of uh brands retail brands on animal crossing which is a video game that is actually
technically a metaverse so we're going full circle uh meeting people where they are in terms of their
digital behavior over this past year and still providing that sense of fun that sense of um
humanization in a space that is easy to access and is still technologically advanced
now going in a different direction here and focusing only on the experience we see shoppable
experience where brands are creating both in-person or virtual experiences that consumers
can shop so for example we have a shoppable luxury video it's technically a music video with celine
dion but the actual music video is shoppable so a piece of content that would have already been
very shareable especially during a time when we're all still stuck to our computers and our phones
except now you can actually shop through it we have shoppable korean hotels so acknowledging
that yes things are starting to open perhaps not everything needs to be a virtual experience we
can provide in person experiences but people still want to be able to envision themselves
living a life that is once again peaceful and adventurous and on vacation simultaneously
and making that space shoppable itself we have shoppable rentable housing which i find very very
interesting now without getting into you know generational information we're seeing
a lot of millennials specifically looking for more flexible ways of living
and if a temporary way of life is something that's just normalized now
why not make those temporary spaces shoppable as well and of course interactive shoppable cooking
shows i know many people myself included experimented quite a bit with cooking
and their culinary skills while locked down at home so why not make those video shoppable as well
so that takes us out of our retail trends and into our next category of eco jeremy i know this is one
of your favorites how do we define sustainability in this new world in the roaring 20s
right you know eco is so interesting is passionate to my heart i've got the solar panel roof and the
electric car and all the things i can do that aren't enough but what i found then to be so
painstaking is that this year people thought was going to be better for eco oh people are at home
there's no commuting but then when the results came through what actually happened is that we
were using way more packaging and there was a shortage in supplies and everyone was stockpiling
and and then there's a billion masks floating in the sea or something that's the scary way of
seeing it that's the doom scrolling you got to go anti-doom scroll to get away from that i'll give
you an app that gets you away from your phone but i do think that this is going to be the example
where there's a rebellion and once we get through this enough around the world then people younger
generations provably expectedly care more about the sustainable world we're in and i think that
they will push even farther the greta generation if you will to make sure that brands are actually
adapting some of the eco principles that they stand for and for that younger generation kovid
looks like it was something mismanaged drastically by the parents that's the easiest way i like to
sort of envision it i keep saying that because i think it's a simple way to imagine how then they
become more aware of eco and they demand change versus sitting in the back seat
right i completely agree with you there i think that even again you know taking it to uh like a
consumer mindset sort of approach um i think many people in the beginning of the pandemic
just kind of accepted that okay i'm gonna use single-use products because it's safer
and i'm going to accept that you know the products i'm interacting with have a lot more packaging
because i'm concerned about actually touching things other people have touched and you know
that sort of thing and i think as the pandemic continued on individuals started feeling a sense
of guilt for that behavior for for that sort of permission that we all granted ourselves to use
all of these single-use products and be kind of irresponsible from an environmental perspective
and are now coming back a lot harder with what they expect now one of the things that i find
most exciting about the eco trends that we saw in this report is that we're seeing a much quicker
turnaround and a much more creative approach to sustainability from brands so i want to kick off
with zero waste cosmetic and i selected this trend to talk about today because the cosmetic industry
notoriously needs to move faster and faster as online communities focus on makeup there are
these entire spaces dedicated to influencers and micro influencers and sometimes just normal people
who just want to post pictures of their makeup artistry setting the trends and so in an industry
that's already learned to move quite quickly it makes sense to then integrate these very fast sort
of turnarounds of more eco-conscious practices that's what we see with zero waste cosmetic
the cosmetic industry now producing zero waste products zero waste packaging in a few creative
ways so we see zero waste beauty packaging we see actual zero waste products zero waste eyeliners
we see zero waste beauty platforms specifically spotlighting brands in the cosmetic space that
offer zero waste products we see zero waste beauty packaging again and zero waste beauty
membership so sort of subscription model for those who know that no matter what kind of
makeup they want to experiment with they want it to be as eco-friendly as possible
one of the other things i love about zero waste cosmetic is it kind of harkens back
to the ancient practices of makeup and the fact that makeup used to be made using natural
materials so it's interesting we see you know sort of return to a sense of simplicity once again now
it's not just in the cosmetics industry where we see these more sort of creative approaches
to sustainability one of the most creative approaches that we've seen here is repurposed
species so this is very interesting here we see brands across many different industries
using invasive species to create products and sort of help rebalance the environment so for example
we have bio concrete tiles we have starfish based ice melters we have fish-based dog foods using
using again species that are invasive and we have invasive carb-based dog foods as well
so next up we get to a new category of social good so in a way related to the eco that we just talked
about but social good saw a huge renewal over this past couple of years again we saw a lot of people
at home sort of reflecting on how they can help make the world a better place not just exist in
the world and do whatever they plan to do so many people use time on lockdown to reflect in this way
do you believe jeremy that this pace and enthusiasm for being a catalyst for positive
change will remain well i certainly hope so trent hunter has a sub brand called socialbusiness.org
which is actually one of our categories where we've covered a couple thousand businesses that
are uh not a charity per se but rather businesses that embed that charitable model within them think
tom's shoes buy a pair of shoes and then a kid in the last privileged country also gets a pair
of shoes look at that see there we go it worked now what we believe is that this time away from
the office working from home has caused also an increase in the number of side hustles side gigs
and and probably young entrepreneurs thinking about what they could actually do and so often
those new businesses come with that charitable model as the world's been shifting towards that
so uh i don't have a favorite example that's come yet out of kovid but i am hoping to see
more examples in the next let's say a year right i feel the exact same way you know there's been
it has been definitely a silver lining of this past year to see so many people so many
organizations and so many brands mobilize in this way for the causes that they believe in
you know um and i i yeah i hope it lasts um i think that it will as you've said many times
um the younger generation has sort of seen you know questionable practices from older generations
in the past and has this renewed mission to keep it going um so i do believe that we'll kind of
continue with this focus and this enthusiasm for positive change in general now one of my favorite
examples here is mutual aid network because i think it is a very simplistic straightforward
way to provide uh support to marginalized communities now what we saw during the pandemic
is organizations supporting and launching various approaches to mutual aid networks now one of the
first ones i want to spotlight i'm so proud of because it exists in trend hunter's hometown of
toronto so we see toronto based community fridges which are just available all across the city
and as i said one of my favorite things about this trend is how simplistic the actual examples are it
is community fridges you know exactly what that means find the location of a community fridge
bring some food over to it drop it in there and that fridge is available for anyone in
the community who needs to find something to eat what an awesome example we also have neighborhood
support networks we say we see uk based mutual aid networks and grassroots mutual aid
funds which don't focus specifically on these kinds of resources of shelter or food but also
actual money provided to individuals who perhaps don't have the same opportunities that we do
now another example here is charitable nfts now nfts have been a huge discussion point over this
past year's stands course for non-fungible token and one of the best ways to describe it is an nft
is kind of like a collectible card so through various checkpoints online um an item is sort
of uh confirmed sort of clarified as authentic uh and a one-to-one piece so that is what we're
seeing in the charity space nfts being auctioned off with profits donated to ngos and non-profit
organizations so we see virtual tipping nfts which is from stella artois we see signature
virtual speakers sneakers sorry we see charitable snack themed nfts and charitable definition nfts
so let's move on to food and beverage trends i hinted to this earlier i'm definitely one of the
people who experimented with their culinary skills especially in the first half of the pandemic
and i think that speaks to two major themes we've seen here so renewed interest in diy
and a renewed interest in wellness so jeremy what do these mean to you how do you think they'll
transform in 2022 well we've seen that uh surge in people learning how to cook themselves we've seen
restauranteurs giving their lessons their recipes away online as a way to stay connected with their
end consumers their diners we've also seen in past research which we confirmed in survey research
something called a return to the kitchen which is that when you go through crisis
you start rethinking about what's important to you family sticks and even though you're going
to go out and enjoy all the restaurants you can you're going to keep that sacred sunday evening
meal which is interesting and then yes after a year year and a half depending on where you are
of uh living at home with your own indulgences we've seen some people go super healthy
and others not so much so suddenly making conscious choices like the saltzer movement
versus beer is starting to actually get a lot of traction this year saw a huge abundance of
salsas with dozens and dozens of new brands pretty much every beer maker getting in with their new
healthy salts or drinks and some of them are actually starting to add in
to create nutraceuticals where they're putting in whether it's vitamins or healthy ingredients
so that you can live that dream of getting healthier while imbibing with your friends
so that's what spikes out to me but i i do feel like it's another category where people are
suddenly focused a little bit more than they were two years ago right one of the interesting things
that i've seen and for those of you who have uh visited or well visited when we were in person
logged into a future festival event over this past couple of years typically i
specialize in generational trends in the food and beverage space there have been a lot of sort of
not i'd say separations between generations but stick out behaviors among specific generations
so for example uh generation x has seen a really renewed interest in wellness and their approach
to food um we've also seen among gen x uh this mission to start cooking with our kids uh as a
way to sort of encourage togetherness so i think combining those two things it makes a lot of sense
i'm cooking with my kids and i want to have this more wellness-focused approach for their sake
almost on the opposite end you have my generation the millennials who've decided to just sort of
yeah maybe i'll add things to my food to make it more healthy but in general i want to enjoy
myself through the food and the drink that i'm consuming i definitely fall in that category i'm
very guilty of that and then of course with the rise of tick tock and food tick tock specifically
gen z has this interest in sort of creativity and how food can provide a sense of self-expression
so a lot of this interesting things from a generational perspective for sure
speaking of generations the first trend that i have here for a food and beverage is blue
zone living which for those of you who are unaware of blue zone is a region on the planet
where typically people grow to a much older age than everywhere else so a new approach to sort
of wellness and to eating and to drinking is seen with sort of mimicking the eating habits that we
see in blue zones and that becoming a sort of diet approach in itself so brands optimizing
these experiences to facilitate longer and better lives so we see high quality art artisan pasta
boxes speaking to a blue zone within italy we see longevity focused wellness spa retreats longevity
focused diets which is the actual blue zones kitchen and blue zones focused organizations which
provide a sort of holistic way of approaching your life with that sort of blue zone state of mind
now another approach to this is reduced cooking so reduced cooking takes that sort of re-emergence of
diy that returned to the kitchen that jeremy spoke about and combines it with the needs of
that sort of eco-consciousness we're seeing popular chefs create and collaborate with
brands to prioritize the use of food waste so we see waste reducing celebrity chefs
we see sparkling whey drinks speaking to those seltzers jeremy talked about earlier
but these are specifically using sort of food waste from other processes and other beverages
health-focused vegan drive-throughs where what we're doing is using
you know the fruits and vegetables that don't make it to the grocery store and ikea's famous
food scrap cookbook which i actually downloaded i gave i gave it a good try um honestly i wound
up opting for takeout because like i said i'm an indulgent millennial um but food scrap cookbook
is actually free to download on ikea's website so highly recommend i'm picturing the directions you
see in an ikea assembly catalog yeah oh yeah and it's beautifully designed too of course
all right so up next we get to one of my favorite categories which is fashion and cosmetic trends
so this industry similar to the retail space sustained huge changes during the chaos phase
uh which of those shifts did you see and which is your favorite haircuts that's going to be a
wild one for everyone and i don't have as much to contribute to this category but i will tell
you what i loved seeing was there was a surge in eye makeup and a dramatic drop in lipstick
because of everyone all of us wearing a mask so i think this is a better oh i'll say one note from
past periods of crisis though which is very interesting so zara which i had done a lot of case
study on in my book better and faster has all the data in the planet of all the colors and all the
preferences and they had noted that normally color preferences are similar everywhere except french
women like a black and white and in south america their desire for color but there's also research
that out of periods of crisis people do have a desire for more colorful and joyful clothing
if you go back to the roaring 20s there's also this idea of total exuberant dress codes and the
flapper movement all these things happened in a period of chaotic cultural reawakening
right i mean i think strictly from a design perspective um that idea of wanting excess uh
during you know post-downturn periods is something we're already seeing if you're a person who spends
any time on tech talk right depending on what your algorithm is showing you you may have noticed this
sort of resurgence in early and mid 2000s fashion which is notably how do i say this gently loud is
notably loud and i actually lived through it i had some of those clothes in that original period and
they're coming back which i think is surprising to those of us who look back on photos of us in
those clothes and cringe like myself but i think it makes a lot of sense because it definitely was
a period of very loud colors it was a period of excess it was a period where the clothes
didn't necessarily need to be functional they just needed to draw attention they just needed to make
a statement so that is definitely one exciting design trend in the fashion and cosmetic space
i wanted to take a different approach for the trends that i showed for you all today
by continuing to sort of highlight that connection between uh the fashion and
cosmetic world and what we see in the sort of social good space what we see in the ecospace
so dead stock garment is an insight that shows brands salvaging and upcycling dead stock textiles
to support a sense of sustainability yes but also to provide an element of exclusivity
if there is a garment that has been dead stocked which means it is discontinued however you can
have that textile sort of repurposed into a completely new piece well that's a way to
not only live a more sustainable life but to also get a piece of fashion culture which of course is
especially important to consumers today who spent the past year perhaps
looking at their interests more as hobbies and learning more about these areas that they were
only casually interested in in the past now another example here is prebiotic serum so for
this we look at the cosmetic space specifically the skin care space and here we see an ingredient
that was huge within the wellness space and within supplements now being used specifically in skin
care so skin care seems in serums including prebiotics in order to let probiotics thrive
so i love this because it shows a crossover between the world of yes food and beverage
also wellness also supplements and the skin care space and i think that's a really great example
of this sort of hybridization that jeremy was speaking about earlier in our introduction there
which of course is a great segue into health and wellness so in the health and wellness space the
concept of self-care reign supreme i believe march 2020 saw the peak in the most google searches
for the term self-care because it was the first month of us really sort of understanding what's
happening with the pandemic and understanding we need to take care of ourselves in the crisis phase
how do you define self-care well it's interesting because if you asked me a couple years ago i would
have thought of it being simply more some of the physical and beauty related regimens that
a person gets into but with mental health really surging to the forefront this year
i think that self-care also for from me and others starts to incorporate all the things that you're
actually doing to ensure that you're in a positive mindset in the right space dealing with everything
that's happening and so from that standpoint this has been a big test of a year in the areas that
have already come out areas of america that are fully open the reports that are coming back would
be that the human mind is actually much better at rebounding than what you would have expected
and there are certain ways to actually study your resilience and how quickly people bounce back
and the good news for anyone still in an area more lockdown you'll bounce back sooner than you think
but i think that self-care uh is an area that sort of helped people get through what happened to us
in this last year and a half and so i'm really interested in in what continues and what habits
stick with people and what new tolerances for others we've started to build in
to sort of everything that we've become definitely hit the nail on the head i i
even myself someone who um has always kind of enjoyed the idea of self-care a couple
of years ago that was mostly about a spa day if i'm being completely honest with myself
um but you know over lockdown it's really been much more about that sense of holistic wellness
uh actually one of our futurists taran boyd hi taran if you're watching um they have a really
awesome presentation on self-care where self-care is also positioned as something that can help you
care for your community as well so you know self-care is not just a concept that's about
self-indulgence and about taking care of yourself not even just physically but also
mentally it's about how doing so will enable you to make the world a better place in general
now you know i think what we're both saying is that self-care can no longer just be about
physical aspects it needs to be more expansive we definitely saw that with meditation pairing so
here we see that yes although we've always had apps that were dedicated to helping people with
maintaining a sense of calm and guiding people through the process of learning how to meditate
we were seeing brands that were not necessarily in that space finding ways to sort of pair with
meditation apps so you know we saw dating app meditations for example we saw soothing working
from home features where perhaps software that you needed to use now that you're working in a
virtual office also integrated a sense of mental wellness meditative friendship apps and i love
this trend because it sort of acknowledges that taking care of your mental health isn't
something that can just be placed in a vacuum it needs to be present in every aspect of your life
now another great example here that focuses more on the sort of physical wellness that we need
to pay attention to especially in the face of our recent sort of crisis in chaos
is accessible vaccination now the accessibility of vaccinations of course varies across different
parts of the world and i saw in our comments there we have a lot of folks from a lot of
different places around the world but here what we're seeing is branded offerings and features
aiming to make the vaccine accessible in many different ways in many different areas so we
have vaccination finding smart assistance we have vaccination center hosting restaurants
we have social media vaccine fact boxes ride share vaccination partnerships and even target getting
in uh on this uh this idea of providing more accommodations for employees who are vaccinated
i know here in toronto one of the big accounts on twitter is actually vax hunters that's been a huge
huge help in people looking to find ways to get vaccinated during these times so really a really
great um really direct focus when it comes to the health and wellness space over the past year
and what a year it's been now we're going to do a little bit of q a so if you have some questions
send them in what i would like to say is that i hope you're enjoying our early release of the
annual trend report so often we paired it with our future festival world summit and i do invite
you to go to that you can get a ticket to the day one virtual part for free or take part in the full
three day experience or join us in real life uh but the the simple notion of what i wanted to say
for why we went early this year is because it does seem like now that we're seeing the light
at the end of the tunnel we wanted to release the research that we've been working on to really help
you jump ahead of what we've been in this period to help you get to what's next because what's next
will be literally a land grab of opportunity and by studying trends you're studying the clues that
will lead you to the new paths of opportunity by taking the time to read through this new annual
report that we have you are taking a first step in literally getting in front of whatever's been
worked on by your competitors whatever changes have happened to your consumer so i applaud you
for doing that and uh you if you don't have the link maybe one of our teammates will share it
right now in the comments um it's the link that says go.trendhunter.com 2022 trend report but
that will take you right to a download it is 234 pages so it's going to download for a while and
while it's downloading i will get thousands of emails every time i release it saying
the link doesn't work the link works it's just enormous and it's coming
so with that said let's jump into some of the q a questions and i'll start with an easy one for
you army we just went through a whole bunch of insights when you went through this and picked
ah let's talk about these 20 today of the i think 600 your team insights your team found this year
100 that you put in the report what jumped out at you the most in what you were covering today
oh my goodness what jumped out to me the most that is a tough tough question um
this may not be a satisfying answer i'm going to go ahead and say one of the overarching
themes that really jumped out to me was that across all industries it is true that there is
this sense of excitement and there is this not just willingness to experiment because i think
and i'm sure you can agree with this um in the work that we do with our clients there is always
a willingness to experiment that's why they come to us but there is this thirst for experimentation
this like excitement to try new things um that really jumped out across all industries especially
you know in the ecospace as i said there were so many creative approaches to how to be more
sustainable across different industries i only showed two here but really it's a huge highlight
of the report that i would definitely recommend everyone looking into um you know the the idea
that there is a certain amount of attention being paid to the metaverse which is like a new concept
for the world all around not just for the tech industry um and i think that sense of excitement
that that thirst for experimentation is really my favorite thing across all the trends so for me
i very much am wholeheartedly committed and excited about this idea of uh crisis chaos
and recharting and the idea that we went through a distinctly different period and that what's next
is different so for me the anti-doom scrolling really spoke out because i think doom scrolling
is not something that most of us did before but it sure was easy during covid in fact my wonderful
fiance taylor made a rule called covid tuesdays and in the house i was only allowed to talk about
kovid on tuesdays because it's too easy to click click click so i hadn't thought about the word
doom scroll and when i saw i believe it was the uh the tourism iceland app was the first anti-doom
scrolling app that i'd seen and when i saw it you clip and you just get all this beautiful b-roll
footage of iceland you keep flipping but as you're doing it so i encourage you to check it out it's
in your report you can click through you will just think wow look at all this good stuff this is the
opposite of what i was doing that is correct so it speaks to crisis that's doom scrolling
chaos the new world being anti-doom scrolling and basically just this resurgence of getting us back
to a new reality i don't want to use the word new normal anymore but a new reality yeah interesting
that you don't necessarily want to use the word new normal i agree with that i see that one of
the questions that we have coming in in the chat is when do you think in-person conferences will
become the norm again and we're we are weirdly in the united states absolutely back armida and
i have a unique experience because we work with so many american clients but actually toronto is
the world's longest lockdown of a city we have uh restaurants open no restaurants we were the law
the shortest but overall lockdown the longest in the world and so our restaurants are still closed
until friday which is 400 and something days but the rest of the city's been under lockdown
and yet in america they're totally open and in other countries they're back to rebattling it
so given the number of people that are on the line right now i think that's a very difficult question
to ask because it's very different in england where we've got the delta coming back brazil where
it's not quite figured out america where things are back to normal conferences are happening and
i go to my next event next week in canada where we're psychologically intimidated by the lockdown
even though our rates are fine well the reason why i wanted to single out that question is because of
because of the term the norm i don't know if it will necessarily you know i think the the norm and
i appreciate they are no longer saying new normal because it's true does imply a return to something
familiar i don't think that we will be returning to something familiar do i think that this idea
of in-person not just conferences but events in general will be springing up in different
parts of the world of course will the events look extremely different absolutely there is something
i want to tell you about that i think you'll love if you're coming to our future festival in new
york l.a or chicago which are all in november we saw a lanyard system that we'll be adopting and
it was at another conference where there's three colors of lanyards and one color means like i'm
good with high fives and hugs like i'm vaccinated i'm there but then the other two are different
levels of sensitivity so that you could know are you someone that's back to handshaking yet
because maybe you're not so there's probably going to be a phase of adapting where even if you're at
a large event there are considerations that are made to help people in their different stages of
recovery interesting uh okay i'll ask a question for you these are all from the audience are there
um oh that one's very similar we just said let me read this next one in the next two
years or more of being the roaring 20s do you see consumers going into more excesses at home
are there high price points that are going to be happening excessive spending maybe talk about your
thoughts on excess right i think so i believe that the question is not just about you know general
access but also will that sense of excess in the roaring 20s impact home life i think the answer is
yes um i i think that in fact the spending that we do for our homes and that includes you know
cleaning products that includes furniture that includes um the food that we eat the food that
we make uh will be one of the main areas where we see more not necessarily more extravagance
and more spending but more attention being paid in more care which for some could translate to
more excess so i think one really great example is how many people became so engulfed in the world of
house plants house plants of all things right in the early phases of the pandemic and why because
it provided a sense of aesthetic beauty in the home but also a hobby and something that was
simultaneously good for us because taking care of something is obviously really fortifying but also
really beautiful to look at and i think that that will continue on i think another great example
of um more excess and more sort of attention paid in the home is the desire to have more sort of
specialty grocery items to help you with a return to the kitchen so we saw a huge boost in specialty
direct-to-consumer grocery shopping so this idea of wanting to get you know ethical meats um
or wanting to do specifically uh produce coming straight from the farm um are people spending
more time cooking at home and is that more affordable in general perhaps but the ingredients
are ingredients that people want to be a little bit more special right so excess in the home i
definitely think that will continue i'm worse so i'm working right now on my um keynote for future
festival world summit you can go to day one free shameless plug but why i wanted to introduce it is
because i'm looking at a lot of the patterns that came out of the roaring 20s as well as a few other
crisis periods and people think about the excess spending which is glamorized in something like
great gatsby but what's interesting is that's only one of the things what actually happens is
it's a proliferation a mad scramble of everything happening so on one hand there were people that
were experiencing mass excess but also there was a period of higher risk taking there was
a period of absolute liberation of women uh of uh blacks getting into like actual congressional
roles and being able to have full privileges but at the same time racism so all of these things
started happening in every possible direction and almost the only thing that jumps out at you is
higher risk taking and people doing everything not sticking to the routine that they're on so
there's some neat takeaways but the i do want to caveat that some of the excess of the roaring 20s
is very much a small small segment that's one little component there's actually a lot of
other things but they were roaring 20s because for everyone it was a time of new habits new behaviors
and new risk taking so in 2021 speak everyone will be doing the most they will be doing themselves
at the highest level that they know how to do that uh okay i'll give you another question i
think this is a fun one you've covered some of this and what you were saying when you were in
the retail section but someone asked for the future of retail do you think people return
to malls very specific question or purely shopping local oh interesting um
you know i think that instead of thinking about the literal mall there will be a desire to go back
to a shopping space that is a sort of area where you can go with your friends an area where you
can spend like an afternoon or an evening hanging out and yes shopping together and you know going
to a food court and eating some food but like i said with the earlier question about conferences
i don't think it'll be a return to the mall as we know it just like it won't be a return to a
conference or an in-person event as we know it i think that there will be a need to sort of
combine uh this sort of tech and convenience uh approach to retail that we've seen um the sort
of humanization you get from shopping more locally and that sort of experience such social experience
you get from malls as we remember them when people start shopping in malls i do believe that these
sort of let's call them combined shopping spaces can have more of a local flair to them there's
a really great example actually here in toronto called stacked market which actually started as a
pop-up but has become a permanent fixture because people love it so much that is technically a
mole when you think about it it's a collection of stores in one area that is attached to you cheated
you gave the answer shop local and go to i am jeremy knows because he likes stacked market too
so it's basically a shopping center of local shops come together in this temporary space of stacked
shipping containers so but i do think that that is what the future mall will look like so uh this
wraps us up for the time i thank you very much for what you've devoted in terms of taking that first
step of diving into 2022 armeda if someone wants to engage your client team for more customized
version of one of these reports or presentations what do you recommend as next steps yeah so i
recommend of course you know if you haven't downloaded the report download the report because
if you're thinking of getting more information from us more services it's probably going to help
you figure out what direction you want to go in i would definitely visit trentonhunter.compro and
yeah check out basically all of our product pages all right thank you very much enjoy the report and
i will see you next with armenia when we bring you to future festival virtual in september
foreign