Let's talk context this month. Some of the below may seem obvious, but
at least it will provide you with a bit of a framework to see the
cohesion between individual trends we've discussed over the last two and
a half years, from GENERATION C and NO FRILLS CHIC to ONLINE OXYGEN and
MASSCLUSIVITY . Trends that have gone hand in hand with innovative new
consumer goods, services and experiences from around the world. The one
thing these innovations have had in common? They've raised consumer
expectations that were already sky-high.

In earlier newsletters and in our public seminars , we've referred to
these exceedingly high expectations as MASS CLASS STANDARDS . So we know
YOU know this. Yet, these standards are about more than consumers simply
expecting reliable quality or affordable prices. Slowly but certainly,
on a global scale, consumer expectations now revolve around knowing
about and wanting superior quality, often at rock-bottom prices,
combined with cutting edge design and instantly availability. So who
does the consumer turn to? A select group of brands, based anywhere from
Spain to South Korea, who are meeting if not exceeding these
expectations with such vigor, that even following their lead is now a
hygiene factor in itself for their competitors. And not following or
out-innovating them equals a certain death.





Want names? Consumers from Taiwan to Trinidad can rattle them off as
fast as they're ditching non-performers. Fast Fashion? Spanish Zara and
Swedish H&M. Usability and Celebration of Consumer Passions? American
Apple and Finnish Nokia. Mobile phones that outdo all of your other
gadgets? South Korean Samsung and LG. Superior lifestyle branding?
American Nike. Well designed yet affordable furniture? Swedish IKEA. And
then there's Dell, and ING Direct and JetBlue, and RIM, and Target, and
W Hotels (joined by XYZ soon), and WalMart, and TESCO, and Starbucks,
who are all upping the hygiene levels for their respective categories
and for entire disciplines across the board (think customer service,
ecommerce prowess, distribution).




So welcome to HYGIENIA *: a marketplace inhabited by mature consumers
from South Korea to Brazil, from Australia to Canada, who can instantly
and expertly point out the various hygiene factors for each and every
good, service and experience on offer. They base their knowledge on many
years of self-training in hyper-consumption, and on the now almost
biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources and
filters helping them to track down the Best of the Best, the Cheapest of
the Cheapest, the First of the First.

* And about the name: it might not be pretty, but it should be sticky.

Mature Consumers



We've all seen the numbers: by the time an American teen is 17 years
old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the
media. Her parents devote many hours a week honing their 'Trading-Down
in order to Trade-Up' strategies. Shopping beats every other category in
'favorite pastime' polls. And the situation isn't much different in
Western Europe or Japan or Australia, while from the Dubai desert to
Chinese megacities, millions are eager to join, for better and worse.

It doesn't hurt that all the stuff to be consumed keeps going down in
price while quality goes up (thank economies of scale and scope, the
tech revolution, and more brands than ever trying their best to impress
consumers). According to Phillips, a typical 22-inch TV set cost GBP 248
(EUR 350/USD 440) in 1984, but today an equivalent 21-inch model is 49
per cent less at GBP 126 (EUR 178/USD 225). Abundance, experience and
thus HYGIENIA define today's consumer society, with mature consumers
taking their duties very seriously, cutting through most
corporate/marketing BS without too much trouble, and demanding
performance instead.

- - - - -

Instant knowledge, instant gratification



The consumer society has been around for a while, and HYGIENIA has been
slowly building in the background. The biggest difference with five to
ten years ago? Word of mouth now travels the world instantly, making
every new product launch globally in a flash, and turning every new
brand into a potential global player. Thanks to the WWW, the information
gap has already closed, and it won't be much longer before the
distribution gap is history too. Sony still (but only just) gets away
with a phased introduction of its PSP. There is no such escape for
anything that can be digitized: it needs to be rolled out around the
world in one go, as consumers anywhere may hear about it within hours,
then want to watch it, listen to it, read it, and won't hesitate to
download pirated versions if you make them wait too long.

No excuses




Besides experience, consumers can now rely on thousands of new sources
that disseminate HYGIENIA standards at the blink of an eye. Think price
comparison sites, cool hunting blogs, review and recommendation portals,
industry expert newsletters and more, all operating on a de facto global
scale.
-The Expedias and Hotels.com inform consumers on what the Internet Price
(read: Cheapest of the Cheapest) is for the Hudson hotel in NY, and then
thanks to Gridskipper.com and sister-site Gawker.com, and
Superfuture.com, out-of-towners will effortlessly track down the hottest
local bars in Manhattan, tool.
-Consumers know exactly where to get their Durkl t-shirts, whether they
live in Miami or Manaus, thanks to coolhunting.com and
thecoolhunter.net.
-They're acquainted with every detail and feature of new phones being
sold ahead of time in South Korea, thanks to gizmodo.com.
-They know where to score the best eco-friendly yet well-designed
alternatives to polluting old-school products, thanks to treehugger.com.

The real catch? If they know, so should you. Best of breed, best
practices, it's nothing new, but never before has everything been so in
the open, and never before have consumers done their homework so much
more diligently than corporations. In fact, armed with all this
information, consumers will increasingly be confident enough to try out
completely unknown brands, bypassing 'trusted' incumbents.
All in all, it leaves no excuses for brands not to know the new HYGIENIA
standards.

- - - - -

You know it when you see it
Spotting and understanding HYGIENIA is not a science, in fact it's a
nice mix of experience and intuition. You kind of know it when you see
it (or buy it).

Supermarkets and hospitals




HYGIENIA and groceries: after shopping in a Tesco store, or in this
supermarket in Reykjavik, Iceland, what consumer would like to go back
to yesteryear's stores?





HYGIENIA in hospitals: coffee on a MASS CLASS scale is now synonymous
with Starbucks. In fact, the availability of drinkable coffee in public
spaces is now a minimum requirement. Next? Even more modern design, even
more refined choice. Even hospitals (like the OLVG in The Netherlands,
above) are starting to offer tasty macchiatos in stylish surroundings.

- - - - -

Entertainment




If you're Blockbuster, your offline HYGIENIA benchmark should be
redroomdvd in Sydney (until you really become obsolete, thanks to
Netflix and BitTorrent). Broadband-challenged customers can browse
redroomdvd's selection in 24/7 interactive movie stations, watch
trailers, access stills and read reviews of their selected movie before
deciding to rent it (for as little as 6 hours). The DVDs of choice are
then ejected from a dispensing podium. Not hard to see how this will
become the minimum in service and choice levels if you insist on doing
things offline.

- - - - -

Sliding up and down the HYGIENIA Scale
What it all comes down to is Creative Destruction. Your company will
have to innovate even faster and in even more imaginative ways. Your
customers demand the now global basics to be covered and they expect to
be pleasantly surprised, if not have a direct say in what gets produced
and created. (See our recent CUSTOMER MADE special .) In a nutshell:
what you invent today will be copied tomorrow, improved next week, and
made redundant next month. Or lose its value in another, HYGIENIA
-related way. And so you will find yourself forever sliding up and down
our (not very academic but hands-on) HYGIENIA scale:




Think of the HYGIENIA scale as a quick way to determine where you stand
and where you could or should go when it comes to positioning and
serving your customers. It's a work in progress, but for now, we've
included:

FREE LOVE : Nice stuff that comes for free, gratis, nada; from Metro and
The London Business Daily (to launch later this year) to Smart Car
rentals plastered with advertising (as featured in the upcoming issue of
Springwise 's newsletter) to (one day) Ryanair tickets, to Wikipedia to,
well, most of the Net's content. FREE LOVE can obviously be devastating
as it moves consumers' expectations towards a total unwillingness to pay
for alternatives. Your alternative?

CHEAP HEAPS : Cheapest of the cheapest. Rock bottom prices. No frills.
Costco. easyGroup. Can kill one's painstakingly constructed customer
relationships overnight, as they leave you for discounts that are just
too good to be true.

NO FRILLS CHIC : Cheap yet well designed, with a la carte luxury
options. It's where consumers go when they've had it with CHEAP HEAPS'
lack of fun and sophistication. Song. Target. H&M.

MASS CLASS : The global standard for what used to be the middle markets,
though it mirrors or surpasses the standards that were thought of as
'luxury' only a few years ago. HŠagen-Dazs, Samsung, Starbucks. Many
brands think they're MASS CLASS. Yet if they do their HYGIENIA homework,
it will reveal that they're not, orÑeven worseÑthey're not anything else
on the scale, either.

MASSCLUSIVITY : New luxury and status for the masses. An ever tougher
act to deliver as MASS CLASS standards are already so high. The premium
to be had here requires hard work. Think, for now, Coach, Lufthansa,
Bulgari Hotels, but also limited edition goods by Adidas and Nike, as
well as many GRAVANITY services.

UBER PREMIUM : Luxury accessible only to the elite. Which is where many
previous MASSCLUSIVITY players are now battling it out, as MASS CLASS is
starting to overlap their old territory. Maybach Exelero. NetJets. And
everything you read about in FT's Perfect Weekend column ;-)

The scale in action
As a consumer or business professional, HYGIENIA surrounds you
everywhere you go. Take, for example, airports: global meeting points
par excellence. Imagine a few modern, HYGIENIA -type airports (top of
our head: Singapore's Changi, Copenhagen's Kastrup, Hong Kong Intl,
Amsterdam's Schiphol, Munich...), and picture their public waiting
spaces. Well designed. Airy. Leather seats. Espresso bar within reach.
Sushi and fresh sandwich bar at arm's length. WiFi. A kiosk selling 100
international magazines. Very MASS CLASS, yet all those amenities were,
in a not so distant past, exclusively reserved for business class
lounges. So business lounges have a hard time remaining on the scale, as
yesterday's MASSCLUSIVITY standards now equals today's MASS CLASS
standards.



Painful, for sure. But it gets worse: most business lounges now actually
look and feel worse than the new MASS CLASS. They're stuck in a pre-
HYGIENIA world, not even part of the scale anymore. No wonder that
airlines like British Airways (First Class terminal at Heathrow) and
Lufthansa (an entire business class terminal , not just a lounge) are
fighting back with UBER PREMIUM offerings. And for all those airports
not yet offering the new MASS CLASS levels of comfort... Their visitors,
who literally get around, and know exactly what is offered elsewhere,
will vote with their wallet, and, whenever possible, with their feet.






Conclusion? The bar continues to be raised, creative destruction is a
given, and while keeping up with (let alone setting) the trends can be
tiring, the alternative is even less appealing. To broaden your HYGIENIA
thinking, make sure you also check out:

BRANDED BRANDS : Co-invent with other brands to stay on top in HYGIENIA
.

INSPERIENCES : When HYGIENIA takes over consumers' homes. We'll leave
this one for the next update, but as luxury has been democratized and is
invading people's cocoons, more often than not consumers will notice
that what's being offered outside their homes is no match for their own
domestic HYGIENIA standards.

NOUVEAU NICHE : Will HYGIENIA make everything bland and predictable? Not
if you take the niche players into account...

TWINSUMER : Adding relevance to word of mouth ensures even faster
proliferation of HYGIENIA standards.

CUSTOMER MADE : What if consumers eventually demand to co-create their
own HYGIENIA standards?

OPPORTUNITIES

From ignorance to irritation to irrelevance
Let's face it, in the past you could get away with not performing at
your industry's global peak, as consumers didn't enjoy full transparency
of the best, the cheapest, the first, the most original, the most
relevant. Chances are, even your own business didn't! Today, there is no
excuse. They know, you know. And thousands of new blogs, newsletters and
ventures dedicated to increasing HYGIENIA awareness will see to it that
the last remaining virtual and geographical barriers to information will
soon be eradicated. Which means any kind of willingness amongst
consumers to be patient, to be forgiving, even to be cooperative and
give you some feedback on how to be more like other, better performing
competitors, is dwindling fast. Their already massive irritation will
eventually turn into indifference towards laggards, rendering them
utterly irrelevant.



The good news
How hard can it be to at least start listing all the HYGIENIA factors
for your own industry? Or your own discipline? If consumers can do it,
surely so can you. And how would you rate the stuff you sell on the
HYGIENIA scale? Are you MASS CLASS? NO FRILLS CHIC? Trend setter,
follower, or not even in the game? Who's working hard, seen and unseen,
to wipe you off the scale all together? Get your camera phone, your
Moleskine or your PDA, and start taking HYGIENIA notes and pictures.
Online. Offline. Roaming the streets. Wherever you are, whatever you do
or experience. As a consumer, and as a business professional. Find the
sources that list the best of the best. Big and small. Across all
industries. Worldwide, from Tokyo's Omotesando to Sao Paulo's Jardins.
Find competitors who are setting consumer expectations much higher than
you've ever been able to. They're more fun. They have better design.
Their stuff tastes, looks, feels better. They're cheaper. Then compile
what you think are now the global standards for whatever it is you do,
and from there start thinking about new goods, services and experiences.
More on HYGIENIA in future newsletters, including the role of new niche
brands setting global standards. In the meantime, happy spotting!

Publisher: Trendwatching
One of the world's fastest growing trend agencies, independent and opinionated TRENDWATCHING.COM scans the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas. So whether youre a marketer, management consultant, head of a start-up, student, researcher, journalist, business development director, fellow trend watcher, or just interested in staying on top of the latest trends, TRENDWATCHING.COM will instantly bring you up-to-date by getting the worlds most promising trends right in front of you
Web: www.trendwatching.com
Published: march 2005
Market: mens womens
Region: usa

DISCLAIMER
Information in this report relies on sources including Trade Shows, Associations, News Releases, Government Reports and other public sources. Infomat can accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such information or for loss or damage caused by any use thereof.