Just Another 2020 Digital Trends Article
It seems every year like clockwork every agency, research company and industry experts of various disciplines will come out with an article entitled something along the lines of ‘trends to look for in 2020’. Being one to follow these trends closely and analysing many of these articles, I have decided to do the same but with a twist. Below I have written a summary of these trends and put my thoughts forward on which of these trends will be most important to marketers and businesses in 2020 and beyond.
This Nostalgia Is Making Me Thirsty
Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime and now Disney + have put more new original content at our fingertips than we have ever had before, however the rights for old favourites like Seinfeld and Friends have broken serious records in the past 12 months. Streaming platforms are throwing around serious cash to get their hands on these classics. The nostalgia does not stop there, in the last 18 months Disney has remade all their old favourites, out with the new in with the old.
The nostalgic trend crosses the board and i’m not talking about that bearded guy in your favourite inner city cafe who looks like he’s been kicked through an op shop. Retired logos are reemerging, vinyl records are having their hottest year since 1983, businesses are taking this trend seriously and in a big way.
Why
I dunno, because people are weird? Unfortunately not, we are predictable, habitual creatures for the most part. Nostalgia is a powerful tool for marketers to influence consumer decision making, because the feeling of nostalgia is wrapped in a sense of comfortability and affection. We associate shows like Seinfeld with happy experiences, maybe you spent hours on the couch watching Seinfeld with your old roommates back in the day, or maybe you spent countless hours trying to beat that first gym on Pokemon Yellow with your underdeveloped Pikachu (that was me). Get the idea? Nostalgia is a powerful emotion and more relevant to marketers now than ever.
Studies have found there is a direct link between feelings of nostalgia making people feel more optimistic, and here is the big one it actually reduces the consumers rational tendency to conserve spending…wow. Good marketing is the ability to sell a feeling, and nostalgia can be key to doing just that, great news for brands.
What It Means For Tech
Nostalgia will always be a winner, I guess the thing to note is how what is nostalgic will be varied between different generations and how marketers can profile, store and utilise that data. To do this, I believe you would have to look at consumers demographic and geographic factors and assess this against their sentiment towards different generational touchstones. From there you can order this data into a format that could be plugged into a marketing platform such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads Manager and set the campaigns to personalize and show ads based on these factors. That last bit was me geeking out a little bit, but basically you could program an advertising campaign to target different people with different messages that hold nostalgia to them to make them forget about rational spending (only kidding).
Surviving The Retail Apocalypse: A Hitchhiker’s Guide
Short of seeing a fully fledged zombie roll out of your local Harvey Norman, the experts have named 2020 as another slow year for bricks and mortar retailers. The statistics are hard to ignore with over 9,000 retailers closing their doors throughout the US and UK in 2019. It’s not all doom and gloom for retailers though, an opportunity is starting to present somewhere in the balance between online and offline shopping.
The solution increasingly points to an integration between offline and online shopping, where the two channels work in unison to compliment each other and deliver a better overall shopping experience for the consumer. What we are seeing now is a new concept of coexistence emerging between online and offline shopping. This coexistence is smooth, complementary and mutually beneficial for retailers and consumers. This concept still places importance on a physical shopfront, as there are advantages to this that simply cannot be ignored, but adds more balance between the channels.
With big players like Amazon at the forefront of online shopping, it was looking like a turkey shoot for traditional retailers. And sure while these big players have taken their toll on physical retail, we are starting to see a resurgence. This resurgence is centred around the complex motivations consumers have for being drawn to online or offline shopping environments.
Why
What am I talking about? Let’s look at consumer behaviour from a 2020 perspective to find out why. Firstly, as humans we have an insatiable urge for things we can hold in our hands. We are creatures who simply love and crave tangible items, especially in exchange for our hard earned currency. A marker for this is a study conducted by Global Web Index, that concluded that over 70% of Gen Z (ages 16–22) consumers surveyed still prefer to shop for apparel in-store as opposed to online. The reason for this is the irreplaceable experience of shopping in-store, that unadulterated dose of retail therapy where you walk out carrying a swag of different bags from retailers who made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.
A parallel can be made here between online and offline retail and the impact UberEats, Deliveroo and the sort had on the hospitality industry. You love UberEats and the convenience it delivers but UberEats on the first date, or after your partner gets that promotion at work? Probably not, but maybe, anyway you get the idea. Services like UberEats will never be able to replace the experience we get when we go out to a restaurant, bar or cafe to eat, just like online shopping can’t quite scratch the itch we have for an old fashion dose of retail therapy.
What It Means For Tech
So we have identified the experience, ability to try on items and instant gratification of offline shopping as the primary reason consumers continue to visit physical shopfronts, what if we could replicate this online? Online retailers ASOS and GOAT are already experimenting with ‘try on’ AR features, highlighting this as a potential bridge between the online and offline shopping experience. While this is promising and one to watch for the future, the tech still has a way to go before it can rival the connection of trying clothes on in a physical store. The idea serves as a catalyst for tech companies and innovators to come up with concepts that integrate the offline and online shopping experience, crack this code and I dare say you’ll find yourself in a purple patch of Versace.
Healthcare Is Going (more) Digital
Have you ever Googled your sore throat symptoms only for WebMD to tell you may have measles, shingles or some other left of field condition that leaves you breaking the land speed record to grab the phone and book an appointment with your GP? Join the club.
Why?
Consumers are now greatly accustomed to using mobile applications to do anything from banking to ordering a hangover meal to their door, so why should we draw the line at healthcare? The World Health Organisation stated that in 2016 the world collectively spent $7.5 trillion in healthcare, equating to 10% of global GDP. As the world experiences the ups and downs of an ageing population, a massive opportunity exists for tech in healthcare to bring balance to the supply and demand services while increasing global accessibility to health care professionals.
According to research by Global Web Index 36% of consumers worldwide are already using the internet to research health issues and healthcare products. This figure continues to increase as consumers get older, getting as high as 42% for 55–65 year olds as they fall into a higher need health bracket.
What It Means For Tech
Can you imagine a video call with your doctor as opposed to the traditional bricks and mortar experience of visiting your GP? Using the US and UK as a yardstick, around half of respondents agreed that phone/video calls would help them manage their healthcare more effectively than in-person visits. This represents a huge opportunity for healthcare providers to fill this growing need and opens the door for entrepreneurs and innovators worldwide to come up with a tech solution to service these needs.
Of course tech giant Amazon has jumped on board early by partnering with the UK’s National Health Service. The deal involves Amazon using their AI device Alexa to assist in diagnosing symptoms and provide help for patients who have trouble accessing the internet. The smart money says that companies such as Google will follow suite and get involved in similar programs within the next 12 months.
I hope you have enjoyed the above entry and it has given you some ideas, I would also love to hear your thoughts on the above and anything you think will be big in 2020! Don’t hesitate to get in touch. Thanks for taking the time to read this through.
