F-trend Consumer Trend forecast 2021

1. WOMEN+MEN INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 CONSUMER TREND 2021/22 © F-TREND.COM

2. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN OVERVIEW Consumers across Asia Pacific grow up in an environment that is obsessed with success. As they come to realise that these pres- sures are not necessary, many are turning away and are instead doing the things they are more passionate about. “In chaotic and fearful times, humanity will naturally look for an- swers and find solace in simplicity. People are trying to make the ordinary extraordinary.” Emotional intElligEncE- An ability to empathize and engage on a human level - will be- come a core and advocacy-building consumer expectation, as well as a valued everyday life skill demanded by workplaces and per- sonal relationships alike. Engineered Empathy will be boosted by new drivers in 2021: an intensifying battle to perfect scalable AI bots with EI sensibility; a growing ability and freedom to capture/share emotion; desire for human interaction in tech-saturated times; and calls for greater em- pathy in polarized times. Being an adult once had a pretty standard path of growing up, getting a job and starting a family. While these are life stages people have grown accustomed to, they are diversifying across the region under the influence of new found values and a shift in mentality to accommodate for more globalized views. This can be observed from the blurring of gender stereotypes to young people taking on greater financial responsibility. laZY gEnERation- Entrepreneurship has become a much more desirable road to- wards future careers being undertaken not just by younger con- sumers, but also mid-career working professionals and even se- niors. One of the most common reasons why our generation is lazy is be- cause we grew up in an era when technology was starting to be incor- porated into every aspect of our lives. Thinking back, we can see how technology became extremely prevalent during our generation. The biggest reason our generation is considered lazy is because many of us act very entitled. Many of us act like we deserve everything with- out working for it. We were raised in a time when discipline was start- ing to ease up and things were just handed to us. This has created many problems for our generation because we do not like when some- thing does not go our way or we do not get something we desperately want. The increased focus on gender diversity across the region is challenging stereotypes of jobs and roles in the family and soci- ety overall. Entrepreneurship is still the keyword of this decade, and will increasingly be central to the emergence of new initia- tives motivating consumers to pursue their dreams and life goals. This shift will inadvertently affect the natural life stages of con- sumers, with a greater diversity of future paths for them to take. © F-TREND.COM

3. WOMEN+MEN INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 2021 Everyone have their own vision, own ideas that demands the more personalized service offering in the polarized society . Emotional intelligence - •In the U.S., an estimated 16.1 million adults, or nearly 7% of the popu- lation, has experienced at least one major depressive episode in the last year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. •About one in five adults in the U.S. experiences some form of mental ill- ness each year. .At least 6.5% of the Indian population suffers from some form of the seri- ous mental disorder. 36% of US Gen Z social networkers “share posts on social media to show how I am feeling” (same is true of 18% of GB Gen Z). 42% of global consumers are interested in using an online shop assistant that I could talk to for advice as I was browsing products online. © F-TREND.COM

4. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN MACHINE EMPATHY The distrust may be in part because the companies utilizing AI still hav- en’t found a way to communicate the positive impact effectively: an in- crease in sales is just a product of the seamless customer journey and better overall experience that AI offers. Today’s customers expect a lot from an Online store: That it won’t “waste their time” That they will find products that fit them That the product they want will be in stock, with a large variety to choose from That the experience will be personalized for them Empathy as branding opportunity: Brands as ambassadors for cross-aisle interaction A growing expectation of emotionally intelligent interaction with brands across multiple channels from messenger Apps to chat-bots, from human reps to Twitter consumers will increasingly want to see a little of ourselves reflected back in commercial interactions, including our real-time emotion- al state. A brand that fails to notice you are feeing low… soon to be ad- monished? A brand’s functional attributes - its commitment to value, to well-located on- and offline stores, to quality - Alone cannot indefinitely sustain cus- tomer engagement. Its ability to satisfy emotional needs - to deliver hu- man warmth in all contexts, to activate against the customers real-time emotional state - will become an increasingly vital factor inside B2C rela- tionships (especially in the coming era of opt-in marketing). Customer Experience, Retail, and Advertising are perhaps more impacted than most by the promise of new emotional metrics that form the basis of personalized interaction and service Generation Z is already highly accepting of AI, (personalization in particu- lar), but older generations still tend to be wary of AI’s impact on their lives. © F-TREND.COM

5. WOMEN+MEN KEY OPPORTUNITIES INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 Young people are rejecting the perfectly curated feeds on Instagram in favor of an authentic and unfiltered aesthetic 1 2 - A growing desire among the younger gen- erations to either take breaks from social media or quit it altogether. 3 - Gen Zers are less and less loyal to social media and are instead using different plat- forms for different purpose. 4 IN 10 US consumers have used voice commands on their smartphone/wearable/tablet (e.g. Siri, Alexa, Cortana). 4 © F-TREND.COM

6. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN IMPERFECTIONS As opposed to the Millennial gener- ation, Gen-z demands authenticity, realness and imperfect-but-mean- ingful experiences. This shift in values has prompted major chang- es in the advertising and media sectors. As opposed to the Millennial generation, they demand authenticity, realness and imper- fect-but-meaningful experiences. This shift in values has prompted major changes in the ad- vertising and media sectors. The transition from televisions to computers to smartphones as primary media vehicles coincid- ed with the substitution of perfect brand testimo- nials by new influencers/creators. Following the recent trend of body-hair acceptance, now acne acceptance is starting to grow in popularity. Sup- ported by the body positivity movement and the backlash against unrealistic beauty often depicted in advertising, acne acceptance has been gaining more and more trac- tion over the past months. As a young adult and teenage entertainment is aimed at social media and video platforms such as Instagram and Youtube, the content creators and digital influencers who are tasked with at- tracting this young audience (and consequent- ly brands) are in the position of revealing their complex personalities with authenticity and real- ness. The award-winning film Lady Bird shows an honest, complex and imperfect teenage life that the Gen Zers can easily connect to. In real life, 18-year-old Hailey Wait (@pigss), is one exam- ple of a social influencer who has been gaining attention and followers by embracing her break- outs and acne scars via Instagram and self-em- powerment tweets. Several Online campaigns such as Peter DeVito’s #Ac- neIsNormal have been created to emphasize the normal- ity of skin issues while many celebrities such as Justin Bieber have started endorsing this idea by posting unre- touched selfies showing their blemishes. This body and skin empowerment movement have been gaining more and more influence thanks to the younger generation. Well on its way to becoming the largest generation of consumers by 2020, Gen Zers are not afraid of exposing their issues and concerns and are motivated to search for more engaging, positive and uplifting content on so- cial media. © F-TREND.COM

7. WOMEN+MEN KEY OPPORTUNITIES 1 The rise of acne and non-edited selfies posted on social media pieces of evidence two fundamental Gen Z traits: authenticity and realness. Brands promoting hyper athletic bodies and unrealistic, unconnected impressions will be ignored. It is very essential to pro- mote the new concept of the beauty. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 3 Gen Zer’s are searching for more authentic influencer who are uninhibited to reveal their com- plex personalities and honest and vulnerable lives. Brand’s honesty in representation of the beauty in all skin, shape and sizes will be considered as a honest brand and it will sell more. 2 As opposed to Millennial, today’s teenagers and young adults are not afraid of revealing their imperfections, issues, and concerns © F-TREND.COM

8. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN POLARIZED In the mid-twentieth century, Americans tended to be divided over im- portant but mundane political issues, such as how big government should be or what kinds of social services it should provide. But there has been a significant shift and growing animosity in recent decades as voters have become less concerned with what government does and much more interested in politicians they believe represent who they are, according to Marc Hetherington, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina. Meanwhile, college-educated Americans are settling down in major metropolitan areas and becoming increasingly secular and open to di- versity (race, sexual orientation, nationality), while less-educated peo- ple more frequently live and work in less urban areas with more homo- geneous and religious populations. Scholars and journalists alike have blamed the rise of social media and its creation of “echo chambers”—curated feeds comprising posts that match our political beliefs—for increasing the polarization among peo- ple throughout the world. People are becoming more patriotic, consumers are polarized for the personalized offerings, personal faiths and belief. The credit goes to the diversity in consumer offering, personalized interest based feeds that is not allowing other ideas, news, interest and cultures to penetrate. POLARIZED None of these changes alone are responsible for the current extreme political polar- ization, but combined, these shifts in how Americans perceive race, culture and ideol- ogy have created the widening gulf between Democrats and Republicans, Abramow- itz says. The United States is growing more and more politically polarized. According to a re- cent report by the Pew Research Center, public opinion remains more divided along partisan lines than along the lines of race, religion, age, gender, or educational back- ground. It’s likely that you don’t have to look much further than your own social media feeds to see the evidence of this. In reality, the fact that a society is polarized is a sign that one class of people does not have a monopoly anymore over mainstream ideas. The defamation of polarization is the parting abuse of those who have lost control over the transmission of ideas. © F-TREND.COM

9. WOMEN+MEN INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 2- While previously ideas were limited to only few affluent class, it is becoming hard to manipulate consumers choices through the ad campaign the next strategy should be consumer focused product offering. 3-Identity is a key as consumers will look for to get produly associated with the their past identity from where they came from. KEY OPPORTUNITIES 1-Since consumers are highly polarized it is becoming very convenient to track their needs, sentiments and emotions since they are becoming very aggressively vocal regard- ing their ideas. This gives an opportunity to brands and Companies to provide a curated product and service offering for the various mindset consumers groups. 4-Polarized consumers are very clear about their priorities, socially they are clear about their views in terms of politics, econ- omy and cultures. For brands It is very vital to support their religious and cultural faiths. In India food delevery company had to face wrath of consumers for delivering beef, similar situation we can access in the USA VALUES- TRADITIONALISTS, NARCIS- SISTS © F-TREND.COM

10. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN EMOTIONAL WELLBEING The most talked about generation of millennials is under the most unpleasant of the situations. With the rampant growth of depression and mental illness amongst the millennials, ex- perts from all over the world deem this a dislodged generation. Reports show that this generation is in need of help more than ever before. The depression rate among millennials is much higher than the baby boomers. The growing insecurities in life are the big- gest cause of depression. From job insecurity to societal pres- sures, everything adds to the mental state of this generation. However, millennials are much more upfront and honest about their emotional state. They are open to asking for help if they are in need of it. Research shows that millennials place much importance in emotional well-being or self-care than the previ- ous generations. Self-care’ has reached a five year high on Google searches and according to Dr.Chris Mendenwal, millennials spend twice as much on self-care in comparison to baby-boomers. The value of the health and wellness market in the UK increased from around £20 billion in 2013 to over £23 billion in 2018. Millennials have joined hands with technology, the most infamous of the means, to tackle depression. Technology now has taken the place of a savior in their lives. With the technological advancement, the sphere of emotional well-being will soon change creating newer opportunities. © F-TREND.COM

11. WOMEN+MEN KEY OPPORTUNITIES INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 RE-CONNECTING Young people are facing ‘eco-anxiety’ amid heightened climate change debate, Child psychol- ogist Andrew Greenfield said the anxiety stems from helplessness Millions of people across the world took part in Global Strike 4 Climate last week. The panic sparked by the climate change debate has raised fears that the mental wellbeing of young people is suffering. Child psychologist Andrew Greenfield explained that ‘eco-anxiety’ comes from young people feel- ing ‘helpless’ about the environment. INTERACTIVE PACKAGING ORIGAMI PACKAGING In order to attract more consumers and make them feel calm and composed, packaging will origami technique and will appear to be more close to na- ture. Consumers will look into a way to find playful and interactive packaging ideas SELF CARE Self-care’ has reached a five year high on Goo- gle searches and according to Dr.Chris Menden- wal, millennials spend twice as much on self-care in comparison to baby-boomers. The value of the health and wellness market in the UK increased from around £20 billion in 2013 to over £23 billion in 2018 © F-TREND.COM

12. INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 WOMEN+MEN FASHION AND CONSUMER INSIGHT ABOUT F-TREND F-TREND is the leader in con- sumer trend insight, authority in fashion. We work with the world’s top designers, businesses, and brands across industries, to pre- dict how their customers will evolve, the products they’ll want to buy and the experiences they’ll seek out. Our subscription services provide daily access to the latest consum- er, marketing, retail and innova- tion trends, while our consultants help Implement future-proof strat- egies to prepare you for the con- sumer of tomorrow. F-TREND TrendSight is the client advisory service from the world’s leading trend authority. Through the delivery of trend forecasts targeted to specific needs, F-trend Mindset helps busi- nesses create hyper-targeted products which are better for their consumers and their bottom line. F-TREND ConsumerSight helps the world’s most creative thinkers stay ahead. With un- paralleled coverage and analysis into the world of consumers, F-TREND ConsumerInsight features original and thought-provoking content on consumer, marketing, retail and innovation trends. © F-TREND.COM

13. WOMEN+MEN INSIGHT : CONSUMER TREND 2021 F-TREND.COM © F-TREND.COM