Brand management through the jungle of consumer and communication trends

At this year's event, entitled "Brand management through the jungle of consumer and communication trends", prominent speakers shed light on the effects of trends on the purchasing behavior of various consumer trend groups, which are of fundamental importance for trend-oriented brand management.

There have never been as many trends and counter-trends in our economy as there are today. This is increasingly presenting brand management with major challenges. Yesterday's eighth edition of the brand roadshow, which was attended by over 200 guests, therefore focused on the relevant consumer and communication trends. Christian Baertschi (Managing Director Serviceplan Group Switzerland) kicked off the event with a welcome address. The speakers Dr. Peter Haller (Founder and Managing Director Serviceplan Group), Wolfgang Adlwarth (Insight Director Consumer Panels GfK), Alexander Schill (Chief Creative Officer Serviceplan Group), Barbara Evans (Managing Director Facit Research), Stefanie Jermann (Key Account Manager Consumer & Retail GfK) and Julian Simons (Managing Director mediascale) then took on the topic and used an integrated navigation model to guide the audience through the jungle of over 100 megatrends, subsequent trends and consumer and communication trends.

21 megatrends become more than 100 subsequent trends

The trends at the start of the millennium were manageable. At that time, demographics, prosperity, ecology and the onset of digitalization were among the leading trends in terms of economic development. Today, there are more trends and counter-trends than ever before. Experts speak of a "2nd start-up era".

The Brand Roadshow has compiled 21 megatrends from current public discussions. The first step in qualifying and evaluating the megatrends for brand management is to determine how they affect target groups, markets, media, messages and touchpoints. In purely mathematical terms, this results in over 100 subsequent trends.

It quickly becomes clear that it is wrong to wait for more transparency and better times. It is also wrong to think only in quarterly periods, to focus on individual measures and to postpone investment decisions. What is right, however, is to develop a new, practicable, holistic navigation model that guides you through the jungle of trends in a goal-oriented manner and brings together all the working groups involved in brand management.

"We have to follow up and consider the identified target groups right through to the PoS."

Barbara Evans, Managing Director Facit Research

"Touchpoint beats buget - what a beautiful sentence. You could give a long lecture on that alone."

Alexander Schill, CCO Serviceplan Group

"Everyone always wants a tool. But a tool won't solve your problem. For that, you need someone who is familiar with data and knows how to use it sensibly."

Julian Simons, Managing Director Mediascale

"Trend drivers, trend followers and trend resistors are different people with different attitudes and behaviors. They are not found in different media genres, but in different media environments."

Peter Haller, Founder and Managing Director Serviceplan Group

Text: pd; Quotes: nod/Werbewoche