8. CROWD MINING

No! Not another crowd-esque trend! Don't worry; CROWD MINING is simply a moniker for how we see crowd-based business concepts evolving in 2008. But first let's take a look at some of the 'crowd pleasers' we enjoyed tracking this year:

Remember SellaBand, which lets fans sponsor unknown bands and artists by buying the band's shares or parts? (Once a band has raised USD 50,000 by selling 5,000 parts, SellaBand sets up a professional recording session. The recorded songs are sold to new fans, and both the artists and owners of their parts (Believers) receive a share of the income generated through music sales and advertising revenues.) They're certainly having fun: a few weeks ago, Believers who own parts in Cubworld, Nemesea, Second Person and Maitreya received their first payout, which was transferred to their Believer Balance. While the first payout wasn't massive (in SellaBand's words: "Enough to buy a beer at the pub, or maybe even a round or two"), it's a sign that SellaBand's crowdfunding and crowdrewarding model is working as planned. Ad revenues are expected to grow over the next few months, as SellaBand is working on deals with media agencies for countries outside their main three markets—the Netherlands, United States and United Kingdom. One to watch in 2008. MyFootballClub, which launched in May 2007, recently announced that they've agreed to buy a controlling stake in Ebbsfleet United FC, with the option to buy the the remaining share in the future. To refresh your memory: in less than three months, MyFootballClub signed up 50,000 people willing to pay a GBP 35 membership fee to buy and manage a soccer team with a crowd of other dedicated fans. MyFootballClub members will vote on player selection, transfers and all other major decisions. When it got down to picking a team to buy, MyFootballClub was approached by nine football club owners and also sought contact with several others. Some of the crowd's favorite clubs didn't make the cut, because they had too much debt or were too regional. One of the reasons for picking Ebbsfleet United is that it stands a good chance to reach the national Football League. We'll definitely keep score of this one in 2008. P2P banking pioneers Zopa and Prosper are still doing well, in fact, P2P banking is an excellent example of how fast a new concept can spread, and also how much opportunity remains in turning consumers into mini-banks. Quick recap: peer-to-peer lending marketplaces allow people to lend money directly to others, cutting out banks and other middlemen. Which means better interest rates for borrowers and higher returns for lenders. Described as eBay for loans, the P2P money exchanges work as follows: borrowers list loan details and a personal profile, and lenders bid on the loan. Lowest interest rates win. Lenders bid in increments and minimize their risk by bidding on numerous loans. A study by Online Banking Report predicts that by 2011 person-to-person lending in the US could surpass 100,000 loans a year, worth more than USD 1 billion. Unlike eBay, which can connect buyers and sellers from around the world, peer-to-peer lending is generally bound by local financial regulations. Which means there's ample room for national or regional versions. Besides Zopa and Prosper, here’s what was out there last time we looked, from the promising to the obscure, and from the established to ‘coming soon’:

• Smava elolly.de PPdai Circle Lending Lendary Boober CommunityLend

  Peermint Lending Club Wiseclerk.com Fairrates Nexx GlobeFunder

  So... lots of innovation going on, yet there’s plenty of room for a second player in all of these markets; and dozens of countries don’t yet have a P2P banking brand. And what about the many other financial concepts waiting to be explored, from crowd investments (check out You Be The VC) to insurance plays? Will more consumers become comfortable with these concepts? Will big banks step in? This one too is all yours in 2008 ;-)

Now, let's go back to CROWD MINING: when co-creating, co-funding, co-buying, co-designing, co-managing *anything* with 'crowds', the emphasis in 2008 will move from just getting the masses in, to mining those crowds for the rough and polished diamonds. How to do that? Shower them with love, respect and heaps of money, of course. Two examples, from Netflix and Google, setting the standards for CROWD MINING in 2008:

Still going strong: Netflix, the DVD rental site, is offering a Grand Prize of USD 1 million to the individual who can substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their movie preferences. From their site (great copy if you ever want to set up something similar for your own brand):

• “Netflix is all about connecting people to the movies they love. To help customers find those movies, we’ve developed our world-class movie recommendation system: Cinematch. Now there are a lot of interesting alternative approaches to how Cinematch works that we haven’t tried. We’re curious whether any of these can beat Cinematch by making better predictions.

  So, we thought we’d make a contest out of finding the answer. It’s 'easy', really. We provide you with a lot of anonymous rating data, and a prediction accuracy bar that is 10% better than what Cinematch can do on the same training data set. If you develop a system that we judge most beats that bar on the qualifying test set we provide, you get serious money and the bragging rights. But (and you knew there would be a catch, right?) only if you share your method with us and describe to the world how you did it and why it works. To keep things interesting, in addition to the Grand Prize, we’re also offering a USD 50,000 Progress Prize each year the contest runs. It goes to the team whose system we judge shows the most improvement over the previous year’s best accuracy bar on the same qualifying test set. No improvement, no prize."

  To keep things transparent, progress can be monitored on an online leaderboard. So far, more than 27,000 contestants from 161 countries have submitted their guesses, with the winner for 2007 being Team KorBell for their October 2007 submission, achieving an 8.43% improvement over Cinematch, which netted them the USD 50,000 Progress Prize. Now, they got close, but not close enough, which means the USD 1 million grand prize is still up for grabs ;-)

• The Open Handset Alliance's most prominent member, Google, is developing Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. To support the quest for apps that surprise and delight mobile users, to be created by developers around the world, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide USD 10 million in awards for innovative applications. The first part of the challenge (submissions are accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008), will reward 50 entries with USD 25,000 to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten USD 275,000 awards and ten USD 100,000 awards.

So... What's your brand's biggest challenge (or opportunity), and what kind of dough would you be willing to dole out to have brilliant crowds solve it for you in 2008?

Sure, there's much, much more in 2008 that's worthy of your attention. But for now, take any of the eight trends above, sit down with your colleagues and/or clients, and figure out how, in 2008, to come up with at least one new premium product, one 'snack' version of an existing product, two or three major tweaks to your ecommerce presence, one eco-iconic innovation, two or three marketing campaigns that are about aiding consumers, not stalking them, introducing one MIY concept, and asking the rest of the world for help with at least one of your company's major opportunities or challenges.

For some help, don't forget our 'How to Apply Trends' checklist:

1. Vision—Do these trends have the potential to influence or shape your company's vision?
2. New business concepts—Can these trends point you to new business concepts, or entirely new ventures?
3. New products, services, experiences—Can these trends inspire you to add 'something' new for a certain customer segment?
4. Marketing, advertising, PR—Will these trends help you speak the language of those consumers that are already 'living' a trend?

7. MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF

Let's have a more in-depth look at the 'participation sphere'. For years, we've been going on about GENERATION C, with the C mainly representing 'content'. In other words, digital creation. Pictures. Movies. Blogs. Music.

It's a mainstream trend now, one that keeps giving, with millions of consumers uploading their creative endeavors online, and tens of millions of others enjoying the fruits of their creativity. User-generated content, at least in the online world, has grown from a teenage hobby to an almost equal contender to established entities in news, media, entertainment and craft.

And yes, as predicted, GENERATION C is increasingly being rewarded for its output. In fact, with some members of GENERATION C attracting mass audiences, there's real money to be made. In its first year, video sharing site Revver, which matches every video uploaded with advertisements and splits the ad revenue 50/50 with the video's creator and then shares 20% off the top with the video's distributor, has paid USD 1 million to video creators and sharers.

So what's next for GENERATION C? With (in particular younger) consumers having come to expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods, the next frontier will be digitally designing products from scratch, then having them turned into real physical goods as well. In fact, expect MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF (and then SIY | SELL IT YOURSELF) ventures to become increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months:

• New Zealand-based Ponoko (which works like a CafePress for 3D objects) is offering consumers a new way to turn their creative ideas into real-world objects. After uploading their own design to the website (in EPS file format), or choosing a free design, users can choose from a variety of materials. Ponoko then runs the design through a laser cutter. Besides offering access to professional tools to manufacture products, Ponoko also helps users bring their products to market. Once they’re ready to sell, members can add photos of their product to their profile page, together with a description and pricing information. Products can either be delivered to the designer for assembly before being shipped to customers, or self-assembly products can be sent directly to the end-customer. Ponoko currently only offers two-dimensional sheet cutting, which limits designs to flat objects or three-dimensional objects that can be assembled from flat pieces, but plans for 3D printing are in the works.
  
  As well as being a manufacturing platform, Ponoko also serves as a community where fledgling one-off fabricators and designers can exchange ideas and help solve each other’s problems. The larger goal, according to Ponoko, is to be a catalyst that helps bring personal manufacturing of individualized products to the masses.
  
• Swedish design group FRONT has launched Sketch Furniture, which is a method to materialize freehand sketches. Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture, and the resulting 3-D patterns are output digitally to a laser sintering machine. Over several days, the machine produces the object by shaping and hardening 0.1-mm layers of liquid plastic. Sketch Furniture is on view and on sale (about USD 10,500 per piece) at the Barry Friedman Gallery in New York.
  
• Fab Lab Bcn (Barcelona) is part of the worldwide network of Fab Labs, an initiative of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, and provides a laser-cutter, water jet, 3D printer, mini-mill and other machines for participants to use. Fab Lab Bcn's 4x8 Workshops focus on creating objects from 4x8 feet sheets of plywood using digital tools. One of Fab Lab's initiators is Neil Gershenfeld, professor at MIT and author of FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop. Other Fab Labs have been opened in rural India, northern Norway, Ghana, Boston and Costa Rica.

Even sweeter? Designing something and then have it made at home (which reminds us of INSPERIENCES):

• The Desktop Factory 3D printer, with a list price of USD 4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts from composite plastic powder, layer by layer. Desktop Factory envisages that within three years, Desktop Factory's 3D printers will be affordable for home use.

Now, we're not saying every consumer is going to design and manufacture his or her own furniture or appliances. Rather, MIY is yet another piece of the participation puzzle: enabling those consumers who feel like it to call the shots, bypassing traditional players. In future briefings we’ll address the implications of what this choice – being able to consume ready-made or create their own versions of anything and everything – will mean for the behavior and expectations of younger generations.

Online Marketing Trends

6. BRAND BUTLERS

Consider this for 2008: if consumers value the authentic, the practical, the exclusive, and they're also forever looking to make life more convenient, even save some time, then why persist in bombarding them with your mega-million dollar/euro/pound, one-way advertising campaigns? Instead of stalking potential and existing customers (which is not very 2008), why not assist them in smart, relevant ways, making the most of your products and whatever it is your brand stands for? Remember, giving is the new taking ;-)

Think baby food or diaper brands opening a lounge area, including diaper-changing facilities and microwaves, for parents and their offspring at a major airport or in malls. Or a bank installing secure, high-tech lockers next to the beach, so beachgoers can safely store their belongings when going for a swim or walk.

Now, we're not branding gurus, and we're not suggesting that BRAND BUTLERS is the new (or rehashed) 'lovemark', but if the following examples don't inspire you to do something truly useful and new with (a small part of) your advertising budget in 2008, then we don't know what will:

• Continuing the tradition of using shipping containers to house all things pop-up, a spotting from the Netherlands caught our eye. At the Lowlands music festival, jeans brand Wrangler offered festival-goers a much-needed service: laundry. At 18 meters wide and 9 meters high, the Wrangler Laundromat was hard to miss. People dropped off their mud-encrusted laundry and were sent a text message the moment it was ready. No change of clothes? Wrangler came up with a generous solution to that problem, too: they handed out black overalls to anyone who used the laundromat. Like most other pop-up ventures, Wrangler Laundromat is an exercise in experiential marketing, aimed at surprising and delighting consumers in a way that magazine ads or TV spots usually can't.
• Wrangler isn't the only brand to have tackled dirty laundry at pop festivals. In Slovenia, home appliance manufacturer Zanussi-Electrolux has been offering free laundry services at Rock Otočec for several years and has cleaned thousands of muddy t-shirts and jeans. After picking up their spotless garments, visitors are given a "Dear Mom, I'm clean" postcard to send home.

• Acknowledging that traveling with infants can be a strain on both parents and children, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport opened the Schiphol Babycare Lounge by Nutricia last summer (2007). Located in the airport's main departure terminal, the lounge is (as the name indicates) a co-branding effort by Schiphol and Nutricia, a Dutch baby food brand. Designed by MV Architects, the lounge is serenely stylish and geared to ensuring a baby's well-being while en route. The 90 m² area features seven circular 'cabins', each of which can be closed off with sheer curtains to create a personal zone. The booths have comfortable circular seating curving around a crib. Lights in the lounge are dimmed for sleeping babies, with individual reading lights for parents. For infants that need a bit of distraction, each booth has a gadget that projects colored lights onto the ceiling, just above the crib. Other facilities include a changing area, baby baths and a microwave for heating food. Although Nutricia hasn't stocked a pantry with samples of their own baby food, the brand does offer tips on baby nutrition and traveling with children. The space is open daily from 6 am to 10 pm, accessible free of charge to parents and children aged 0–3.
  
• Also check out Turkish diaper brand Evy Baby, which is reaching out to parents by placing changing rooms in Turkish shopping malls. The diaper manufacturer has already installed 22 changing rooms in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Adana and Mersin. Each clean and cheerful room has a changing table and comfortable chairs for nursing. And, of course, samples of Evy Baby's products.

• More on sanitary stops meeting BRAND BUTLERS: Charmin restrooms. Due to its success last year (close to 430,000 people made use of the service), Procter and Gamble's bathroom tissue brand has just reopened its temporary 20-stall restroom in the heart of Times Square at 1540 Broadway, between 45th and 46th Streets. Open until 31 December 2007, the facilities offer clean, deluxe bathrooms, baby changing stations, stroller parking, seating areas and of course lots of luxury toilet and bath tissue (including Charmin's new product lineup, which includes a choice between Ultra Soft and Ultra Strong versions). Specially designed, water-conserving toilets and faucets are provided by Kohler, while cleanliness is guaranteed by the presence of plenty of bathroom attendants.
  
• Hotel chain Le Méridien is marketing itself as a destination for art enthusiasts. As part of its “Unlock Art” program, it has cut deals with local contemporary cultural institutions to allow hotel guests free entry by presenting their artist-designed room key cards and it has hired modern art curator Jérôme Sans to organize special exhibits. Partner arts institutions include the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) in Shanghai, the Vienna Succession, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Galleriiizu Contemporary Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur, and About Studio/About Café in Bangkok. Ultimately, the goal is for every Le Méridien hotel worldwide to have partnerships with leading cultural institutions.
• Austrian Airlines offers passengers free entry to cultural institutions in Vienna with their boarding cards. Passengers traveling with the airline can keep the tear-off stub from their used boarding cards (along with a photo ID) for free entry to five museums in Vienna.

Again, there is no brand that cannot apply the BRAND BUTLERS trend in 2008. Being relevant (gasp), assisting and facilitating potential and existing customers when they truly appreciate it (as opposed to inundating them with advertising) will go down well. Promise. More examples in our 2008 Trend Report.

PSFK : Ideas, Trends & Inspiration

5. ECO-ICONIC

The reason so many people fell for our ECO-FATIGUE spoof last month (rest assured, we'll never spoof anyone again ;-) is that an eco-backlash is actually quite plausible. After all, while millions of consumers are firmly rooted in the aforementioned ECO-SPHERE, millions of others are not. But let's focus on those who are now getting their status fix from consuming in a more sustainable manner.

Over the past few years, the ECO trend has moved from ECO-UGLY (ugly, over-priced, low performance alternatives to shiny 'traditional sphere' products and services) to ECO-CHIC (eco-friendly stuff that actually looks as nice and cool as the less responsible version) to ECO-ICONIC in 2008: "Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic design and markers, that help their eco-conscious owners to visibly tout their eco-credentials to peers."

So what does ECO-ICONIC look like? How about the new Honda FCX Clarity, or the Mitsubishi I, or the Bahrain World Trade Center:

• Honda's FCX Clarity is a fuel cell vehicle that runs on electricity powered by hydrogen, and emits only water vapor and heat. It will be certified by the California Air Resources Board as a Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) and by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a Tier-2 Bin 1, the lowest possible federal EPA emission rating. It will also receive an EPA Inherently Low Emission Vehicle rating due to its entirely sealed fuel system. It will qualify for accessing High Occupancy Vehicle lanes in California with just one person on board. As the fuel cell technology was developed by Honda exclusively for the FCX Clarity, and was not retrofitted to an existing model, Honda's engineers "cleared away all preconceived notions of automobile design, challenging themselves to discover the new possibilities that can only be realized with the fuel cell vehicle." Our verdict: the FCX will be more recognizable than the Prius, making an even more telling statement about the owner's 'STATUS SPHERE'.

• Another zero-emission car with iconic potential is the Mitsubishi i, first exhibited at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show, this September. From the brochure: "The 'fastback' exterior design expresses the quickness of the car with an appearance that is pleasing and lively. Geometry, metallic materials and body epitomize the futuristic electric vehicle. The light green exterior marks another association with nature. The pearlescent paint, which shines when hit with direct light, brings feelings of advanced, futuristic technology and environmental peace of mind."

• The Bahrain World Trade Center is the first commercial building in the world to incorporate large-scale wind turbines within its design to harness wind power. It has three massive wind turbines that measure 29 meters in diameter that are supported on bridges between the BWTC’s two 240 meter high towers. The tower structures themselves help funnel the existing on-shore Gulf breeze that is used to generate greater power efficiency. Very….iconic!

When designing your 2008 or 2009 eco-product line, don't mirror what's already out there in the non-eco world, but be bold, original, and yes, iconic. Whether it's cars, buildings or detergent bottles. Find your own Jonathan Ive (see trend #8, CROWD MINING) and get going.

There's also going to be some serious ECO-EMBEDDED activity taking place in 2008, with governments taking the lead. After all, corporations’ and consumers’ good intentions don’t always cut it. So expect 2008 to see much more of the 'fourth R', aka regulation (remember: reduce, reuse, recycle..) For more on this, see our 2008 Trend Report.

Tomorrow's Trends