Major societal trends are driving companies to develop creative new products and services. These trends include: 1) Advancement of digital technology like mobile, data storage and social media which allows companies to experiment more and better understand customers; 2) Increasing social diversity which provides different perspectives to spark new ideas; and 3) Consumer demands for personalized experiences and help navigating an abundance of options, presenting challenges that require creative solutions.

1. Major trends in society that trigger creative products, services or campaigns
SOPHIE VERLINDEN
Personal Essay
Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management
Advanced Master Creativity & Marketing

2. In this essay I will present recent important societal trends that, in my opinion, could trigger creative products, services or campaign. I will discuss the following four major changes: the advancement in digital technology, the increasing social diversity, abundance in consumer options and the need for personalization of products and services.
The first major trend that has been going on for quite a while now, is the development of digital technology. This consists of improvements of mobile technology, data storage, information sharing, analytics, intelligence programs, the surge of social networks, etc., all of this creating an interconnected world. Companies are looking at various new ways to develop their businesses. First of all, most importantly, new possibilities in technology give more freedom to those who wish to experiment with new ideas. The more opportunities exist, the more companies will be able to generate creative ideas and try new things.
Secondly, the ability to store and share more information in better ways allows companies to collect all the information they need to support new experiments, even if the information is very extensive or dated. For instance, retail companies are able to store and analyze information about their clients’ buying behavior. Furthermore, better sharing of information enables companies to get (better) access to others’ information and subsequently better understand the matter or be more inspired. Thus people are able to combine one’s own ideas with the information or ideas of other people and create a better idea, product or service. A perfect example is a market research firm, collecting data of consumers and storing it in exhaustive databases, to sell it to other companies who can gain from this using this information.
A third consequence of the improvement of digital technology is the ability for the technology to do the daily routine tasks. They become automated and are done by computers and machines, so the employees do not have to interfere anymore. This way, the employees can direct their attention to the other, more challenging projects, requiring more focus and creative solutions. Because they will have more time to do these types of projects, more creative ideas, products, services or campaigns will be able to come forth.
The last element of the digital technology that triggers creativity in my opinion, is the change in interaction between people. People are becoming more and more connected over the years through mobile and internet technology, and less contact in person. An important place in this shift is currently taken by social networks. This medium is the most important communication medium for the generation Y, so companies should pay a great deal of attention to this if they want to address this generation. There are a lot of different social networks, and a lot of different ways to be present in these. Companies can set up a page in Facebook presenting themselves, they can make a Twitter account in which they can tweet interesting facts about their new products, they can use Pinterest to assemble photos of their brand (or create folders of photos that have something to do with their brand and could be of use to their target audience), or use Instagram to post any kind of photos.
An example of a company who uses Instagram in a different way is ‘Triangl Swimwear’. They invite people to tag the company’s profile when they post pictures of themselves in bikinis from the brand ‘Triangl’. The company then posts these pictures on their profile, instead of pictures of catalogs. Furthermore, they also post pictures of inviting “beachy” landscapes, to make people want to go the beach and buy a bikini. There are endless ways to communicate

3. and collaborate with consumers through social media, producing a lot of creative ideas and campaigns of companies.
Another opportunity in interaction between people is the possibility of communicating with people from all around the world. Not only is it possible to call or send emails, but videoconferencing has also improved. This used to be done on a television, now it is possible via smartphones, smart watches, tablets, etc. It has become so much easier for people who work far away from each other to intensely work together as if they were physically close to each other. Being able to work with a lot of other people, instead of only a single team the whole year through, will produce new creative ideas because you can discuss your ideas with a lot of other people and be influenced and inspired by their different opinions, resulting in more creative products and services. Moreover, working with people from all around the world, with different nationalities, cultures, and other characteristics, will also trigger creativity. This will be discussed in the next section.
The second major trend is the increasing diversity between people. Recently, there have been a lot of demographical changes on the work floor. Much more people with different nationalities, ethnicities, much more women, older employees and people with different lifestyles are working together now. This means that a lot of different points of view will be shared, leading to higher risk for conflicts, but also giving rise to new, challenging ideas People can discuss with each other to better understand the subject, combine ideas, and in the end, make better and more creative decisions.
I have conducted interviews for my thesis at KULeuven with managers leading a team of diverse individuals. Almost every manager agreed that differences between employees are very productive when coming up with new ideas and making better decisions. For example, I spoke to a manager who works in a home for disabled people. She told me she always creates a mix of older and younger, and newer and older employees making up one team. She believes this has a strong positive effect on the decision-making and the creativity in the group, since they often have opposing opinions of how the work should be done. Every year they had to do a team project with the subject of how to improve the service to the disabled people. The year the mixed teams were established, the general and especially the creative level of the projects was significantly higher.
A third major trend in society is called abundance. There is an extensive amount of products and information on the market, and consumers are overwhelmed with the choices they have between products, services, technologies, etc. Consumers find it hard to decide which product they need, and are interested in the authentic brands, those who seem the most “real”. This is because consumers feel like a lot of what is sent is untrue, often deceived by marketing. But how do brands make sure they look authentic? How do brands make the consumer choose them in this abundant world with all these different consumer options? This calls for a creative mind, making the company stand out and send an authentic and convincing message.
If this is not enough, there is another possibility to improve business in this time of abundance: helping the consumers make better choices. Companies have to go further than being authentic to win over the customers, they have to help the customers in an authentic way. There are already a couple of companies who have started doing this, e.g. ‘Fitbay’. This is a website that shows users clothes that fit their particular body type. It collects

4. pictures of a lot of different online shops (Asos, H&M, etc.) and filters them to the different body types. In this way, ‘Fitbay’ reduces the consumer’s clothing options drastically and makes it easier for people to make their buying decisions.
The fourth and last trend is called personalization. Over the past years, the world has become globalized. Lots of companies have started operating on an international scale, and started creating standard products for the different countries. A recent trend says that consumers want products tailored to their personal wishes and needs. They don’t want standard products that are available to everyone, they want products fit for their own tastes and needs. Not only the products need to be personalized, but the same goes for the communication to the consumers. They not only expect personalized messages but also personalized offers, personalized meaning fit to the consumer’s particular interests. Summarizing, the consumer expects a complete personalized consumer experience.
An example of a service that seeks a unique experience for consumers is ‘Google Now’. This service offers the weather, navigation support, hotels and restaurants, etc. It is not necessary to enter your location or anything, Google immediately knows where you are and creates a whole page with items that might interest you to make your stay more pleasant, wherever you are. It is a completely personalized page to help the consumer enjoy himself without having to look for this information on lots of different pages on the internet.
Like the previous trend, this is a great challenge for companies, who chose standard products for efficiency reasons. This means the business models, although in time of globalization, need to create new custom made types of products and services. Consumers are making it harder for companies to create the right products. Since they all have different and difficult demands, they’re backing companies into a corner. Again, this is a challenge and there is a great need to be creative to be able to unite the needs of the different demanding consumers.
In summary, the strong development of the digital technology, the rise of social media and the new trends of the abundance and personalization are each causing the creation of new marketing models and thus triggering creative ideas, products and campaigns.