Back in 2003, when we first spoke of
TRANSUMERS and TRANSUMERISM (crediting global design and business
consultancy Fitch for coining the term), the focus for this trend was
solely on consumers in transition, i.e. travelers, and the many novel
and innovative shopping opportunities at airports, train stations and
hotels catering to this crowd. And while that part of TRANSUMERISM is
still evolving (see some of the new examples from various airports
further down in this briefing), it’s time to expand the TRANSUMERS
trend/theme to non-travel, as consumers are slowly but certainly
mirroring travel behavior in daily life. After all, in our Experience
Economy, the temporary, the transient, is increasingly being valued if
not worshipped on a daily basis.
We discussed the relationship between experience and status in our UBER PREMIUM
briefing; for now consider the following data on luxury consumption
(luxury is an ever-reliable indicator of what next generations will
consider basic necessities, thus often revealing the Next Big Thing):
“Luxury consumers are spending more, in many cases lots more, on
life-changing experiences, while their need for luxury goods is waning.
Spending on luxury experiences in the US, including travel, dining,
entertainment, spas and beauty services and home services, nearly
doubled, from an average of USD 11,632 in 2004 to USD 22,746 in 2005: a
95.5 percent increase" (source: Pam Danzinger, Unity Marketing).
With experiences starting to trump
goods, many fixed items run the risk of becoming synonymous with
boredom, with hassle, with quickly-out-of-date, with maintenance, with
taking up too large a part of budgets, if not lives. Which brings us to
a new definition of TRANSUMERS:
TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences
instead of the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting
boredom, who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing
themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The
fixed is replaced by an obsession with the here and now, an
ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many
experiences and stories as possible.* Hey, the past is, well, over, and
the future is uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for
the 'now'.
Now, before we start to sound too much like ‘real’
trend watchers (you know, the ‘green is the new black’ types ;-),
here’s a random round-up of TRANSUMER examples that illustrate the many
angles to the TRANSUMERS trend, to get you started and help you dream
up a few new TRANSUMER services of your own.
* We recommend you read Gilles Lipovetsky’s Hypermodern Times for a deeply insightful take on consumers' pervasive obsession with the here-and-now.
To most consumers, travel equates to temporary
freedom. Detachment, fractional ownership or no ownership at all,
trying out new things, escaping commitment and obligations, dropping
formality, endless new experiences. No wonder travel is now one of the
biggest industries on this planet. No wonder too, that some of the
pleasures associated with travel are finding their way into daily life,
now that tens of millions of consumers have become skilled travelers.
Case in point: TRANSUMERS adopting a ‘leasing lifestyle’, making use of
new rental options that go beyond Avis or timeshares (now a USD 10
billion industry worldwide, by the way). What's to like, for
TRANSUMERS? A mix of:
-
Avoiding
hassle: the more stuff you permanently own, the more you have to worry
about: repairs, going out of style, theft and so on.
-
The latest and greatest: with ever shorter product development cycles,
leasing ensures consumers can always enjoy the latest and the greatest.
-
Multiple
experiences: TRANSUMERS with a limited budget can now, instead of
owning one single expensive object, rent, enjoy, then dispose of many
different objects, maximizing the number of experiences.
-
Climbing the ladder ( MASSCLUSIVITY and UBER PREMIUM):
status-conscious consumers resort to luxury fractional ownership
because it's the only way for them to be able to flaunt (both
established and new) status symbols.
Fashion
Fashion brands have nailed TRANSUMERISM like no one
else. From the very transient (and affordable) collections at Zara and
H&M, to innovative lease concepts that play to the temporary nature
of the business, and to TRANSUMERS' desires.
At Bag Borrow or Steal,
the designer handbag rental firm, TRANSUMERS pay a monthly fee, pick
and order handbags online and borrow them for as long as they like.
Also check out Be A Fashionista, From Bags to Riches and Shoulder Candy.
Jewelry is the new rental handbag: Bag Borrow or Steal now offers jewelry, too, competing with ventures like Borrowed Bling and RK Jewellery Hire.
And yes, you can rent that dress to go with your handbag: from One Night Stand and Estella's Wardrobe to Salon Muare, this is all part of a lots-of-room-to-grow TRANSUMER infrastructure. More?
Cars
Exclusive car sharing clubs are popping up faster
than you can trade in your old jalopy. Why spend all your money on a
Bentley when you can experience a Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maybach,
too? Check out Classic Car Club, P1 Club, LuxShare Auto Club, Club Sportiva, Van Horrsen Group, ecurie 25, Oversteer Spain and Ascari.
Planes
For UBER PREMIUM TRANSUMERS interested in fractional ownership of very light jets and other toys, there’s more than NetJets these days: check out Airshare Elite, Club One Air, Jet-Alliance, OurPLANE, JetMatch and JetSet.
One-stop fractional ownership shopping
Combining fractional ownership of cars, yachts, apartments and happenings into a neat package, Australian Limited Edition,
a luxury lifestyle club, offers its members access to a fleet of high
performance cars and water craft, a portfolio of holiday homes and a
range of events and experiences. In their own words: "Limited Edition
members avoid the anxieties traditionally associated with ownership of
a high performance vehicle or luxury boats such as depreciation,
insurance, maintenance, taxes and storage". One to bring to Europe,
South-East Asia or North America?
 Next for the leasing lifestyle: the auction culture
The above concepts result in a lot of goods becoming
second hand. Which brings us to eBay and the many other auction and
classifieds sites now matching supply and demand for used goods. In
fact, what started out as a ‘global garage sale’ is now responsible for
making used goods a widely accepted alternative to buying new, while it
has empowered well-off or just obsessed-with-the new TRANSUMERS to
constantly sell products bought for temporary pleasure on to the next
person (and then buy something else). So, besides the leasing model,
the auction or even barter model will increasingly be used to acquire
temporary ownership of luxury goods.
More on this in Daniel Nissanoff’s FUTURE SHOP,
which explains how eBay and similar sites are quickly growing into
mainstream shopping venues, providing unprecedented levels of liquidity
for everyday goods, which in turn is moving society from an
'accumulation nation' of hoarders into one where possessions can
constantly be replaced with newer, better items.
In an age of abundance, with a reduced need for constant securing of
the basics, and goods so plentiful that the status derived from them is
sometimes close to nil, the only thing that remains is consumption of
the thrill, the experience, the new.
We spoke before of the Experience Economy, but
perhaps a better name for it would be the Surprise Economy: not only do
TRANSUMERS want freedom, they also want to be surprised, moving from
one ephemeral experience to another, constantly trading in the fading
for the blossoming.
Pop-up everything
Our poster child of TRANSUMERISM and surprise, POP-UP RETAIL,
has become so widespread, that the concept itself has become a ‘fixed’
part of branding strategies. (Three years ago, we said: “If new
products can come and go, why can't the stores that display them do the
same?") Here are some of the latest spottings:
Venue VBOX in
Singapore is a portable store in a shipping container, which can be set
up temporarily. Any place, any time. The VBOX enables a brand or
company to follow an event they wish to align their brand with, or pop
up where consumers least expect it. Tag along with a photography
exhibition or set up shop temporarily at a large sporting event. Brands
can even showcase items that consumers may not otherwise be able to
purchase: just fill the VBOX with one-offs or special editions and
you'll pull in consumers with the prospect of purchasing something
unique. The VBOX comes self-contained and equipped with an iMac and
iPod HiFi. To date the VBOX has housed collections by some of the
fashion world’s most prestigious names: Raf Simons (Prada Group) and
limited PUMA designer co-labs by Alexander McQueen, Christy Turlington,
Mihara Yasuhiro as well as CDs, magazines, books and Motorola phones.
In the same vein, Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo recently transformed two bedroom-sized cargo containers
into stores, toting them through New York City to introduce New Yorkers
to the brand. Clothes were stacked in a wall of cubbyholes across from
a set of slim windows. The containers were designed by urban design
agency Lot-ek.
 Comme des Garcons
just opened a new 'Play Box' shop outside their regular store in
Aoyama, Japan. The Play Box will only be open for one month and will
sell special items (source: HypeBeast).
And keep an eye out for the new Nike pop-up store,
opening its temporary doors in SoHo (476 Broome Street), New York on 11
November 2006. Promoting the Nike Air Zoom LeBron IV, requisite limited
editions will be on sale for only one week.
This summer, in Berlin, Nokia opened a 72-hour store, well, lounge, coinciding with the Love Parade. And so on. Pop-up restaurants, pop-up concerts, pop-up bars and pop-up galleries
are a dime a dozen now, too. It's no longer a matter of understanding
their appeal, but a matter of introducing your own, preferably in novel
ways.
So what happens when TRANSUMERS literally are in transit? For one, the proliferation of BEING SPACES and BRAND SPACES (“commercial
living-room-like settings in the public space, where catering and
entertainment aren't just the main attraction, but are there to
facilitate out-of-home, out-of-office activities like watching a movie,
reading a book, meeting friends and colleagues, and so on” ) is
making it easier than ever to leave domestic or office hassles behind.
This phenomenon has been building for a while, of course: back in 1990,
sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined 'The Third Place', describing
dependable places of refuge, where one can escape the demands of family
and bosses, and thus temporarily forget about one's sorrows and
shortcomings. To see loads of examples of how BEING SPACES and BRAND
SPACES accommodate TRANSUMERS in novel ways, please check out an
earlier briefing on the topic.
And no, we can’t do a briefing on TRANSUMERS without looking at the
latest developments at airports (but it could as easily have been hotel
lobbies, or cruise ships, or train stations), which have become both
giant BEING SPACES and shrines to TRANSUMER-style surprise and
commerce:
Australia's Gourmet Traveler magazine now operates stores at Australian airports. The magazine's partnership with HDS Retail Asia Pacific
provides a shopfront for the 280,000 plus readership, and like the
magazine, these stores showcase the best of Australian wine and
produce, together with a range of Gourmet Traveler books and magazines.
Food products include extra virgin olive oils from Australia, artisan
mustards, jams, sauces and aged cheeses. There are currently four
stores: two stores each at Qantas Domestic Terminals at Melbourne
Airport and Perth Airport. Turning a TRANSUMER magazine into a retail
outlet: smart move!
Health and beauty and TRANSUMERS is a winner, too:
all major airports now have some kind of spa facility, which means it’s
time for branded chains to invade this TRANSUMER space:
Rejuve,
a well-being club, has opened in Heathrow’s Terminal 1 and has plans to
open in other airports. One-day membership includes use of an exercise
room and showers and a selection of juices and salads. Massages and
other treatments start at GBP 26 for 15 minutes (source: New York
Times). In the US, XpresSpa
claims to be the only premium class, large scale, nationally structured
spa, exclusively operating at airports. XpresSpas are located at JFK,
SFO, PHL and PIT airports. While in France, the Men’s Lounge at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport bills itself as the 'first airport beauty parlor for men'. Last but not least, the Absolute Spa
at Vancouver International Airport is tucked at the end of the
International Terminal. This 24-hour gym gives guests full access and
concierge service for CDN 15 a day.
Tech is a grateful source for TRANSUMER-style innovation as well. Launched this summer at Schiphol Airport, Fuel for Travel
lets TRANSUMERS download travel guides, music, audio books, tv shows
and movies to their MP3 players and other digital devices. Located in
Schiphol's Departure Lounges 1 and 2, the Fuel for Travel hubs feature
listening and viewing stations for travellers to browse digital
content. Once they've found what they want, they can dock their device,
pay by credit or debit card, and download the material. Pricing is
similar to that of online music and video downloads. A wide range of
devices is supported, including MP3 and MP4 players, phones and PDAs.
More from Schiphol: their latest TRANSUMER concoction is Schiphol Weddings,
a just-launched wedding service enabling couples to ‘say yes and go’.
Wedding planners are available, and ceremonies at the airport (where
escape can be fast and anonymous) are conducted by a registrar from the
Municipality of Haarlemmermeer.
On to...
Yet another important angle on TRANSUMERS: moving from the fixed to the ephemeral might just
have some positive side effects for the environment. More services and
less goods, more re-use by buying and selling second hand goods, more
shared ownership... (Needless to say, if temporary becomes just another
word for 'disposable', the outlook for the environment isn't as rosy.)
For an eco-friendly example of TRANSUMERISM, look no further than
car sharing—not the luxury kind, as described earlier on, but the clubs
that help people get rid of their cars altogether. Research shows that
every carshare vehicle on the road replaces seven to eight owned
vehicles, due to people selling their cars or deciding against buying a
second or third vehicle (source: Sydney Morning Herald). There are now
more than 2,000 carshare organizations and initiatives in 600 cities worldwide. From Zipcar and Streetcar to Greenwheels and Car City Club. Chicago-based I-GO Car Sharing deserves special mention, as their entire fleet consists of hybrid vehicles.
The eco-leasing lifestyle doesn’t stop at car
sharing: check out the following eco-TRANSUMER services, that also tie
in with the aforementioned auction culture:
UK-based Cahooting
is a free service for people who wish to find or advertise items for
rent. The company’s mission is to help make the world become a more fun
and sustainable place, by reducing unnecessary production and
pollution. Users simply browse the item categories and locations and
inquire about rental price and availability. Sports equipment,
clothing, housing, cars, storage: anything and everything can be
offered or found for rent. There are no restrictions as to who can
advertise items for rent, be it an existing rental company or an
individual.
Freecycle
is a grassroots and entirely non-profit movement of people who give
(and get) stuff for free in their own towns. The number of Freecycle
communities around the world currently stands at more than 3,500, with
more than 2.7 million Freecycle members. And then there are numerous
bartering and swapping sites, recycling stores, drop-off stores… More on this in our upcoming look at the ECO-ECOSYSTEM trend.
Trends are never ‘or’, they're always ‘and’. Not
every consumer will be a TRANSUMER, and not every TRANSUMER will live a
transient lifestyle 24/7. There is always a need for roots, for
non-transient relationships, for shelter. People, consumers, still need
a base, and still need to be sure the basics are at least at all times
available. Owning does imply a certain level of security,
something that others can’t just take away from you. Witness the
millions of consumers enamored with INSPERIENCES (turning homes into professional-style comfort and entertainment zones), with LIFE CACHING
(dedicatedly collecting, storing and displaying one's entire life; so
much for forgetting about the past), and so on. Never hurts to keep
this in mind when preparing your TRANSUMER ideation session!
Next? Well, for one, we haven’t even touched upon
that most ephemeral of all worlds: the online arena. Where new content
can be sampled by the gigabytes, where identities can change in a
heartbeat, where casual encounters are arranged for in mere minutes
(for example, Adult Friend Finder
has over 20 million members looking for transient connections). To
truly cut ties with the fixed, head for virtual worlds. Make sure you
check out our YOUNIVERSAL BRANDING briefing to find out how to cater to online TRANSUMERS, or ask the guides at Synthravels, the world’s first travel agency for virtual worlds, to give you a tour!
(Oh,
and just wait for TRANSUMERS to be amongst the first to accept if not
desire virtual goods. After all, the more time they spend online, the
less need they have for expensive, fixed, hardly ever used physical
goods. But we're getting carried away here...)
And how about the hundreds of thousands of
professional expats whose lives are transient by default? Keep an eye
out (no pun intended) for Tyler Brule’s new magazine Monocle,
launching early 2007. The mag's mission is “to appeal to successful
professionals who travel widely and divide their time between several
cities.” Not a bad place for getting your new TRANSUMER services in
front of the right crowd. Or, for the entrepreneurial publishers
amongst you: Monocle leaves enough room for other dedicated TRANSUMER
magazines or websites.
Or... baby boomers, whose (near future) daily routines more than any
other demographic may mirror the TRANSUMERS trend? From the Associated
Press:
Russ and Jean Glines have
picked the theme music to herald their transition from living in a
3,000-square foot country club home to full-time roadies in a
400-square foot recreational vehicle. The Glines, 43-year-old mortgage
brokers, are among a growing number of Baby Boomers who have pushed the
number of RV owners to record levels, including some who hit the road
full time while continuing to pursue their careers. Baby Boomers have
money, a sense of wanderlust and enough technology to run an office or
stay in touch with family while on the road. Thanks to Wi-Fi, satellite
Internet hookups, e-mail and cell phones, the Glines will continue to
run their California-based mortgage company from their Country Coach
Intrigue. "We're looking forward to sitting in the Keys in Florida with
our satellite dish hooked up and working like we were in our office in
San Jose and going out for walks on the beach at night“, Russ said.
Needless to say, we can go on and on about
TRANSUMERS, as manifestations of this trend are everywhere. We'll do a
proper 'Part II' in Q2 of 2007, but for now, we'll leave the additional
spotting to you. No doubt, while reading the above, many other angles
and examples have already surfaced. Sit down with your colleagues
(preferably in an inspiring, TRANSUMER-style BEING SPACE), and figure
out how you can reduce the hassles of ownership for your customers,
which of your current offerings could be turned into rental services,
what (offline and online) venues and spots you should have a presence
in or at, what part of your branding message should speak to the
TRANSUMERS amongst your customers, and so on. Happy spotting!
Special thanks to Kristina Dryza, whose piece on 'temporariness' inspired us to do this update.
Source: www.trendwatching.com
|
