Here We Are Now | CREATIVE TRENDS
“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.” — Baba Dioum.
In response to a world that can feel overwhelming and a cost of living crisis, we see a powerful engagement with all things local and homegrown. The post-pandemic “revenge travel” boom shows signs of fading but in its place, we see a desire to engage with local spaces and places.
This does not mean a parochial turning away from other places and cultures. We see a hunger for authentic human stories wherever they come from, a recognition that the most compelling story of all is humanity. Those traveling look beyond the surface to understand the real story of the countries and cultures they visit.
EMPATHY IN ACTION
Allied with our new storytellers trend, we see a desire to hear the authentic story of places from the people who know and love them best.
The travel industry is placing new emphasis on empowering indigenous communities to tell and profit from their own stories. The Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada’s “Original Original” campaign promotes experiences owned by Canada’s First Nation communities, Inuits and Métis. Sensitive engagement with these communities is paramount as businesses navigate the line, too often ignored in the past, between exploration and exploitation.
We also see a resurgence in hyper-local media. Earlier this year, Cox Media Group (CMG) launched Neighborhood TV tapping into the need to connect with our own communities.
Corona’s Native Sportscasters campaign earned the beer brand plaudits for its inclusive football match coverage inviting Mexicans to broadcast football matches in their native language. While many programs are broadcast in Spanish, there are as many as 68 native languages within the country. Aligned to this trend we see brands reminding us all of the wonder and beauty of the physical world in a world where almost anything can be AI-generated. AWAY luggage company reminds us that “The World Is Not AI-Generated” while the Nikon camera brand celebrates the extraordinary, unpredictable beauty of the real world vs the world generated by prompts.
To promote Air France-KLM's loyalty programme, Flying Blue, Dentsu Creative France told the story of member, Didi Han, as she travels to Seoul, she opens up about how different trips shaped her personality.
LOCAL LUXURY
Since the pandemic, there has been a marked shift in the reliance on international networks and an appreciation for goods and services far closer to home.
A Horizon Media survey revealed that 62% of young US adults said they would be “motivated to buy a product or service if it helps them achieve a sense of community belonging.”
A useful barometer for this sentiment in action is China where young consumers are favoring homegrown fashion and beauty brands. A network of local coffee brands has sprung up, from Saturn Bird to Manner, challenging preconceptions of what coffee “should” be according to Western traditions. Beauty brands such as Florasis and Proya are also growing rapidly, in part due to their embrace of traditional Chinese craft and ingredients.
In Vietnam, local is gaining in prestige with the likes of popular shoe brand Biti’s showcasing 40 years of progress in Vietnam, in 40 frames delivered in 1.6 seconds, the time it takes to take a physical step forward. Featuring the work of 40 local artists ‘A Step Forward’ quickly went viral as audiences were inspired by their national pride to share content from the campaign.
In India, we also see a desire to embrace local luxury brands, amidst the rise and rise of India’s middle class, the fastest-growing demographic in the country, that now accounts for 1 in 3 of the population. India is one of the fastest-growing markets for luxury in the world, with an appetite both for imported brands that give back to the local community, and for local fashion, beauty, and skincare brands.
THE COZY WEB
Our desire for a more rooted sense of place is also being reinforced in our digital worlds.
As an evolution of the interest in decentralized social platforms, we see the emergence of the ‘cozy web’, a term popularized by writer Venkatesh Rao which describes the private, intimate digital spaces on the internet people are increasingly retreating to.
The cozy web also marks a shift in the content that gets shared which is less about creating things designed to go viral and instead creating slower content for a smaller audience of like-minded individuals “offering space to consider how you want to contribute to the discourse. This is also translating into novel ways to market to audiences.
Chinese influencer Annie Yi debuted a livestream shopping experience with a difference on the e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu attracting over 1 million viewers (and 50M RMB) over a nine-hour long broadcast where “the live stream was not the usual fast-paced peddling of products; rather, it felt like an intimate sharing session.
The need for niche and neighborliness is manifesting again in the surge of small media titles covering topics closer to home. Writers for titles like The New York Times and Bloomberg Business Week are sidebarring for independent worker-owned websites like Byline for smaller audiences. 404 Media is a new independent media company founded by technology journalists pledging to dive into the stories in between the headlines.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR BRANDS & BUSINESSES...
A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED
We are moving rapidly beyond the age of the bland and universal insight, replaced by a hunger for authentic humanity. While lived experiences may be different, we recognize truth authentically told when we see it.
DISCOVERY AND INTIMACY
We see a desire both for discovery and familiarity. Consumers want to explore beyond the obvious and to also take comfort in things close to home. The opportunity is there to use hyper local communications, to uplift local businesses and to show new sides of familiar cities.
CULTURAL CONNECTION
Even the largest global brands can benefit from embracing local cultures and codes in how they engage audiences globally. KFC China for example combines imagery from the brand’s heritage with codes borrowed from traditional Chinese iconography.
Visit our global website to discover more about Dentsu Creative Trends Report 2024: The Futures Less Traveled.
www.dentsucreative.com/news/dentsu-creative-trends-2024
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