Join the Dots Launches Consumer Trends Model

Consumer insight firm Join the Dots has launched an applied consumer trends model called UP Trends, designed to help clients with their mid-term planning cycles. It is currently aimed at UK brands, but the firm is planning to roll it out in other markets.

Using a combination of the company's online communities - including its Illume Network community of 'trend-savvy, culturally attuned individuals' - and a nationally representative survey of 2000 people, the company identifies and quantifies consumer trends and draws on 'positive psychology' to ensure these trends are rooted in genuine consumer needs. Its new UP (Understanding People) Trends model is based on fourteen consumer needs, embedded in seven human drivers (including those such as relationships, engagement, and health & security), which deliver happiness and wellbeing. This allowed the team to plot each trend's development, and assign a phase to each one, from nascent through to emerging, expanding and established.

The team works to understand how trends are having an impact in a client's category; and then organises creative workshops sessions to help clients identify and apply trends to their brand, helping them create new concepts and innovations. UP Trends can be applied to commercial challenges and briefs such as innovation in new product development, communications and advertising, as well as long-term strategic planning, and portfolio management.

Kelly McKnight (pictured), the firm's Head of Culture and Trends, comments: 'Ultimately, UP Trends has been created to bridge the gap between the now and next, bringing together a deep understanding of people with our trends expertise to help clients design for changing consumer needs. It's a really exciting framework, because when we look at the data, we can see lots of fascinating stories emerging. Each story represents an opportunity or challenge for consumer-facing brands today'.

Web site: www.jointhedotsmr.com .