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Three ways to take trends forward
How trends serve as a stepping stone for brand strategy, customer experience and innovation.


Sarah Van Oerle
07 January 2025
4 min read
Trend reports have come a long way since the 1960s, when the first attempts to predict societal and technological shifts emerged. In 1992, the release of Faith Popcorn’s The Popcorn Report set the stage for understanding (future) consumer behaviour as an essential tool for businesses and brands. Fast forward to today, where trend reports are a cornerstone of every new year, offering fresh perspectives and inspiration. From Pinterest Predicts to Adobe’s 2025 creative trends forecast, or the Hilton Trends report 2025, these are just three of the 1.09 billion hits that appear when you Google ‘trends report 2025’.
Among these is our own What Matters 2025 report, spotlighting 12 key trends shaping consumer priorities for 2024 and beyond. While these reports can be fascinating and full of insights, they often leave readers wondering, “what does this mean for my brand?”. Let’s explore three practical ways to apply consumer trends and make them work for you.
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Brand strategy & (re)positioning
Understand which trends and cultural shifts influence your brand strategy and how you (re)position yourself in the market.
One of the trends highlighted in our 2025 report is ’embracing boredom’, which is all about intentionally slowing down and choosing to step away from the ‘rat race’ by prioritising moments of pause. In fact, our research shows how 81% of people globally say it’s important to take time to stand still and reflect.
KitKat has championed the value of breaks for decades with its iconic slogan, “Have a break, have a KitKat.” Yet, Nestlé recognized a unique challenge with Gen Z – the generation most in need of breaks wasn’t fully embracing them. Through a global study that included a six-day online community and survey, we uncovered a striking insight: while most people believe they take breaks, only 34% of experience truly high-quality ones. This discovery led to KitKat’s ‘Break Better’ campaign, set to Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’. The ad tells the relatable story of an overwhelmed young office worker who finds clarity and balance in a small but intentional moment with a KitKat. This campaign highlights the power of tapping into cultural insights to remain relevant – showing that even in a fast-paced world, a well-timed break can make all the difference.
2. Customer experience
Understand how trends are manifesting amongst your consumers, what their current challenges and barriers are, and how you can create experiences that resonate deeply with your audience.
Take ageing: once linked to slowing down, it’s now seen as a period of reinvention, with our research highlighting 71% viewing it as an opportunity for growth. This fuels a trend called ‘Silver renaissance’, where people consider ageing as an opportunity. This health-conscious, wellness-seeking group has often been overlooked in brand communications. Recognizing their untapped potential, Haleon explored the ‘new silvers’ (45-60) and ‘silvers’ (60+) in China through our dedicated structural community. This research uncovered vibrant human stories, with many describing ageing as a ‘second spring’ – a phase of freedom and opportunity for personal growth, hobbies and relationships. These insights became a foundation for Haleon’s strategic planning, guiding product development, activations and campaigns. By championing the silver generation’s value, Haleon reshapes perceptions, creates relevant experiences and fosters meaningful connections with this audience, ultimately enhancing customer experience by addressing their evolving needs and desires.

3. Innovation
Lastly, trends can fuel your innovation initiatives, allowing them spark new ideas and using them to co-create potential solution areas.
To support Mars Snacking in developing ‘experiential snacking solutions’ linked to specific innovation territories, we collaborated with leading-edge consumers. They identified key cultural shifts and emerging trends within each territory which were then further explored by our cultural experts using strategic-thinking frameworks. Next, our semioticians delved into the innovation territories, leading to actionable inspiration visualised in provocative inspiration boards. In the final stage, we tapped into eÿeka, our creative crowdsourcing network, to generate out-of-the-box solutions for each territory. We launched a global contest to collect fresh inspiration for each innovation territory, resulting in over 50 concepts per contest. The final ideas were further developed by Mars’ stakeholder and served as inspiration for further concepting.
Another example of how trends can fuel innovation is the work we did for L’Oréal R&I China on Gen Z beauty. The team gathered numerous trend studies from various sources but faced the challenge of translating those ‘trends’ into concrete product features to fuel innovation. First, we connected with leading-edge consumers to sharpen bigger trends and define key areas for L’Oréal to focus on in the beauty category. Second, we tapped into L’Oréal’s ongoing online community to better understand how each territory reflects in Gen Z’s daily life. This allowed us to prioritise the territories which resonated most with consumers and, at the same time, interpret consumers’ needs to fuel product innovation. This approach resulted in a consolidation of macro trends with real micro moments in consumers’ daily lives. The L’Oréal team received a holistic picture, depicting Gen Z’s key drivers in the beauty sector and their expectations in the identified territories.
To summarize, trend reports are more than just inspiration – they can give you the spark you need to start thinking about next steps when it comes to brand strategy, customer experience and innovation. As you gear up for the new year, explore our What Matters 2025 report for insights and ideas to shape your next steps.
* The numbers in this article are based on 15 markets: AU, BE, CN, DE, FR, HK, IN, NL, PH, SG, TW, UAE, UK, US, ZA
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