A portrait from a single hair

We are so far with present technology that we can figure out how someone looks by a investigating one single hair. This is what really intrigued the artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who spent time collecting hairs shed in public spaces... and then sequencing the DNA therein to print 3D sculptures of what those hairs’ owners might look like.
The video 'DNA Portrait' is a lovely short documentary shot by TED. 'It's a very accessible way for the public to engage with this new technology. It really brings to light how powerful it is, the idea that a hair from your head can fall on your street and a perfect stranger can pick it up and know something about it', says TEDGlobal speaker Ellen Jorgensen, who runs a lab in DNA-based technology. Adding: 'With DNA sequencing becoming faster and cheaper, this is the world we’re all going to be living in.'


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In 20 years most types of cancer can be cured

'In 20 years, cancer will rarely be fatal.' This prediction is from the cancer center Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in the Netherlands. According to the representatives of the center there is increasing knowledge about treatments, surgical techniques are becoming more accurate and also methods to identify DNA abnormalities in tumors are getting better.

This allows the doctors to treat patients with a more specific treatment, adapted to their own DNA. The cancer center is expected to cure 90 percent of all cancer cases over 20 years. Now only half of all cancer patients survives. Most of the time they don't get a customized treatment, but a standard treatment that has been tested on a large group of people, but this doesn't mean it will work with every patient.



Source: click here

Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands, part 3 Manifestations & conclusion

Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands
The most innovative companies, according to YOUTH, are the ones that dare to focus on the smaller group of innovators instead of the mass: the early majority and the late majority. If a product or service is successful (read: if the innovators and early adopters like and buy it), the early majority will follow and so on.

If you choose the most influential teenagers and young adults to represent your innovation, then you’re a clever brand. I must admit, I does take some guts to focus on the small group of ‘hip’ innovators in the city, instead of focussing directly on the mass.  But if your product appeals to the ‘leading’ youth, a company has a chance to win a bonus; a product or service that is slowly but surely spreading to become a mass trend, resulting from their new reputation as an innovative and trendy brand.

Examples of manifestations of the trend: Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands

 1 ‘Brands Meets Blog’

‘Brands Meets Blog’ is a company that helps businesses to connect with targeted bloggers to create genuine, authentic content to promote a product, a brand or a service. And Brand Meets Blog has certainly some big clients, for example: Garnier, L’oréal Paris and Kellogs.


2 Red Bull ambassadors
Red Bull has not only their famous Red Bull girls, who are most of the time typically sexy, spontaneous and energetic girls that  represent and dole out the cans that give you wings on campus or on hip spots in the city.

Red Bull has also started ‘Red Bull University’, a 300+ student network empowered with the task of building Red Bull as a global brand, on campus. It’s a part time job for social students who can influence the crowd. A part time job, during your school week.

Red Bull is a leading and progressive brand in the marketing world. They dare to focus on young ‘innovators’ and ‘early adopters’ and believe the rest will follow, and yes they do.

By involving young people completely in their way of representing the brand, - f.e. they’re looking for student brand managers, who can lobby for them on campus -, they reach a huge audience. It’s not for nothing that they are indeed a leading brand, thanks to their modern guinea-pigs.

ConclusionBrands and youth are a great combination. Brands have to keep up with the fast changing interests and developments in society. Youth knows better than anyone what are the newest hypes and trends in their subcultures, because they live at the same pace as the velocity of society does.
Brands and youth are connected to each other and leading brands have well noted that young people appreciate the opinions within their own social circle more than some celebrity it’s opinion.

Quality time with friends is the best time they have. Because of their busy lifestyles, relaxing with friends is the best way to spend time and take a break from their 24/7 incentive life. At a friday night in the pub or a cup of coffee in their break, this is where the conversations happen. Also about the newest innovative products or other interesting novelties. These moments are crucial for huge leading companies. They want youth to talk about their brand and to ensure that more and more interesting people are going to talk and write about it and eventually buy it.

Youth are looking for flexible jobs and representing a brand is most of the time a social affair. And inspirational and influential bloggers? They will just get products for free to show them off in the fashionable streets of London.  One year later everyone will wear that particular pair of Ray Bann  sunglasses and everyone will use that solar powered laptop sleeve from Mac.



References

VPRO . (2011). De BV IK. Retrieved March 19th, 2013 from: http://programma.vpro.nl/themadebvik/
Wikipedia .(2013). diffusion of innovations theory. retrieved May 16th, 2013 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
Becki King . (2012).The motherhood. Retrieved May 20th 2013 from http://themotherhood.com/blog/bloggers-to-brands-best-practices-for-working-together/
Brand meets blog .(2013). Brand meets blog. Retrieved May 19th 2013 from http://www.brandmeetsblog.com/
Red Bull University. (2013). Red Bull University. Retrieved May 20th 2013 from http://www.redbullu.com/

Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands, part 2 Research result 2/2

Trend agency YOUTH

The second part of my research in London was my visit at  trend agency YOUTH, a leading trend agency in London specialized in youth trends and a desirable company for youth expertise. To get an idea, YOUTH has worked for companies like Adidas, Nintendo and MTV.

I had a conversation with Tom Carrington Smith from trend agency YOUTH. He gave me some great insights in big youth trends in London, as well as in market trends like products and services, and it seems more and more likely that these trends go hand in hand.

Friends are InfluencersAs came out in the interviews, friends play very important roles in the lives of youth. YOUTH has also noted this and sees this as a shift. Celebrities aren’t as much of an influence on youth as they used to be. Friends are now the biggest examples for youth to emulate. If friends buy or do certain things they are more likely to copy their behaviour than the behaviour of some random famous person that they don’t have a personal connection with. Youth is more able to see celebrities in perspective and they realise celebrities aren’t always the right example for them. This perception increases with age.

Innovators and early adoptersAs I said in the introduction, youth are often ‘innovators’ or ‘early adopters’ when it comes to trends. Those terms are marketing terms from the ‘Diffusion of innovations theory’ devised by Everett Rogers. This is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. According to Rogers there are four main elements that influence the spread of a new idea:  the innovation, communication channels, time, and a social system. This process relies heavily on human capital. The idea must be widely adopted in order to self-sustain.

Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation. Innovators are characterized as ‘willing to take risks, youngest in age and having the highest social class. Early adopters are the second fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. Early adopters are known for their great influence on their social environment. Early adopters are also typically young in age and are also provided with a higher social status. When early adopters are enthusiastic about a certain product or service, it’s up to them to share it with their social circle. So it really depends on them if the product or service will achieve the cherished break-through to the early majority.

In the cartoon below you can see how the theory is build up and how it works.

Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands, part 2 Research result 1/2

Research results

As I said in my introduction I immediately found out that there was one trend that really stood out. The sources I used to provide solid trend insights stated and confirmed this change in relationship between brand and young consumers. In addition the outcomes of my research confirmed my previous research on youth trends as well, so there my substantiated youth trend was born.

Interviews
In the interviews I had with several youth on the street, I involved questions about their quality of life, like: What are the most important things in life? What do they do on an average day? What do you enjoy most? All questions that can lead to their view on their quality of life.

Here are the insights that I got from the interviews I did with youth in London.  They are pretty coherent with the insight I got from the meeting with YOUTH. You will quickly notice the overlaps, because I will slowly work towards one trend that has emerged the most from out my research.

Pressure and incentives

According to the the teenagers and young adults I spoke, life is really busy in London. London is a busy city to grow up in and the pressure to achieve things is big. The economic crisis is showing the future in a bad light, while youth are willing to tackle the problems and use their creativity.

Things in life are moving faster than ever and youth is constantly getting incentives from the world around them. Youth are masters in handling all the input and are almost robotic multitaskers. They easily switch from online to offline and vice versa, these worlds blend together effortlessly in their lives.

Ideal jobs for young people will be jobs that are flexible and that can fit into their busy schedule. Favourite jobs are jobs in coffee shops, lunchrooms and bars that have late closing hours. When I ask them if they would like to have a job that they can carry out while they’re at school in their breaks or something, they react positively. It would save them a lot of time. Why I asked them this? More on that later in the report.

Well spent Quality time Because of the busy schedule of average teen in London they tell me they are much more aware of the fact that spending quality time is really important. Life rushes by, so a lot of the (mostly) girl I spoke are attending in some kind of mindfulness class, like yoga or pilates. This is not only for sporting reason, but it’s also seen as fun getaway with friends, out of the hurry of the city.

They’ll leave their smartphones for a second to play cards with friends or to drink coffee with mum or dad. Family is important for them, although they do admit that they don’t spend as much time with family as they would like. There is simply too little time. Fun has to be planned, but if there’s fun in their agenda it will be super fun and real appreciated, well spent quality time. 

Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands, part 1: Introduction

 This trend report is based on qualitative research carried out in the city of London. 

Introduction

As a student trend watching I’m always curious and interested in subcultures. I want to know why people do the things they do and what their motives are. These insights can help me discover entrenched trends in society and, at the same time, help me find out the reason behind it. This gives me broad knowledge of society so I can perform my job well, namely: advising companies and help them to conquer markets and target groups.

Ever since I work at youth communication agency ‘Jong & Je Wil Wat’ in the Netherlands I got intrigued by the fast and innovative generation called generation Y. Youngsters are the innovators and early adopters (These terms are being explained later on i this report) of the world and therefore the first ones to pick up on a trend, which makes them a very interesting target group for companies. At the same time there is a lot expected of them which puts a lot of pressure on them. I am curious how youth thinks about their life, what their values are and how companies adapt to this.  My research question is therefore: What is a striking youth trend in London and how do companies react to this?

In my research I focused specifically on generation Y. This generation is specified by a lot of youth experts in many different ways, but in this report the indication of generation Y is youth from around  15 to 25 years old. My research consists of interviews where I asked generation Y about their lifestyle and about what matters to them and what makes them happy. In addition, and no less important, I visited a youth trend agency in London and talked about youth trends in London and how companies adapt to this.

After finishing carrying out my research methods, I saw a trend recur. First I want to show you the outcomes of the interviews and the meeting with trend agency YOUTH. Then I want to give you examples that support the outcomes and the trend I describe. Enjoy reading my report: Youth, modern guinea-pigs of the leading brands.