Take Patrick from Manchester, for example – music producer and owner of ‘Emib’, an independent clothing brand. Next to his love for music and fashion, he is a passionate advocate for the younger generation. Patrick regularly organizes events for young people in Manchester; he also uses his social platforms to speak up about how brands can better engage with GenZ.
Being ‘experts by passion’, leading-edge consumers such as Patrick can zoom in on a particular lifestyle or emerging trend and add local nuances. At the same time, with many being well-travelled, they can zoom out and contemplate the societal influence, potential future direction, and impact of a trend at a global level. This makes them powerful collaboration partners for brands when rallying around business challenges.
For Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for example, our Illume Network fueled tech innovation in finance and banking. Together with five Illume Guides, we deep dived into five future tech themes put forward by RBS, to explore the human problems they could solve. Next, the insights were validated with RBS’s everyday consumers. The project resulted in key opportunities for RBS across the five strategic themes; all were grounded in emerging cultural expectations and mass consumer realities.
Collaborating with leading-edge consumers can thus help businesses anticipate cultural shifts and emerging trends, rather than merely reacting to them afterwards. It’s about combining strong consumer insights in the present with solid foresights that can help shape the future.