Big consumer trends

From Wharton, "Unilever';s Michael Polk: It';s All about Dislocating Ideas "

"...definition straight from the dictionary: Innovation: a new idea or method; a change in something established. "It's not invention.... It's innovation""

Unilever is one company that has bought in to the enterprise 2.0 ideas.

"...technology shrinking the world ... and economic power shifting to Asia." On top of that, traditional societal models, such as family structures, are changing, and there is "pervasive insecurity" among consumers in the post-9/11 world. "There are big consumer trends out there that ideas need to be filtered through," he noted, listing some of them:

• experimental society (enriching life);
• individualism (solutions for me);
• a need to belong (getting connected);
• complexity (simplify my life);
• anything goes;
• physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing;
• securing a better world (environmental) and trading up and down."