Good stuff

Its been a poor effort recently, three months without a post. To break my longest drought to date, here's a mixed bag of good stuff that I've come across lately... while i finalise a future rant about coffee chains.

1. The rise and rise of Hailo - a genuinely useful app and i don't even live in London anymore. The app that lets you hail that elusive black cab from the other side of town and track it all the way to your curbside seems to be everywhere. It saves the cabbie driving around looking for fares too - the kind of win-win that's likely to make it a huge success, and means they can offer trial driving promotions like this...

2. All year round decoration - Liberation day in Guernsey marks the end of the German occupation in the second world war, you can find out more about that here and maybe even plan a trip for next time round (9th May). Houses all over the island are decorated with bunting. That's been partly responsible for a new obsession i have over the stuff - if you want to get in on the bunting action you could do a lot worse than starting with a Dutch offering here.

3. Local craft classes - It's not just bunting, here's the latest edition to my the kitchen from Iris & Dora Designs they don't just sell you locally inspired homewares, they'll teach you how to make it too.

4. 'Destination' train stations - I travelled through Kings Cross last week for the first time since its redevelopment. A beautiful mix of old and new in the mould of St Pancras next door. If only we'd mastered the flying lark a little earlier... that way Gatwick South Terminal would have been built by the Victorians and it might have been next in line for a face lift.

5. 'Magic' mints - Good to see Peppersmith getting some High St distribution for their mints. They contain xylitol which makes them good for your teeth... well, for the few real ones I have left.

Saturday night: an Olympic sized shop window

Last Saturday night was a rather good one for me, for 80,000 people in Stratford and for a gazillion people watching on TV all over the country.

Jess and Greg were great and Mo Farah's race was the greatest bit of live sport I've ever watched. Hairs on the back of your neck don't even come close to the feeling everyone had up and down the country when he hit the front still with 400m to go.

Everyday we've seen wall to wall coverage of athletes achieving unimaginable feats of athleticism or - as they put it - letting their team and their country down under the shear weight of expectation that comes with 4 years of training for one single first round heat.

Having watched the first week's events, it turns out we're pretty handy at a lot of sports that are still effectively minority activities nationwide and in the large part ignored by school curriculums.

But it's not just the talent of our athletes that's impressive, it's the way they conduct themselves. They're humble. When was the last time that word appeared in a sentence alongside the name of a premiership footballer? Many of these athletes are supported by lottery funding, some have other jobs and all are making the ultimate sacrifice over four long years for their moment to shine.

This two weeks is the ultimate shop window for these sports. The beauty of the Olympics is that it's greater than the sum of it's parts. Minority sports will go back to being minority sports by October and only the most impressive of gold medal hauls will live on in the memory. So it feels all the more important to take advantage of this window of opportunity and encourage adults as well as kids to try something new. Yesterday's Times newspaper carried a small column on trying cycling, boxing, volleyball and hockey. Each obviously have their own organisations and 'give it a go' programs and while that's right for those that really seek it out, it doesn't feel like it's made easy enough for the majority of people.

Here's what i'd do...

1. Find our answer to 'Jamie Oliver' to become a highly vocal sporting figurehead in lobbying the government - backed by the media - over broader (and more competitive) sporting opportunities in schools. And get a debate happening this year.
2. Post games, run an Olympic led comms push around getting into these sports, utilising the current 2012 website that everyone is familiar with to maximise enquiries before disseminating to individual sporting bodies
3. Harness the spirit of volunteering and club ethos to provide opportunities for activity all over the country
4. Pressure official sponsors into investing in equipment to aid local clubs as part of the legacy
5. Focus on kids but don't exclude adults, if recent statistics are anything to go by, they're almost in greater need of exercise and making it fun is more likely to make participation happen 
6. And finally, do it quickly. It feels like we have until the end of the Paralympics before the euphoria starts to recede and our new found love of volleyball goes into hibernation for another 4 years

Recipe friendly products

Simple way to encourage more real cooking from The Co-op, package the fresh herbs up around the dish your cooking. Less waste, less cost, and hopefully less ready meals as a result.





Herbs on sale 'by the recipe' in Coop



Talking of which, here's the latest campaign from Jamie Oliver, food revolution day (19th May), encouraging schools, workplaces and everyone else to prepare and eat better food.

Future trends: the 2015 consumer

I went to a ‘big conversation’ hosted by Mintel last week that used four macro trends to forecast how the world could be working in 2015 and the subsequent impact that could have for people, industry and brands.

It mixed cold hard data and market experience to project what we can expect to see in future years and it threw up some interesting points providing real food for thought, particularly around how products and brands need to evolve and adapt to the new tastes and customs of a global audience.

For me the most interesting point came with the intersection of three trends, all of which are pretty self-explanatory, well the first two at least, the third refers to the older generation, their increased number, spending power and youthful attitude to life.

1.     East meets West

2.     Access everywhere

3.     Old Gold

It was a reoccurring theme around the notion of a healthy lifestyle along with the importance of looking after yourself and others that I found interesting – here’s a top line on the three trends and how their convergence could provide significant opportunities for some brands.

1.     East meets West. The growth of the East is well documented but the size and speed of this growth really is something to behold…

·       90% increase in India’s GDP over the next four years

·       More 1m+ populated cities in China than the US and Canada

·       China responsible for 25% of luxury goods sales across the globe in 2011

·       Migration to cities (particularly in China and India) will result in 70% of world population living in cities by 2020

It’s fair to assume that the subsequent impact on the cost of living and consumption of everything from food to luxury manufactured goods across the globe will be significant.

2.     Access Everywhere is already well under way, but the innovations around smart phones, location based technology, along with NFC technology removing data transfer barriers, will have a huge effect on how people interact with their surroundings…

·       By 2014, more people will access the web via mobile than desk top machines

·       Attitudes to online security are changing - 30% of teens who have been ‘hacked’ said they don’t think it’s a big deal

·       Personal appliances previewed at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas are now synchronised to social networks and mobile devices

·       People are increasingly prepared to pay more for mobile tailored content

·       1 in 3 men in the U.S. use their mobile to manage their health

Again, health and wellbeing are likely to see significant advances as a result of technology driving “DIY health”. We’ve seen diabetes blood testing apps and Wi-Fi enabled smart scales at CES and the recently launched Nike+ FuelBand is another example of technology driving the personalised health sector.

3.     Finally, Old Gold highlights the growing impact that an ageing population could have and argues that a once ignored consumer group should become a much greater focus for brands over the next five years, especially given their appetite for adventure and receptiveness to new technologies improving their lifestyle.

·       144m more over 55s in the world than today (by 2015)

·       Over 55s will double by 2015 in the UK

·       Intergenerational homes becoming more and more commonplace

·       By 2015, 41% of South Koreans and 45% of Japanese will be aged over 60

·       50% of kindle users are over 50

·       50% of babies born after the year 2000 will live to 100 years old

The numbers above highlight the strain that state services will be under in trying to look after an ageing population. It’s likely that remit will begin to fall to families, not just the state – and that could have implications still further for the long term attitude of governments to the health and wellbeing of its people.

It feels like the opportunity around health and wellbeing over the next 5 years in particular will be significant. And I’m not just talking about importing Tai Chi exercise into the workplace here. I think we’re likely to see a longer term pro-active approach to health and wellbeing that encompasses a much more holistic perspective, facilitated partly by the advances in mobile technologies and personalised health management and partly by the wider social backdrop of healthcare systems under considerable strain. with intergenerational family units caring for each other as opposed to relying on the state, much like we see in the Far East.

Will we end up with a nation of health obsessed hypochondriacs? I don’t think so; I think people will be much more aware of the lifestyle they are leading and that improved education and tangible monitoring techniques will enable people to enjoy a more balanced lifestyle. It will enable people to really question the suitability (be that provenance, health or ethical credentials) of the products and brands on offer to them. All of which could have significant repercussions for brands that are ill prepared, while also serving as a huge competitive advantage for those businesses that have evolved to pre-empt a new breed of consumer.