Adding trend to the mix – Focus on the French market

Sandrine Cormary, France

Consumers today are the new power influencer, they are involved with their communities, they take more action every day, they invite other consumers to participate and they lead active lifestyles, always opened to sharing with friends and family their passions, discussions and hobbies. Based on this, companies seek to grab their attention in nontraditional ways. A good start to do this is to determine the audience to engage with by a solid profiling of consumers based on their behaviors, attitude, lifestyle or values. And each year, experts, marketing gurus and analysts play this guessing game called “marketing trend forecasts and drivers of consumers’ behaviors”.  Are those trends actionable and applicable everywhere? If we look at the Trendwatching and WiseMarketer top trends in 2011, we’ll see that each market is specific in terms of consumer behavior. Lets point out which could be the most suitable ones for France

• The Pricing Pendemonium trend should be more present than ever in 2011 in France as some players are doing well with e-shopping websites such as Vente-privee.com, one of the hottest websites this year, a membership-based e-shopping website offering diversified items on sale for a limited time and quantities. From originally fashion-driven, it has enlarged its offering to high tech, consumer electronics and sport gear. The success of such websites has to be related with the ‘bargain’ phenomenon, particularly strong in France, as two third of the shops revenues currently come from it. There is no doubt that ‘buying a product at a better price during a short period’ tends to be very familiar in 2011 as the economic crisis aftermaths are still very visible in the consumer behavior and the stats.  

• The Urbanomics trend, in other words, providing specific goods, services, experiences or campaigns to the urbanites, appears as a leading trend here in France this year. By considering for instance the ‘bicycle renting’ service success achieved with Velib’ (JCDecaux Group) in Paris and in major cities in regions such as Lyon, Lille or Nantes, and many other day-to-day services offering targeting urbanites, be sure this trend will go on in 2011. It targets eco-conscious consumers committed to  preserving environment for future generations to come   

• Health and wellness is a considerable trend in France and 2011 will be a big year for health-positioned products and services. From food to gaming industry, consumers are expecting products that will help them ‘’feel’’ better in a world of compromise. Kinect for Xbox has surpassed its forecast with 8 million units sold worldwide. This performance has been relayed in France where Kinect for Xbox sales overtook the PlayStation Move ones by 100,000 units over the first 8 weeks, outperforming locally Wii sales when launched in 2006 on a same period of time. Regarding the food industry, France was one of the pioneer by launching the ‘probiotic’ yogurt with ‘Actimel’ (‘DanActive’ in the US and Canada) and one of Danone historical competitors, Nestlé just released in 2011 ‘Nesfluid, a functional and natural drink which is all about hydration and nutrition. Those trends are repeated in other markets as its pretty common to think that what you eat or do affects how you’re perceived.

• The Owner-less trend is powerful in France and with the current downturn, doing ‘’good’’ deals is an opportunity. One of the great example of this trend had been several years ago the euphoria around the hardware/equipment renting with companies like Kiloutou, Hertz Equipement, Laho Equipement targeting DIY aficionados. This trend tends to reach new business segments such as luxury bags, jewelry and accessories with numerous websites such as Itbags-luxury.com, Feelchic.fr or SacdeLuxe.fr. As the fashionista trend is hot currently, luxury bags have become as famous as celebrities wearing them, and we can be confident that every distinguishing feature of wealth could be rent one day. The bicycle renting phenomenon in big cities is also directly related to this owner-less trend. Some small companies have already adapted the ‘Velib’ concept to cars and hybrid cars such as Mobizen or Okigo.

To conclude this post, some of the listed trends are obviously not specific to France and applicable in most Western and developed Asian economies. This does not mean that other trends tackled in the Trendwatching forecasts or any other one will not be relevant in France as we know that most of the emerging marketing and consumer trends emerging in the US/Canada markets will certainly appear here with a significant delay.