The tartan trouser trends

On the evening of Wednesday 7^th March, I was lucky enough to join nearly 50 of the great and the good of The Marketing Society Singapore’s membership, at the super cool Accenture Digital Hub in Raffles City Tower to discuss Fjord’s Annual Trends.

I say discuss, but in fact we mostly listened spellbound to Mark Curtis, the Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer of the design and innovation consultancy who became part of the Accenture family in 2013.

He was resplendent in very loud tartan trousers as an homage to the 1970’s punk band the Sex Pistols, pioneers of musical innovation and force of massive disruption in their day.

He outlined the seven key trends disrupting the marketing community today from the perspective of his agency’s staff and some of their clients worldwide.

So here they are.

Each one in pithy synthesis, and all contributing to the meta-theme that Mark describes as ‘tension’, the ‘in versus out of Brexit’ or the ‘truth versus fake news’.

1.  Physical fights back - the time has come to blend the physical with the digital

2.  Computers have eyes - image recognition will lead to a new swathe of tightly targeted services

3.  Slaves to the algorithm - how do you design a marketing strategy to win over the algorithms?

4.  A machine's search for meaning - design collaboration with machines that will help us develop together.

5.  In transparency we trust -  only about 15% of us understand Blockchain yet, but it has the potential to create transparency that will clear the fog of internet ambiguity.

6.  The ethics economy - people will choose the brands that align with their own beliefs

7.  Design outside the lines - designers, ’take responsibility for your craft through continuous learning’.

Of course, there’s a richer and deeper story behind each trend but the final, simple reminder from Mark, the Designer and Sid Vicious fan, was that ‘’Craft and Beauty really mater’’.

And as we know from another iconic musical disrupter, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ‘’Beauty must have power over man’’.

By Nick Clements, CEO of Ampersand Global (www.ampersandglobal/com) and the COO of the MCG& Group (http://mcg-grp.com) 
Long- time member of the Marketing Society and currently on a tour of our APAC operation visiting clients, partners and colleagues.