What do GM foods and spirituality have in common?  Interestingly, both are issues affecting consumers in both the UK and United States.  Being a cultural mediator and double translator has its advantages: you can arbitrage trend differences and try to root them on the other side of the Atlantic.  Though this sport is naturally full of risks, the financial and cultural rewards for those paying attention to consumer trends can be vast.  

So what are some consumer trends to watch over the next 5 to 10 years that will the affect both countries equally?

• ‘post materialism’.  Coined by American futurist Faith Popcorn (yes, that is her real name), this trend describes our pursuits, now that most of our material desires have been satisfied.  We seek a new breed of thrills, with the 21st century adventurer being more selfless, seeking quality over quantity, experience over ownership, virtuality over reality, intangibles over tangibles, and time over money.  What evidence is there that this trend is moving from a minor tremor to a significant quake?  Looking to the travel industry affords you some immediate clues.  Richard Branson’s recent launch of his VSS (Virgin Space Ship) travel business hopes to give adventurers an experience they’ll never forget.  Consumers are also finding virtual experiences just as thrilling, with the rise in registered users of online worlds MySpace, Facebook and Second Life amongst others.  A recent report from Gartner Group, the IT researchers, predicts that by 2011, more than 80% of all internet users will have an avatar presence, further proof that living an intangible, post-materialist life can have its rewards.

• The worried well.  This too will have a significant impact on both tectonic plates as the result of a variety of colluding factors including credit worries.  Fuelled by sub-prime mortgage provider meltdowns in the US and the UK’s Northern Rock bank whose policies spurred customers to withdraw their savings, financial institutions in both countries are feeling the credit concerns of consumers.  Consumer debt in the UK no longer has the stigma it once did, freeing up shoppers to feed their desires, holiday plans and home improvements.  Adding to the anxieties of the worried well is their improved medical literacy, helped along by their aging relatives and the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry players who encourage us to stay fit, read traffic light indicators on our foods, rebalance our lifestyles and consume their remedies.  At-home diagnostic kits can even inform you of any number of serious ailments previously only discoverable by means of extensive hospital-based testing.  For example, California start-up BioIQ lets you collect a small amount of blood, urine or other sample type which you send by mail to their labs for analysis, all in the comfort of your own, post-materialist home!

• The simple life.  The search for simplicity is not surprising when you study overworked, over-stretched, multi-tasking workforces in both countries.  Recent OECD studies cite UK employees as the longest-working in Europe at an average of 1,672 hours per year, while Americans work 1,804 per year (still way below the Koreans at 2,354 per year).  Clearly the internet grocery and travel services have figured out how to capitalize on this trend, as have the large corporations whose concierge services look to simplify their executives’ home lives so that they can focus on their work lives.  More evidence, as if it were needed, that consumers in both countries seek simplicity is the moves to make more transparent the quality and sources of the foods we consume.  With genetically-modified produce and cloned livestock making their way to our supermarket shelves, traceability is a trend that will only grow stronger on the back of bird flu, BSE, foot-and-mouth, e-coli and other upsets to our trust in reliable nutrition.  The trend towards ‘traffic lights’ labeling systems means you can also know how healthy prepared foods are, while the growing ‘neutraceuticals’ and functional food trends mean that you can simplify your meals by getting 2 benefits in one: a food that satisfies, combined with a biological remedy (think Yakult here).

• Green is the new black.  Consumers on both sides will become even more eco-literate as food miles are disclosed on their grocery products, carbon offsetting policies are promoted by their favorite airlines, recycling initiatives become more binding (e.g., the City of Westminster in London is currently investigating charging its residents for removing their waste that is not separated out into recycling bags) and carbon footprints become everyday statistics to wield in the war to win customer loyalty.

Therefore, the implications for consumers on both sides of the Atlantic is that while life gets more complex, more global, more hurried, more impersonal, there are great opportunities for the British and American consumer to have an improved quality of life.  With these common trends, strong cultural ties and empathies, we should expect more UK/US business collaborations to emerge which strike the right balance between improving our lives and improving their shareholders’ lives.  Understanding the cultural landscape and nuances which shape how these trends materialize in each country will determine those companies that succeed.