TrendWatching for Purpose-Driven Innovation

I really enjoy getting my weekly email from Trendwatching. What is TrendWatching, let them answer that question: “TrendWatching is a purpose-driven trend firm, inspiring business professionals to launch sustainable innovations that benefit people and planet.” TrendWatching is the source of many of the Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) examples we sprinkle across Essentials of Marketing. If you want to show students that business can have a positive impact on the world, sharing examples like these in your class might give them a better attitude and hopefully inspire them to do more:

• Pottery Barn’s “The Accessible Home” product line has taken some of its most popular products and redesigned them serve people of all abilities. TrendWatching’s short article calls this trend “OMNIBILITY” and explains why this trend is happening now. products more accessible. It is the right (and maybe profitable) thing to do. (Chapter 3 on social trends, Chapter 9 on new product development, and Chapter 12 on retailing, specifically targeting new customers.)
• It will take millions of small (and hopefully many large) actions to reduce the impact of climate change. Here you can read that “Hoopsy introduces paper pregnancy tests to slash single-use plastics.” (Chapter 8 on new product development, Chapter 19).
• Dove has long been a leader in Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) and we have featured them in previous blog posts. This time Dove Canada sswitched its gold logo to gray on social media to support ageism and sexism in the workplace.
• Insurance company Lemonade is a purpose-driven tech firm. If you don’t know Lemonade, you will have fun reading about them in the forthcoming 18^th edition of Essentials of Marketing (available ~February 2023). Now the company is leveraging its artificial intelligence to offer an insurance option for millions of smallholder farms. The company plans to track weather and automatically pay farmers if a flood or drought occurs—farmers don’t even need to file an insurance claim! Read more here.