Ford released their fifth annual trend report on Monday with an intimate dinner with their in-house Futurist, Sheryl Connelly as well as actress Jamie Chung.
As a large and historically established company, Ford needs to be able to foresee not only the market but what the consumer could possibly want in the next five to ten years. The mission is to stray as far away from the automotive industry as possible by observing global trends as well as generational behaviors to help fix and predict certain problems.
The conversation is geared towards consumer trends that are far removed from the automobile industry to discuss bigger global issues as well as societal and generational trends. The ladies discussed what is trending among global consumers today and how that can shape and impact the world. This 2017 edition revisits three topics that have been discussed in past reports as well as provided new trends that are currently emerging for consumers.
Topics of the conversation include the revisited water crisis and trust as well as new trends such as the Female Frontier and the Tech Spiral. Much of the conversion delved into the trend of more women occupying high offices around the world as well as how that may be impacted by technology as well as the shift in recent social behavior. Stay at home dads have become more socially acceptable as well as a new occupation for the traditional family breadwinner.
One particular topic that we discussed was the concept of transportation. As a company whose industry is largely individual transportation which is inefficient, how can we solve this problem? The company came up with a phone app called FordPass that allows the user to find and reserve parking in a parking garage ahead of time. This way, the carbon footprint can be lightened because the driver is not driving around for an additional fifteen to thirty minutes looking for a parking spot. Above all, the app is convenient and is built to service everyone, not just Ford owners. As a company that has been around for so long, Ford feels the need to bear some of the responsibility for the deterioration of the environment and is working to solve that. Consumers also agree with this as their survey shows that 83% of the adults agree globally that they would prefer to support a company with purpose rather than profit.
Another conversation that stood out was the role of media and people’s trust in media as well as how that has affected the recent election. This touched on many of the trends that are discussed in the trend report on how people view the media in terms of trust as well as the technology that surrounds it. The concept of the glass ceiling has been shattered in many countries and the United States has yet to follow, however we discussed the role of technology and media to see how this may have impacted the election. One of the large perpetrators that have affected the election was fraudulent news as well as social media algorithms which have a role in spreading it.
For more details and information the Ford 2017 Trend Report is available online at fordtrends.com.
