Simplified Issue Term Life

ANTHEM SIGHTINGS: 10 Trends Shaping the World Today

Keeping up to current trends is essential for companies, which strive to be relevant to the fast-pace world and meet ever-changing consumer demands. In this piece, which is an abridged version of ANTHEM SIGHTINGS, Vol. 2, 2011 ,  the most notable trends of today are covered—some of them root in old approaches, and some seem to be completely new, but all of them are shaping modern marketing efforts and influencing our perception of brands. The author of the paper, Kathy Oneto , Vice President, Brand Strategy in the San Francisco office of Anthem Worldwide, made a list of ten current trends and their examples from all around the globe, demonstrating the processes redefining the marketing industry right at the moment.

1. Branded Cities: Cities branding for economic development

This issue of ANTHEM SIGHTINGS starts with the trend, which is not new, but extremely powerful and never-dying. We brand everything, from clothing and cars to people and events, so creating a unique image for the city is quite a natural thing. Branding cities, giving them a recognizable logo and motto is just like adding new features and tones to promotion of a trustworthy product, it’s challenging but rewarding—one of the recent projects of this kind is development of new vibrant, positive and catchy identity for London (ahead of Olympics 2012) and Moscow. What about creating a city (or city district) and its image from square one? One of the examples of these ambitious projects is Lavasa, an urban-planning project, which was designed to create a new city from scratch, using the most cutting-edge technologies and approaches, making it a business project. “ Built on the principles of New Urbanism, Lavasa is a place where people can live, work, learn and play in harmony with nature… fulfilling their dreams of a better life and lifestyle, ” says the . “ Lavasa will eventually house more than 300,000 people in five distinct ‘towns.’ It will also have a world-class medical campus, luxury hotels, boarding schools, sports academies, a Nick Faldo–designed golf course, a space camp, and, its developers hope, animation and film studios, software-development companies, biotech labs, and law and architectural firms—in short, all of the knowledge industries at the heart of the ‘new India ’.” The city, which still raised some controversy , is one of the most ambitious projects of this kind so far, with its ‘Life in Full’ core concept, the brand idea developed in cooperation with the U.S. office of Landor, which is to attract both new citizens, firms and investors. The other examples of improved models designed to update cites and turn them into a product were spotted in China (Shanghai areas rebuilt under the ‘Better City, Better Life’ tagline for the 2010 World Exhibition in the city), South Korea (Songdo International Business District), and Russia (the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a science and technology area outside Moscow).