Need to Know
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Global – The Future Laboratory’s Future Forecast 2021 collection maps the 50 global shifts that are set to shape 10 key sectors in the year ahead.

After the upheaval of 2020, the Future Forecast helps your business to cut through the noise and get a quick and clear understanding of 2021’s key consumer shifts. A round-up of the most innovative trends, brands and thought-leaders from the past year, the Future Forecast 2021 comprises a PDF report and access to an hour-long webinar taking place on 8 January 2021.

In the report, we identify 50 essential inter-Covid trends, charting how attitudes to identity will redefine the beauty and luxury sectors, why wellbeing is shaping property and urban design, and how technology is augmenting how we eat. The webinar will explore these trends in more detail with members of our Foresight team.

This year, The Future Laboratory is offering the Future Forecast 2021 collection containing the report and the January webinar for £70, or to purchase separately for £45 each. Members of LS:N Global get access to the full package for free. Please contact your account manager to organise attendance to the webinar.

US – The beer company’s latest multi-brand seasonal campaign, Holiday Hacks, offers drinkers a way to turn their bottles, cans and other packaging into festive ornaments.

Working with media company Tastemade and digital platform Pinterest, the series of 'hack' videos instruct users how to create decorations such as 3D star ornaments using aluminium cans or turn beer bottles into vases for flowers. This marketing activation is the first time Heineken has incorporated its brands Heineken, Dos Equis and Tecate in one campaign.

Repurposing packaging in this way is part of the umbrella company’s larger sustainable mission and aims to appeal to the DIY mindsets that have emerged during 2020. ‘With the pandemic causing more people to spend time in their homes, the holidays at home have taken on a new meaning this year and consumers are looking for new ways to decorate and safely to celebrate,' says a Pinterest spokesperson.

In a similar vein, we previously showcased Samsung’s Out of the Box design competition, which this year sought to tackle cardboard waste by re-imagining its packaging as children’s toys.

American sales of prestige beauty products have fallen during the pandemic but skincare sales are up, according to NPD Group’s 2020 Industry Pulse report.

The research finds that during the third quarter of 2020 sales of luxury beauty items fell by 17% compared to the same period in 2019, with US consumers scaling back on using make-up by 70%. By contrast, skincare sales have risen 17% year on year.

‘Although it remains a powerful force in the industry, the needle has yet to move in a positive direction for make-up,’ explains Larissa Jensen, vice-president and beauty industry adviser at NPD. She suggests that the pandemic is ‘shifting consumer priorities towards self-care’, expanding the skincare market and stifling make-up sales.

Covid-19 is increasing consumer concerns about wellness and driving new directions in beauty and skincare, reflecting society’s focus on Recuperative Living.