5 minute read
The Insights Family: Future Forecast 2023
Predicting the future
The Insights Family launched its annual Future Forecast 2023 report in January this year, which looks to highlight some of the key trends coming out of the kids, teens, parents and family ecosystem, and what we should keep an eye out for over the next 12 months.
Inset: Nick Richardson, founder, The Insights Family. Below: Future Forecast 2023 is the fifth iteration of the report.
Future Forecast 2023 is the fifth iteration of the highly anticipated report and looks to build on its previous predictions such as the rise of the Direct to Consumer, or DTC model (2017), Generation Speak (2018) and the art of cocreation in the kids’ space (2020). The report has continued to track and monitor the impact of numerous key factors that impact the kids, teens, parents and family ecosystems such as Covid-19, advancing technology and the issue of climate change, and how these are evolving and transforming the attitudes, behaviour and consumption patterns of kids, teens, parents and families all over the world. Founder of The Insights Family, Nick Richardson, comments: “Our purpose is to inspire organisations to put kids, teens, parents and families at the heart of everything they do. There is no doubt that kids, teens, parents and families are enduring a challenging time with conflict, inflation, poverty all on the rise, while food, disposable income and individuals’ mental health all in decline. That said, our Future Forecast is
intended to be a positive
report making predictions on what we think could be coming next based on our research, data, insights and instinct. “There is no doubt that 2023 will represent some challenges for organisations, that said there are so many opportunities for organisations to re-purpose themselves for the next generation of consumers, whose attitudes, behaviour and consumption is so far removed from previous generations.” The Insights Family has highlighted 13 top trends to look out for – with these ranging from gaming
making its way to the high
street, the pace of
evolution in digital
learning, plus subscription services to come together and collaborate as linear TV begins to make a return to screens. The report’s key predictions include ‘the world will become kids-first’ as kids continue to grow more powerful as consumers, and force brands to adapt to the new dynamic. Furthermore, a key focus is placed on how
Inset: DC’s Black Adam appeared in Fortnite in October 2022, just one of the brands the game has teamed up with over the past year. Below: According to Kids Insights data, gaming is the number one hobby globally among kids of all ages.
‘brands will build via gamified communities’ as the gaming explosion continues to present new lucrative opportunities to build brand connection, affinity and awareness. The speed of change is significant, and all industries have to transform quickly to adjust to the changing ecosystems attitudes, behaviour and consumption patterns of this generation of kids, teens, parents and families. There is no doubt that everything is connected. If kids are spending more time and money on gaming, they have less time and money to spend on something else. Therefore, it is vital for organisations to hold a complete understanding of their audience. Gaming giants such as Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, as well as rapidly emerging games like Among Us have provided a space for kids to communicate and play together, and gaming has become the optimal platform to stay connected. Consequently, we have seen an explosion of gamified communities that were built, grown, and maintained entirely through video games, and remain entirely within these spaces. This begs the question of whether socialising is as strong a motivating factor as playing a video game itself. According to Kids Insights data, gaming is the
number one hobby globally among kids of all
ages, including young kids, tweens and teens, with it being particularly strong in countries like the US (33.1%), Mexico (14.3%), and Brazil (12.7%). The move from Epic to develop its ‘core’ platform available to the masses including brands is an indication that the direction of travel is to enable access to gaming communities in an open transparent way. The opportunities for brands currently in gaming are already highly lucrative, as kids and teens are willing to spend their money on new games, as well as in-game purchases such as customising their characters and avatars. Kids Insights data reveals that in the US, teens aged between 13-15 spent an average of $95 over the course of 2022 on video games. In the US alone. With 84% of US teens reporting to playing video games, or 18.9 million teens, meaning that the US teen gaming
economy alone in 2022 was
worth c$1.8 billion. Brands in this space are seeing an uplift to their brand scores, with our brand trackers unlocking increases of up to 10% with the right approach to gaming community activity. The Insights Family believes that if you have a brand that is looking to market to children and young people, the time is now to develop on and pivot your strategy to include this space. There are opportunities to combine media planning, marketing and game play to work together to include an activation into an already existing game or a brand new gaming community. The complementary Future Forecast report, featuring a range of trends, is available to download by visiting:
