Work in Progress: The Small Movement
A JWT Trendletter, July 2009
An installment in JWT's Series on Understanding and Navigating in a Recession
There was a time, sometime in the 1990's when bigger and better seemed to be a natural, Darwinian kind of progress. Now, a global recession is forcing us to live with less, and as a result we're backing off big. Hummers look a lot less like golden chariots than dinosaurs, the last gas hogs in a hybrid world. Developers burned by an ice-cold real estate market are downsizing their projects and, in the developing world, planning super small homes for working families. And our mobile phones, ever on the march to miniaturization, are now rolling up various other devices into one small package. We call it the Small Movement, and it's the new frontier of product development and beyond. In this paper, we examine the global trends that are making our world a smaller, more efficient place to live.
Key Questions
- How is the Small Movement manifesting itself around the world? Which markets are leading the revolution for small?
- How is the Small Movement playing out in various industries, such as the housing and automotive sectors?
- How is the Small Movement affecting business processes? What has compelled these changes?
- What "small" technologies are scientists and engineers getting excited about?
- What is it about the environment and the economy that is attracting people to a small-is-good ethos? Where do brands fit in to this conversation?
Download the full report (pdf, 1.4MB)