Did you know that According to Trendwatching.com:
TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences… who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the current, an ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and stories as possible…
The full briefing on Transumers is available for pdf download here.
There’s a particular South-East Asian community in UAE who could be one of the best examples of Transumers residing here. Their behavior matches with most of the following characteristics of Transumers:
Pleasure / freedom loving
To most consumers, travel equates to temporary freedom: Detachment, fractional ownership or no ownership at all, trying out new things, escaping commitment and obligations, dropping formality, endless new experiences.
Adopts ‘leasing lifestyle’
Transumers are likely to make use of new rental options that go beyond rent-a-car or timeshares. The reasons:
- The more stuff they own, the more are worries about repairs, going out of style, theft and so on.
- With ever shorter product cycles, leasing ensures enjoyment of the latest and the greatest.
- Instead of owning one single expensive object, it seems better to maximize the number of experiences by renting, enjoying, and disposing of many different objects.
- Resorting to luxury fractional ownership seems to be the only easy way for social climbers to flaunt status symbols.
It empowers well-off or just obsessed-with-the new Transumers to constantly sell products bought for temporary pleasure, on to the next member! Hence it will increasingly be used to acquire temporary ownership of luxury goods – sometimes as barter too!
Indulges in Surprises
Along with freedom, Transumers also want to be surprised, moving from one ephemeral experience to another, constantly trading in “the fading” for “the blossoming”. The age of abundance has ensured that the status derived from some goods is nearly nil. Hence the only thing that remains is consumption of the thrill, the experience, the new...
Spends time in “Being (or Brand) Spaces”
Originally termed as The Third Place*, the proliferation of Being Space or Brand Space in the transit areas of Airports, Bus and taxi terminals, etc. is making it easier than ever to leave domestic or office hassles behind.
(*sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term in 1990 to describe dependable places of refuge, where one can escape the demands of family and bosses, and thus temporarily forget about one's sorrows and shortcomings)
Eco-Leasing Lifestyle
Love of more services and less goods, more re-use by buying and selling 2nd hand goods, more shared ownership, etc. For example, car sharing that help people get rid of their cars altogether. Research shows that every car-share vehicle replaces 7-8 owned vehicles, since people sell their cars or decide against buying a 2nd / 3rd vehicle. Other eco services include: Items available for rent, etc.
Indulges in the Online World
It offers them the most ephemeral of all worlds - where new content can be sampled by the gigabytes, identities can change in a second, casual encounters are arranged within minutes etc. Perhaps they are also likely to be the first to accept virtual goods: the more time they spend online, the less need they have for expensive, fixed, hardly ever used physical goods.
No comments:
Post a Comment